Overwatch‘s Summer Games event is now live across all platforms, bringing back the limited-time Lucioball and Lucioball Remix matches as well as a wide array of new cosmetics, some of which were teased ahead of time. The event will run through August 10.
Throughout the three-week event, you can play nine games per week (for a total of 27) to unlock weekly rewards. Winning a game will count double as two games. Any games played in Quick Play, Arcade, or Competitive will count towards those goals. The rewards for those milestones will be sets of new Epic skins:
Week 1: Ocean King Winston
Week 2: Sunset Pharah
Week 3: Nihon Hanzo
Of course, the Summer Games event will also introduce several new Legendary skins that are obtainable through regular loot boxes or in the shop. You can see each of those in the screens below.
Overwatch Summer Games Legendary Skins
Sprinkles Mei
Mermaid Symmetra
Poolside Ashe
Scuba Sigma
Referee Orisa
Gallery
This will be the first time since the Summer Games annual event started that it coincides with the actual Summer Olympics. The Summer Games began as a riff on the Olympics, with the multi-national Overwatch characters sporting outfits to honor their home countries. Since then it’s become more about general summer fun and goofs, which is how we get Bob with a flamingo on his head and Mei flinging ice cream scoops.
The startup iiRcade has been picking up steam in recent months with its at-home arcade cabinets, with special editions on the way for games like Mutant Football League and Space Ace. If you’re interested in picking one up, now’s the perfect time, as all cabinets are $100 off and come with free shipping.
Running through Labor Day, the sale includes all cabinets–which means both the standard blue-and-orange design as well as special editions based on specific games–and the free shipping goes to $100, so if your region would have a higher fee than that, you may still see some charge.
L-R: Black Edition Dragon’s Lair, Classic Bartop, Retromania, Classic with Stand
Current iiRcade cabinets that are eligible for the discount (with discounted prices) include:
Unlike competitors such as Arcade1Up (which are seeing increased prices recently on certain systems) the iiRcade uses an online store to supplement its 11 included games. Big-name licensed games on the store include R-Type and its sequel, Shadow Dancer, Space Harrier, Dead Cells, Windjammers, and ToeJam And Earl: Back in the Groove. With the Black Edition, you can also apply a Double Dragon skin or use your own, like I did to turn my cabinet into a Strikers 1945 model. For more on the system, check out our iiRcade review.
RimWorld, the space-colony sim from Tynan Sylvester and Ludeon Studios, received both a major update and a new expansion today. The expansion, titled Ideology, has been in development for the last 15 months and will give players extra control over the story of their colony, while the update changes nearly every facet of the game.
Ideology, which according to a post on Steam partially written by Tynan took 15 months to develop, is meant for the players that created themed colonies. “For many years I’ve seen players create colonies with their own special themes — minimalist nomads, raiding pirates, mad cannibals, drug-worshippers,” wrote Tynan. “People want to have a sense of authorship over their stories.”
To that end, the Ideology expansion will let players create a belief system that members of their colony follow. Players can create a colony of “tree-worshipping cannibals who carve skulls into every piece of furniture, or blind tunnelers who shun the light,” just to list two examples given by Tynan.
Additionally, players can expect a boatload of extra content to come with the expansion. Ideology adds new quests, creatures, and a new ending. Of course, Ideology is also completely moddable.
Along with Ideology, today marks the arrival of the 1.3 update for RimWorld, a massive patch that changes nearly every aspect of the game.
Starting with animals, players can now expect them to stop being lazy layabouts and instead pick up some slack. They’ll be more productive following the update, but some will now need to be kept in pens and led around by farmers, who will also clear out the new egg boxes for chickens.
Raids are also getting a rework, becoming a slightly larger threat. Enemies will now execute a “breach raid” to get past your defenses, making some of RimWorld’s infamous heat traps for raids obsolete. Tribal enemies will hack through walls with axes, pirates will use grenades, and mechanoids will use a new device called a “termite.” To make fighting easier for players, colonists can also carry around medicine and use it on the battlefield.
Pen system: Create pens for your farm animals to keep them organized and safe.
Pen marker: Build a pen by placing a pen marker in an enclosed room or fenced off area. Once placed, you can assign a certain set of animals to the pen and handlers will bring the correct animals over. Pen markers have an “auto cut” option which will periodically designate inedible plants in the pen to be cut.
Build fences to enclose pens and prevent your animals from escaping. Animals that are assigned to pens cannot pass through fences or barricades.
Handlers will use ropes to lead animals from one location to another, or out of a pen.
Some animals will now roam if they are not contained within a pen.
Animals that are assigned to a pen are non-aggressive to raiders and vice-versa.
Added animal flap. It is a door that allows animals to pass through while insulating the temperature.
Added egg box. Tame egg-laying creatures will lay inside the box and the eggs can be used for food. Haulers will automatically empty the box when it is full.
Added new floor type: Straw matting. Filth is produced 95% less on this floor which makes it useful for barns with messy animals. Since animal filth has been reworked, animals should be kept in barns to prevent unnecessary filth in colonist buildings.
Added auto slaughter system. The player can select species of animals to keep and the rest will be automatically slaughtered.
Added animal sterilization. Colony animals can be sterilized to prevent them from breeding.
Tame animals can now be released to the wild.
Breach raids
Added new raid type: Breaching. Breaching raids will attempt to reach your colony by breaking through walls with unique weapons.
Added new mechanoid type: Termite. The termite is a medium-sized mechanoid that specializes in burrowing, digging, and breaking through defensive structures. Defenders must decide between eliminating the termite before it digs through their defenses, or waiting for it to emerge.
New weapon: Breach axe. A combined blade and tool-head attached to a sturdy haft. While slightly less effective than other weapons against human enemies, it excels at tearing down walls, doors, and other structures thanks to its integrated tool-head.
Miscellaneous
Added facial hair for pawns. The style of hair is based on the pawn’s background.
Added visual wound and prosthetic overlays on pawns.
When multiple pawns are drafted and selected, the player can space them out by dragging the right mouse button.
Added new meal types: Vegetarian and Carnivore fine/lavish meals. These are made exclusively of vegetable/meat ingredients
Added a search box for many dialogs and tabs.
Added VFX for:
Research bench.
Gun/mortar recoil.
Digging graves.
Chopping trees.
Sowing plants.
Harvesting plants.
Improvements and adjustments: Base game
Goodwill
All goodwill changes are now multiplied by 1.25x when moving towards natural goodwill.
Goodwill with factions gradually shifts towards the faction’s natural goodwill.
Goodwill with factions is influenced by recent events. These goodwill factors will decay over time.
Guest status with a faction is reset upon gifting a pawn to that faction.
Animals and plants
Raiders no longer actively attack passive colony animals.
Animals tab life stage tooltip now also shows the animal’s exact age.
Wild plants spawned during gameplay start at 15% growth instead of 5%.
Plants newly sown by players start at 0.01% growth.
PlantHarvestYield stat above 100% gives a bonus to yield.
Improved “Non-ideal temperature” plant inspect string and prevented it from saying “Not growing” if it is in fact growing very slowly.
Animals are unwilling to eat plants under 10% growth.
Herbivores rebalance:
Hunger rate reduced by 50%.
Adult age is reduced by 33%.
Gestation days reduced by 33%. (This does not include unfertilized egg layers.)
Reduced toxic fallout buildup by 50%.
Grass nutrition reduced from 0.7 to 0.5.
Animal filth rate is no longer a virtual stat calculated from body size and petness. Animal filth rate is now a stat defined on animals and humanlikes: FilthMultiplier.
Added an alert which tells the player high filth-producing animals are indoors without straw matting floor type.
Indoor rooms with non-water flooring can have animal filth or trash spread on them.
Rain washes away more filth types.
Increased meat yields by 30%.
Damaged corpses give 33% less meat and leather amounts.
Animals can be assigned to animal beds. These beds can be designated as medical.
Change boomalope trainability to None.
Releasing a bonded animal has a negative effect on mood, similar to slaughtering.
Added a new category to pawn stats: Animal productivity. This category contains information pertaining to animal goods.
Traders that sell animals try to generate with at least one pair of core farming animals.
Combat, weapons, gear
Added a challenge mode option for reinforced barrels. These barrels are essential for building and maintaining mortars, but the mortars are more accurate and shells are cheaper to make. Reinforced barrels can be acquired from sieges as quest rewards and purchased from traders.
You can keep the old 1.2 mortars with the challenge mode option “classic mortars”, so players can choose either style as they wish.
Every 20 shots, mortars must have their barrel changed.
Mortars forced miss chance changed from 13 to 10. This is reversed with classic mortars storyteller option.
Reduced steel cost of all mortar ammo by 10. This is reversed with classic mortars storyteller option.
Grenade throws are rendered in an arc.
Grenade users are more aware of grenades they’ve thrown and do not run forward into them.
War veil renamed to veil.
Disabled shooting gizmos when a shield belt is equipped.
When a pawn is drafted while eating from inventory they will return the food to their inventory.
Pawns can take medicine into their inventory.
Drafted pawns can tend to others in the field. They will use medicine if they are carrying any.
Reduced building killed leavings from 50% to 25%. Reduce deconstruct leavings from 75% to 50%. This doesn’t affect various special buildings like mech cluster condition causers.
Pawns
Drafted pawns can be ordered to repair buildings. This is separate from the “prioritize” order.
On the health tab, hovering over a specific hediff (or group of similar hediffs) provides two tooltips. One for the body part and one for the hediff.
Hediff tooltips of grouped hediffs are now separated from each other.
Hediff stages can now override hediff labels.
Hediff tooltips of grouped hediffs are now separated from each other.
Pawn growth is proportional to body resource growth speed. For example, underfed pawns grow more slowly.
Rooms are no longer considered barracks if all of the pawns living in the room are in the same “love cluster”, meaning they share a spouse or lover with another pawn in the bedroom.
Pawn passion generation now applies a random (gaussian) offset to how many passions are generated. The number of passion types for every pawn is totally randomized, and then these passions are applied to the pawn’s existing highest skills. Older pawns no longer have far more passions than young pawns.
Changed the “Want to sleep with x” thought to “Sleeping alone”. Sharing a bed with any lover or spouse will prevent this thought.
Adjusted “Kind” trait description.
Pawns now try a lot harder to avoid wearing tattered apparel.
On a pawn’s gear tab, equipped utility items (shock lance, jump pack, etc.) are listed under “other equipment”.
Assigning pawns to beds updates the room role, if possible.
Drafted pawns can be ordered to carry another downed pawn. The pawn can be dropped on command.
Guests with “AllWork” disabled will no longer opportunistically haul.
Recruit difficulty and resistance refactor. Removed concept of “resistance chance” for recruitment attempts. Added initial resistance range to pawnKindDef.
Pawns with the “Cannibal’ trait no longer dislike killing prisoners or harvesting their organs. They also get a mood buff from wearing human leather apparel, and an opinion boost from other cannibals while wearing human leather apparel.
Non-cannibals dislike those that wear human leather apparel.
When a colonist with Bloodlust harvests an organ, they receive a “Bloodlust organ harvest +4” mood boost lasting 4 days.
Pawns in an aggro mental state no longer just start panic fleeing when their group is dying off in combat.
Undergrounders have a new Need_Indoors, which is increased by spending time indoors, especially inside mountains.
Smoothed out addiction chances based on the pawn’s tolerance.
Prisoner escape chance is multiplied by the number of exits the prisoner has.
Escaping prisoners will attack enemies with weapons they pick up, including orbital bombardment targeters, orbital power beam targeters, and tornado generators.
Caravans
Optimized caravan automatic food selection.
Caravan speed: Caravan speed solely depends on carried mass, ridden animals, and terrain movement difficulty. Pawn speed no longer impacts caravan speed. Some animals (horses, donkeys, dromedaries) can be ridden by caravan members which boosts caravan speed. Downed pawns do not slow caravans down, but you still need at least one non-downed non-slave to operate the caravan.
Miscellaneous
Refactored incident selection. The system first selects whether or not to increase colony population, then finds an incident matching the selection.
Quests on the historical tab now have a tint to indicate if they were completed, expired, or failed.
Room fog reveal occurs when a door is approximately 50% open, rather than when a door is approached.
Improved feedback on the work table. The tooltip explains why a pawn is unwilling to do a specific type of work.
Added text to describe the resulting links when placing linkable buildings (such as beds, dressers, end-tables).
Buildings that are not standable and do not have a surface type have items and pawns moved off their blueprints before construction.
Doors not owned by the player can be forbidden.
Change sandbags and barricades fill percents from 57% to 55%.
Build designators no longer default to def-defined default if there is none of that type of resource on the map.
Prevented important ingredient dilution when stacking/merging meals. Stacking is prohibited between meals with and without human meat.
Saving is temporarily disabled while selecting a world tile at the beginning of the game.
Edited the color of error log messages to improve readability.
Mod incompatibility warnings are now colorblind friendly.
Modders can appear on the credits screen.
Mods can now define lists of authors instead of just specifying a comma-separated list of names.
Update LanguageWorker_Russian.Pluralize to match the behavior requested by translators.
Added debug setting: Never force normal speed.
Optimized map mesh generation and drawing.
Redrew persona core art.
Added a Thing category for wool.
maintenanceCostFactor has a minimum of 1%.
Wildlife tab refinements.
Balanced distant fight points adjustment and pawn combat points.
JoyUtility.JoyKinds strings are now always line lists.
Improvements and adjustments: Royalty
High-shields also stop orbital strikes and aerodrone strikes, the same way they stop mortars.
The bestowing ceremony is now a gathering that everyone can attend.
Throne speeches have been re-tooled into rituals.
Neuroquake rebalance:
Neuroquake lists its duration explicitly in the casting warning message.
Unconsciousness from casting does not scale with psychic sensitivity.
Unconsciousness from casting lasts 5 days instead of 3.
The negative moodlet to friendly bystanders applies whether they are conscious or not and is increased from -10 to -12.
Casting warmup changed to 12 seconds.
Neuroquake only drives pawns berserk within a radius of 60, instead of the entire map.
Updated imperial grenadier to use plain marine armor instead of grenadier armor.
NPC shuttle pads now always use concrete or paved tiles as flooring.
Shuttles leave uranium instead of steel when killed.
Pawns lent to another faction have their wounds tended more competently.
Refactored shuttles into generic Transport ships. These ships follow a series of jobs which can be controlled by quest logic, UI, and Lords. Transport ships are tracked while flying, loading, unloading, etc.
Adjusted royal apparel colors. Empire pawns spawn with apparel materials that scale to their social rank.
Anima tree inspect pane no longer lists duplicates affecting building labels.
Technical
Save games in the load menu are populated asynchronously.
Most motes have been changed from a Thing to use its own threaded system for increased performance. These are called “Flecks”.
Bugfixes
Fix: Mods can’t use “.tar” translations to do def injections on custom def types from other mods.
Fix: Smoke doesn’t persist on the map on save load.
Fix: Error “Key binding conflict: Dev_ChangeSelectedDebugAction and MainTab_Architect are both bound to Tab”.
Fix: Wimpy noble quest sometimes spawns with 2 manhunting animals.
Fix: IncidentParms does not save pawnCount.
Fix: SharesElementWith accessing wrong second index
Fix: Betraying temporary colonists doesn’t display a timer.
Fix: Food binging pawns try to eat recreational drugs.
Fix: Caravan auto-food selector chooses psychoid leaves as plant matter for animals.
Fix: Trade Caravans will approach the colony Anima tree and shrines as a gathering point for trade, rather than the colony itself if they enter the colony map closer to anima tree.
Fix: DamageWorker.ExplosionCellsToHit incorrectly adds cells to adjWallCells
Fix: Monument quests aren’t failed after the map is removed.
Fix: If an animal hauls a corpse to a sarcophagus, it becomes the author of the inscribed artwork.
Fix: “Build copy” shrine commands sometimes appear white.
Fix: Alignment issues on some body artwork.
Fix: Calling a shuttle is blocked when an item blocks its interaction spot.
Fix: Glow pods cause screen shake when they expire.
Fix: Setting prisoners’ food restriction to “Nothing” will make colonists feed them ambrosia and beer.
Fix: Using the “change material” button on weapon info cards does not update stat readout.
Fix: Projectiles not visible on the first cell of flight.
Fix: Meals can stack with incompatible ingredients.
Fix: In peaceful mode, ancient dangers can be generated with hostile mechs.
Fix: In peaceful mode, refugee quests can have the refugees betray and attack you.
Fix: Brawler guards can still arrive with ranged weapons.
Fix: Incorrect relations gain info in prisoner tab during mental break.
Fix: If a pawn has no weapon, the hotkey for a melee attack is H. When the pawn is given a melee weapon, the hotkey changes to B.
Fix: During food binges, sometimes pawns will use recreational drugs.
Fix: Forbidden items loaded onto the shuttle are automatically unforbidden on unload.
Fix: Incorrect neuroquake cast time.
Fix: Animals can try to cheer a patient up unsuccessfully, causing an error.
Fix: Psychoid leaves, ambrosia, smokeleaf leaves and raw hops can be selected as food for caravans.
Fix: Stun psycast does not interrupt minigun salvo.
Fix: Requested aid would not join in fights (or it would take a long time for them to join) if there were no awake hostiles when the aid spawned.
Fix: Pawn tooltip obscures ability’s mouse attachment info for some abilities.
Fix: Animals that are assigned to follow during field work wait until the end of their current job to do so.
Fix: Hospitality refugee quest can fail if the player attempts to arrest a refugee in an aggro mental state.
Fix: Trade caravans will approach the colony anima tree and shrines as a gathering point for trade, rather than the colony proper if they enter the colony map closer to an anima tree.
Fix: Anima trees can display negative meditation values.
Fix: Bestowing quest doesn’t give the correct information if the pawn doesn’t have an assigned throne.
Fix: Translation of (psylink) “level” cannot be capitalized.
Fix: Word of Joy counts as a hostile act.
Fix: Pawn having a mental break on entering a hostile map is drafted.
Fix: Offset doesn’t work for attached motes.
Fix: DrawLine() overdraw.
Fix: The alphabeaver event will still happen even if the outdoor temperature is below their minimum comfortable temperature.
Fix: Firefoam IED radius is larger than drawn.
Fix: Inheritance attribute overrides other attributes like Class.
Fix: Ambush letter doesn’t have all ambush pawns as look targets.
Fix: Graphic_Random not rendering shadows.
Fix: Some monument buildings have enclosed floored areas.
Fix: LanguageWorker_English “a unique” to “an unique”.
Fix: Changing temperature display mode (C to F) doesn’t update temperature readout immediately.
Fix: Misc uncapitalized letters after colons.
Fix: Non-hauler asked to deliver resources gives the wrong message.
Fix: Lent pawns tended to horribly by the host faction.
Fix: Anima trees can display negative meditation values.
Fix: Haul icon remains when stockpile is expanded to include items.
Fix: Dictionary null key for label pawnGroups.
Fix: Too much honor for Yeoman ceremony : ceremony failed – impossible to gain the yeoman psylevel.
Fix: Bestower can social fight and die while waiting for ceremony. Don’t make the bestower faction hostile if he was guilty.
Fix: Error “Transition !canMoveToSameState and target is source: DefendBase”
Fix: Pawn having a mental break on caravan is drafted upon entering a map.
Fix: XML Inheritance attributes overrides other attributes like Class.
Fix: Scribe can’t load a list of generic elements of type coming from a different assembly.
Fix: Bed resting hunter causes “lacks ranged weapon” alert.
Fix: Meditation z-fighting with other meditation vfx.
Fix: Television viewing area throws NRE if selected near map edge.
Fix: Bleed rate total does not accurately represent bleed rates on pawns with health scales other than 1.
Fix: No feedback on anima tree right click if pawn cannot use natural focus or already is max level.
Fix: RimWorld.Designator_Dropdown.GetDesignatorCost(Verse.Designator des) is not null-safe.
Fix: Rescue shuttle lands on crashed shuttle and wipes it.
Fix: Removing a zone with “Shrink zone” designator while the zone is selected leaves the zone’s UI open.
Fix: Typo in tool cabinet description.
Fix: After disabling a work type, pawns can pick up the same job right after.
Netflix continues to grow in 2021. At the end of Q2–which was July 20 for the streaming service–Netflix has grown to 209 million paid subscribers, adding 1.5 million subscribers since Q1. In a letter to shareholders, the company released some of its most-watched programs during this time period.
Netflix didn’t see as much growth as it did a year ago, which is more than likely because of new signups during the pandemic, but the company forecasts another 3.5 million paid subscribers will sign up by the end of Q3. This will bring Netflix to over 212 million subscribers, if the forecasts are correct. However, Netflix surpassed its Q2 forecast by 500,000 subscribers.
Additionally, some of the most-watched programs from the last quarter were revealed, with Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead reaching 75 million households, followed by Kevin Hart’s series Fatherhood with 74 million views. Keep in mind that Netflix counts watching two minutes of programming as a view.
Below are all the shows and movies mentioned in the letter to the shareholders, with includes docuseries and unscripted television as well.
Top watched originals of Q2 2021:
Army of the Dead (75 million households)
Fatherhood (74 million)
Sweet Tooth (60 million)
Shadow and Bone (55 million)
Lupin Part Two (54 million)
The Mitchells vs. The Machines (53 million)
Elite Season 4 (37 million)
Who Killed Sara? Season 2 (34 million)
The Circle (29 million)
The Sons of Sam (19 million)
Too Hot To Handle (14 million)
Netflix also revealed that the company is working on video games; however, the company won’t charge you to pay for them. “We view gaming as another new content category for us, similar to our expansion into original films, animation, and unscripted TV,” the letter said. “Games will be included in members’ Netflix subscription at no additional cost similar to films and series. Initially, we’ll be primarily focused on games for mobile devices.”
Grand Theft Auto V Online’s latest update, Los Santos Tuners, is now live. This update is all about car culture, adding new missions, races, and a new social hub. The previously announced update also brings 17 new cars, 10 of which are now available, and the rest coming later.
One of the biggest additions in this update is the brand-new LS Car Meet, located in a run-down warehouse in Cypress Flats. Players can join the club for a fee of $50,000, which gives access to 100s of unlockable ranks, and access to unlockable clothing, new race modes, wheels, liveries, trade prices, and special contacts for assistance in final contract jobs. The car meet also offers test drives, where you can drive around your own vehicle, or one of the three special vehicles the club offers; Karin Calico GTF, Annis Euros, and Pfister Comet S2.
The LS Car Meet also features a mod shop with full customization options for vehicles. This is also where the 10 new vehicles added in the update can be tuned to your personal liking. You can find the full list of cars on Rockstar’s website or below:
Players can also get access to new planning works and final jobs once they buy an auto shop. The auto shop allows for new criminal missions in addition to being able to run a legitimate business tuning cars.
The update adds in some new tunes to jam to while cruising around Los Santos. Multiple media sticks have been scattered across Los Santos and collecting them will add some new songs to the radio. Moodymann’s media stick contains tracks from Nez, Channel Tres, Gangsta Boo, and more. There are also four EPs from CircoLoco Records and collecting all of them will unlock a special DJ mix containing all of the tracks and the CircoLoco Tee.
In addition to all of the brand-new content in the Los Santos Tuners update, there are still the usual weekly updates. Players can earn double rewards in the San Andreas Super Sport Series and can try to win the Ocelot Lynx on the lucky wheel.
There is also a selection of cars currently discounted in GTA Online:
Maibatsu Penumbra FF – 30% off
Elegy Retro Custom – 30% off
Vapid GB200 – 40% off
BF Club – 40% off
Lampadati Michelli GT – 40% off
Annis Savestra – 40% off
Karin Sultan – 40% off
Vapid Dominator GTX – 40% off
Recently there were rumors that Grand Theft Auto VI will not release until at least 2025. The rumors also included information about how the online portion of the game will feature an evolving and changing map, similar to Fortnite’s map.
Streaming giant Netflix has confirmed in a shareholders letter that it’s not only expanding into games but also won’t charge users extra to play them.
Netflix said it plans to build on the company’s earlier efforts around “interactivity.” Think things like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch or the Stranger Things line of games. In doing so, the offering of titles Netflix adds to its service will come at “no additional cost [to users] similar to films and series.” However, the company said these games will only be available on mobile devices for now.
“We’re also in the early stages of further expanding into games, building on our earlier efforts around interactivity (eg. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) and our Stranger Things games,” Netflix said. “We view gaming as another new content category for us, similar to our expansion into original films, animation, and unscripted TV. Games will be included in members’ Netflix subscription at no additional cost similar to films and series. Initially, we’ll be primarily focused on games for mobile devices.”
Later, Netflix reiterated its excitement for the movies and TV shows its currently and planning to offer. However, the company is now looking to diversify its portfolio after 10 years on the market.
“We’re excited as ever about our movies and TV series offering and we expect a long runway of increasing investment and growth across all of our existing content categories, but since we are nearly a decade into our push into original programming, we think the time is right to learn more about how our members value games,” the company concluded.
News of Netflix’s interest in video games sparked after reports circulated this past May. The company hired former Electronic Arts and Zynga executive Mike Verdu not long after, fueling speculation of how Netflix would adapt itself to expand into the games industry. Reports also suggested that the company wouldn’t charge subscribers extra to play games through its service.
The company is no stranger to video games and not simply because of Bandersnatch of the Stranger Things games. Netflix has created series around a plethora of game IPs and recently held the first-ever WitcherCon, which announced in-development shows based off the franchise.
Though Netflix is known as a streaming service with obvious competitors in platforms like Disney+ and the like, the company actually finds social media sites like TikTok and live-service titles such as Fortnite to be the real competition. Despite this, Netflix reported that 209 million people subscribe to the service now. The company also revealed its most-watched programs during the Q2 2021 period.
We went back to every film that Black Widow starred or co-starred in, and counted every time that she did “The Pose.”
The funniest part of Black Widow, the latest MCU movie now in theaters and on Disney Plus, is when Yelena (Florence Pugh), emulates Black Widow’s iconic pose. She doesn’t go into it smoothly, however, the way Natasha does. Instead, she drops into it awkwardly and clumsily, calling attention to how impractical it is.
“You’re a total poser.”
“I’m not a poser!”
Black Widow is one of the most cool-headed characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even when she appears rattled, she might be doing it to get a psychological edge over the person she’s targeting. But this irritated her a bit.
However, is Yelena’s barb founded in truth? We went back to every film that Black Widow starred or co-starred in, and counted every time that she did “The Pose,” a three point stance whilst looking upward (hair flip optional). Let us know if we missed any.
Fortnite will play host to Short Nite 2 in Party Royale mode starting this Friday, July 23. If you missed it last time, Short Nite is an in-game movie marathon that features several animated shorts from creators around the world. Short Nite 2 will debut at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET this Friday, and will run on a loop for 48 hours thereafter.
Fortnite GildedGuy Skin
While the full 40-minute slate of shows is not yet public, Epic has revealed some of what attendees can expect in Fortnite’s social hub, Party Royale. Included among the shorts will be two from the web series GildedGuy, including a world premiere of the newest short, GildedGuy Gets Up. The GildedGuy YouTube channel boasts nearly half a million subscribers, and that number is likely to jump after Short Nite 2.
Fans new and old of GildedGuy can look for his Fortnite Item Shop debut, including the new GildedGuy skin, Slush Fighter Cape Back Bling, and Stellapen Smashpack Pickaxe. The new cosmetic set will be in the Item Shop starting Thursday, July 22 at 5 PM PT / 8 PM ET.
GildedGuy animations tend to run about 10 minutes or so, so there are surely more surprises in store for viewers. Epic also clarified where players can find The Big Screen in Party Royale, which is where live events like these tend to happen–other than DJ sets, which are at the concert venue. Head to the western hills of Party Royale’s social space to find The Big Screen and tune into Short Nite 2 with friends in your party this weekend.
Over the west hills sits The Big Screen where you can watch Short Nite 2.
After each of the challenging, climatic boss fights in Death’s Door, you’re forced to sit through a brief eulogy for the foe you’ve just slain. Sombre music plays as a gravedigger arrives to fulfill his duty, summerizing your enemy’s actions–good and bad–while also throwing in a joke or two for levity. Death’s Door doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it always finds interesting ways to make a point about the unending cycle of life and death, the pursuit of a means to unbalance that cycle, and ultimately the consequences of those actions. It’s a consistently entertaining action-adventure game with an eye-catching art style and engrossing combat, all which elevate its distinct setting into something special.
Playing as a fledgling of a commission of crows, you’re duty-bound to reclaiming the souls of those that are meant to pass onto the next life. Aided by doors that can transport you to lands near and far, you can hop between locales rapidly as you reap souls. The catch is that every crow needs to complete its task in order to halt the flow of their own life, with incomplete missions forcing you to experience that natural flow of time. When one such assignment goes poorly and your target’s soul is stolen, you’ll need to aid an old crow into opening a large, ominous door to reclaim your lost soul and, in turn, continue to live indefinitely.
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Death’s Door starts strong with its introduction to the commissions, with its bleak black-and-white presentation fitting in with a strong noir theme. Colors stand out in these bureaucratic offices, with the warm glow of your weapons and the searing brightness of sparse neon signs creating a striking contrast. The rest of Death’s Door’s worlds are far more colorful but all distinct in their own ways–the dreary, muted colors of the game’s opening cemetery transform into a lush, green forest with a damp and dark temple, while the snowy white peaks of the northern mountain regions offer another opportunity for piercing bright colors from your attacks to shine through. The isometric angle of the game’s camera doesn’t limit your ability to soak in the artistic beauty of Death’s Door, which consistently had me stopping to take in the atmosphere of each new area.
Enemies are peppered throughout each of these worlds, giving you numerous opportunities to engage with Death’s Door’s simple-yet satisfying combat. You only have access to a single weapon at a time, with each one you find offering its own range, combo count, damage, and unique ability. Your starting sword is great for whacking out short three-hit combos, while lighter daggers offer less damage output but a better chance to get more hits in without needing to take a break. Attacks aren’t limited by stamina, instead simply taking a different amount of time to execute depending on their animation. It can take some time to get used to the pauses you have to take after each attack, and the lengthier ones after each combo will punish you for overextending yourself. However, these demands make combat feel purposeful–each hit you initiate needs to finish, and enemies are designed with this in mind. They routinely take one more hit to kill than you might expect, encouraging you to play around with spacing offered by your dodge. Death’s Door doesn’t feel punishing by any stretch, but it’s also a game that plays by a set of rules that don’t always allow you to feel invincible.
Death’s Door is a fairly linear adventure game, limiting your movement through its handful of hubs by the current abilities you have. Each new boss requires a new ability to reach, corresponding with the mechanics you’ll need to overcome in the eventual fight. These abilities are regularly fun to use, too, starting with a simple bow and arrow and eventually giving way to a fireball spell (which is fired with a very hadoken-looking animation), extremely useful bombs, and a satisfying hookshot that can reel you into new areas and enemies alike. Each of these abilities can be upgraded, too, should you find each of the associated challenges out in the world. They’re not required, but they can radically alter how you use each one in combat. The hookshot, for example, can be upgraded to include a deadly attack when used against enemies, letting you reel yourself in and fire off a powerful strike as soon as you connect.
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These abilities are mostly used to give you access to new areas (bombs let you blow up cracked walls, and the hookshot gives you access to new platforms as examples) but learning to combine them into your repertoire of standard attacks makes combat exhilarating. This is especially true when you’re consistently faced by a growing roster of enemies, each of which changes the ways in which you need to engage them. Some are incredibly agile, such as hunched-over beasts that can jump around you while throwing boomerangs in your direction. Others are slower but tougher to take down, such as armored knights with shields that take a couple of solid hits to finally beat. Death’s Door is at its best when it’s throwing you into combat arenas that pull from the entire roster, challenging you to get hits in where you can while also keenly identifying which enemies to take out first. It plays out like a deadly dance of dexterous dodges and opportunistic swings of the sword, giving skirmishes an elegant rhythm that’s consistently fun to fight in tune with.
Each of the hubs that you visit in Death’s Door is visually distinct and eye-catching, but its layouts are just as engaging to uncover as you explore. Each one is segmented into small sections that eventually lead to shortcuts that loop back around to the start, acting as ways to quickly get back to where you were after an untimely death. There’s a tangible feeling of relief each time you open a gate or generate a ladder that lets you cut out a challenging section, coupled with the intriguing discovery of how the entire hub you’re in folds in on itself in a clever way.
Death’s Door doesn’t feel punishing by any stretch, but it’s also a game that plays by a set of rules that don’t always allow you to feel invincible.
Understanding the layout of each level also lets you tactically plant seeds in special pots laid around, which offer the only way to regain health. Since the seeds for these are limited (and sometimes hard to find) laying out your own route for healing and identifying which sections you can risk it blends in well with how hubs have intricate layouts for you to learn, making your understanding of each route as crucial as your ability to deal with the enemies contained within them.
Although there is a very clear main path, all of Death’s Door’s hubs have numerous optional secrets for you to uncover, especially during return visits with new abilities. The standard types are there–for example, shrines that you can pray to to increase your health and magic pools, the latter of which you pull from to use your abilities–while others are optional boss fights that will upgrade your abilities. Some weapons are also only found outside of the main path, which can drastically affect your overall playstyle should you choose to seek them out or not.
Death’s Door can be challenging if you don’t take a break from its main path, especially if you find yourself struggling with the initial health pool you have. Without revisiting areas or going out of your way to look for obscure paths hidden by the game’s fixed camera view, you can quickly find yourself wishing for the ability to take one more hit during hard fights. It’s not impossible to complete the main story without this, but the adventure certainly feels tuned towards these small breaks, which can slow down the pacing in an irritating manner.
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All these secrets are still present once credits have rolled, as well as an entirely new one that lets you explore all the game’s hubs at a new time of day. This opens previously inaccessible areas and presents new combat challenges for you to undertake, giving Death’s Door a long tail after its main narrative is complete. There are areas and doors that cannot be opened without a thorough comb through of areas you might already be familiar with, revealing some hidden depth to each area that lets you appreciate its design in a new way. It can be frustrating to have to relearn the structures of some dungeons again after some time away, and the omission of an in-game map doesn’t let you quickly brush up on these areas. Despite that, if you’ve found yourself enamored with the game’s balance of exploration and combat, the additional content and draw of uncovering all that is there is a welcome addition.
With an engaging world to explore and consistently satisfying combat to keep things entertaining, it’s easy to fall in love with Death’s Door. Its premise hooks you immediately, and it has the style and the substance to maintain the captivating allure of its opening. Perhaps most importantly, it’s just consistently fun to play, with sharp enemy designs that keep you on your feet to challenging boss fights that test your skills in satisfying ways. There’s a lot of death to deal and souls to reap, but Death’s Door makes it a delight every step of the way.
In 2018, Alicia Vikander became the second actor to take up the mantle of Lara Croft in a reboot of the Tomb Raider film franchise, and since then news of a sequel has been swirling. Most recently, Lovecraft Country showrunner Misha Green was tapped to both write and direct.
However, thanks to the delays of the pandemic causing chaos in the entertainment industry, Vikander has yet to see a script. During a conversation with GameSpot about her upcoming film, The Green Knight, Vikander opened up about the status of the project.
“I would love to return to Lara again. After this last year, you know, everything had to be put on hold. But now that the world is starting to get up and running again, I know that Misha [Green] has just started and there will be a script coming in at some point. I’m really looking forward to reading it.”
The road to production for Tomb Raider 2 has been a long one. Prior to Green’s attachment to the project, writer Amy Jump had been tapped to pen the sequel alongside director Ben Wheatley with a tentative release date of spring 2021. However, after the pandemic put a near industry-wide halt on filming, things were once again forced back up in the air. Green was signed on to replace both Jump and Wheatley in January of 2021.
Green has since tweeted that drafts of the script are in progress under the working title Tomb Raider: Obsidian.
With any luck, a future draft of the script will end up in Vikander’s hands.
Vikander’s latest project, The Green Knight, is an action-adventure film examining the medieval poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where she plays not one but two roles beside her co-star Dev Patel. The movie finally hits theaters after a year-long delay on July 30.
