Author: Trafficblast

This weekend has brought with it a set of Nintendo Switch deals. Once upon a time this was a rare thing, but we’re increasingly seeing bigger and more frequent discounts on the Nintendo library of games, which is ultimately a win for us as consumers. Several major titles are on sale, as well as Bravely Default 2, which also happens to be having it’s own discount at the same time. Skyward Sword HD comes out shortly as well, so we added that preorder to our list just in case you wanted to lock down a copy in advance. Of course, we’ve got other stuff as well, including a nice Corsair Headset at Newegg, and an interesting foldable electric bike at Best Buy.

Daily Deals for July 10th 2021

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Lady Bird and Little Women director Greta Gerwig has officially signed on to direct Barbie, a film based on the iconic toy that is set to star Suicide Squad’s Margot Robbie.

As reported by Variety, Gerwig has been part of the Warner Bros. project since 2019 when she signed on to co-write the script with Marriage Story’s Noah Baumbach.

During British Vogue’s 2021 issue, Robbie casually mentioned that Gerwig would be taking on the role of director alongside saying a project like this “comes with a lot of baggage! And a lot of nostalgic connections.” Variety’s sources have also confirmed Gerwig’s role as director.

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“But with that come a lot of exciting ways to attack it,” Robbie said. “People generally hear ‘Barbie’ and think, ‘I know what that movie is going to be,’ and then they hear that Greta Gerwig is writing and directing it, and they’re like, ’Oh, well, maybe I don’t…’”

Barbie, which will be a new, big-screen take on one of the most celebrated toys in the world, is set to begin production in early 2022 for a planned theatrical release date in 2023.

Robbie will be producing the film alongside starring in it with her LuckyChap Entertainment production banner, which most recently produced Promising Young Woman.

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This Barbie film was once set to be released by Sony and had both Amy Schumer and Anne Hathaway attached to star at various points in its development.

Image Credit: Greta Gerwig (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images), Barbie (Mattel Inc./Liason)

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

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

While we already knew that Deathloop was a timed PS5 console exclusive, the ending of the latest trailer has revealed that the exclusivity period will end on September 14, 2022.

As spotted by Kotaku, this date is one year from the release date of Deathloop on PS5 and PC. This should at least give Xbox Series X/S players a bit of an idea how long they’d have to wait to play this PS5 exclusive that is being published by Bethesda and developed by Arkane Studios, both of which are now owned by Microsoft

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Considering all future Bethesda games will be available on Xbox Game Pass when they are released, one could assume Deathloop may also find its way there as well when this period is over. That is, of course, barring any specific restrictions in these deals.

Deathloop was the main focus of the most recent State of Play, where over nine minutes of gameplay was shown off. The show also featured the release date and a new look for Death Stranding: Director’s Cut, the reveal of Moss: Book 2, and much more.

In our hands-off preview of Deathloop, we said, “The idea of a Hitman game where you jump into a level not to kill the target, but to discover how you can force them to move to a different location so that you can blow them up at the same time as someone else, is undeniably attractive. But mixing that with Dishonored’s supernatural assassin gameplay and top-tier level design quickly makes Deathloop one of the most exciting propositions of the year.”

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For more, check out more about Deathloop’s Invasion PvP mode, why the game’s director isn’y worried about sales pressure, and a breakdown of its weapons.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

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

Warning: Full spoilers follow for Black Widow.

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One of the highlights of the Black Widow movie is David Harbour’s Red Guardian, a.k.a. Alexei Shostakov, the former deep-cover Russian spy who was also at one point that country’s answer to Captain America. While the main arc of his character is based around his relationship with his adopted family of fellow former and/or current Russian agents Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), a running joke in the film involves Alexei recalling his glory days, and particularly his self-proclaimed rivalry with Captain America.

But the thing is, Alexei is probably making it all up… Or is he? Let’s take a look at the evidence.

The first time we hear about these alleged adventures is when we meet up with the former Red Guardian, who has been imprisoned in the Russian Gulag for years. He’s arm-wrestling fellow inmates one at a time, and beguiling them with stories of fighting Cap. “There he is — Captain America,” he says. “Finally, the Red Guardian’s time has come! I grab hold of his shield. Face to face, it’s a test of strength!”

Sounds exciting! And yet, when one of the inmates asks Alexei what year this confrontation took place, he replies, “I don’t know. 1984.” Which, as he is then reminded, would mean Captain America was still on ice at the time, frozen in suspended animation. So how could they have fought each other?

As we all learned in history class, Steve Rogers was born in 1918 in good old Brooklyn, USA. After years of dreaming of joining the army so he could fight in World War II, he underwent Dr. Erskine’s Super Soldier experiment as part of Project Rebirth and adopted the Captain America mantle. Rogers became a hero and ultimately went into the ice in 1945 while preventing a bombing attack on the United States initiated by the Red Skull. That’s when Cap entered suspended animation and remained frozen for approximately 66 years before being discovered and thawed by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in 2011 or 2012.

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So that would mean that Red Guardian’s story about fighting Cap in 1984 doesn’t make a ton of sense, right? But maybe Alexei just got the dates wrong and actually he was talking about something that happened back in the ’40s…? Well, putting aside the fact that the prologue of Black Widow pretty much establishes that Alexei was a younger man in the 1990s than he is in the more or less modern time period that most of the film is set during 2016 — which would seem to indicate that he ages normally like the rest of us — there’s also the fact that the U.S. and Russia were allies during World War II. So why would they be fighting? Also, the Guardian mentions “having the nuclear codes” during his fight with Cap, which again, doesn’t line up with a 1940s match-up.

It is possible, of course, that Red Guardian actually fought a different version of Cap, as we now know that the U.S. government continued to experiment on its own soldiers, including many African-American men, at least into the 1950s. These experiments resulted in Isaiah Bradley, who we met in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, becoming a super soldier in his own right. Marvel has left it unclear at this point whether or not Bradley actually donned a Captain American uniform as he did in the comics, but it’s not out of the question that he or some other American soldier did in 1984.

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But then again, at one point in Black Widow Alexei asks Natasha if Cap ever talked about him to her. He even says that he feels like they’re more “contemporaries” than enemies — so, you know, guys from the same era. And since Steve Rogers’ identity is publicly known, presumably Alexei would be aware that his “contemporary” is like 100 years old. Doesn’t really add up…

Of course, what’s really going on with Red Guardian is that this is all a funny little throughline for David Harbour’s character, and it also contrasts the whole concept of the shiny, upstanding, perfect Captain America — symbol of the good old U.S. of A. — with the fallen relic of the past that was the Soviet Union, which of course Red Guardian symbolized.

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But then again (again)…

Steve Rogers did travel through time in Avengers: Endgame when he was on a mission to return all the Infinity Stones to their rightful places in time/space. We have no idea what he did during that period or even how long he was gone for, so he actually could’ve fought Red Guardian in what would’ve been Alexei’s past but Steve’s present!

You know what? I really hope that’s the answer here, if only for Alexei’s sake.

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For more on the film, check out our Black Widow post credits scene and ending explained, dig in on the history of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, or get an explanation of Taskmaster’s true identity in the film. You can also read our review of Black Widow here!

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During the most recent Final Fantasy 14 Live Letter from the producer stream, Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida revealed a few updates on the much-anticipated game, including that the main story scenario is “set in stone” and that the English voiceovers are almost fully recorded. Unfortunately, it sounds like it may not be ready to show for TGS 2021, which runs from September 30 to October 3.

As reported by GameSpot, this information comes via a translation from the r/FFXIV Discord channel of a conversation between Yoshida (who is also the director/producer of FF14) and Nier director Yoko Taro during the livestream.

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Translators on Twitter, including @aitaikimochi, have shared English translations of Yoshida’s comments, which also indicate that he is looking to show FF16 again when it’s ready for a big reveal that will make everyone go “I’m going to buy this game!”

“We have all the scenarios set in stone already, and the voice recording for the English version is in its final stages,” The translation reads. “Development is going well. It’s quite difficult to make sure the quality is amazing. We want the next announcement to be something where everyone watches and says ‘I’m going to buy this game!’ Thus, we are putting a lot of effort to make sure the quality is great.

“I want to show something at TGS, but I’m not sure if we will make that deadline. I don’t like throwing out bits to string people along with small updates, so I want to show it when it’s ready.”

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Final Fantasy 16 was officially announced during September 2020’s PS5 event as a PlayStation exclusive. In October 2020, a Square Enix recruitment page shared that the game had already completed “basic development.”

For more, check out all we know about Final Fantasy 16’s heroes, world, and story, and learn about the game’s six realms in the world of Valisthea.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

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

During the latest Final Fantasy 14 Live Letter from the Producer stream, a few new details about the next mainline entry in the series came out from producer Naoki Yoshida. The team has finished the main story scenario for Final Fantasy 16 and the English voiceovers are almost done being recorded. Unfortunately, Yoshida-san also said it’s likely that Final Fantasy 16 will not make an appearance at Tokyo Game Show 2021. (TGS 2021 is scheduled to take place from September 30 to October 3.)

This information comes from a translation via the r/FFXIV Discord channel of a conversation between Yoshida-san and Nier director Yoko Taro during the livestream. Translators via Twitter have also interpreted what Yoshida-san said during the stream, including the implication that next time he wants to show Final Fantasy 16 when it’s ready.

Creative Business Unit III–the Square Enix development team behind FFXIV–is also on Final Fantasy 16, which is the next major single-player entry in the iconic RPG franchise coming to PlayStation 5. Yoshida-san remains the director and producer for FFXIV while also taking on the role of lead producer for Final Fantasy 16.

For more on the upcoming RPG, be sure to check out everything we know about Final Fantasy 16. And for those interested in the critically acclaimed MMORPG, catch up on all the details from the FFXIV Endwalker benchmark trailer and the expansion’s new armor sets.