Author: Trafficblast

DC Universe producer Charles Roven, who’s had a hand in both Suicide Squad films as well as other DC titles like Justice League and Wonder Woman, has spilled the beans on David Ayer’s cut of Suicide Squad. The producer explained that when David Ayer’s preferred cut was shown to test audiences against the studio’s preferred cut, audiences liked both about the same.

After David Ayer released a statement discussing his experience with Suicide Squad, The Hollywood Reporter asked Roven whether he had seen the “fully mature edit by Lee Smith” that Ayer referred to.

“When the studio was hoping to replace John [Gilroy], the original editor, we suggested Lee,” Roven explained. “He’s one of the truly great editors. He was charged with trying to take a slightly different approach, but not totally change the tone of the movie with his work. Clearly, from what David is saying, that was the version that he liked the best of all the versions.”

He also confirmed that there was a lot of conflict between what the studio wanted out of the cut and what Ayer wanted, requiring both parties to negotiate towards the final cut. When it came to audience testing, Roven said that Ayer selected an edit that most matched his vision, but also clarified that the edit used for that test was not Lee Smith’s.

“It was somebody else that came in. The studio version was also different editors as well,” Roven explained. “We tested both versions. They tested exactly the same. Because they tested exactly the same, David and the studio and ourselves, meaning Rich and I and the heads of DC at that time–on Berg and Geoff Johns–we all sat in a room and tried to come up with what would be the best of both versions.”

While Suicide Squad was a box office hit, it was widely panned by critics. The newly released The Suicide Squad by James Gunn has had a lot more luck with critics, currently boasting an aggregated score of 72 on Gamespot sister site Metacritic.

Note: This article contains spoilers for the epilogue of the Season of the Splicer. You might want to finish the mission “As Prophesied” before reading on.

This piece also builds on a previous look at Savathun’s motivations, which you can read here: Destiny 2’s Looming Villain Is Just Trying To Trick Us Into Being Her Friend

The epilogue for the Season of the Splicer brought an official end to the Endless Night and Savathun’s plot. It also left a few major questions that have been building throughout the season. In the final cutscene, we saw Osiris, who’s been suspect as hell all season, acting even more suspect. And with Savathun’s attack on the City finally wrapped up, we’re still wondering what she hoped to gain through all this.

When it comes to Savathun, the Hive god of trickery and deceit, nothing is certain. But we’ve gotten a whole lot of clues over the last season about what she might have been up to and how she was executing on her goals. Last time we looked at the story of the season, I suggested Savathun’s end goal is to eventually make friends with us Guardians, in order to ally with us against the Darkness and break her pact with the worm gods. If we take that as a given (which is also pretty speculative, granted), then the actions of Savathun and other characters through the course of the Season of the Splicer make a little more sense.

First, let’s go with the long-running fan speculation that Osiris is actually Savathun in some kind of shape-shifted disguise, something suggested by lore entries in this season and in the past, but still far from certain. Our man Osiris didn’t dispel that notion in any way with his actions during the Endless Night epilogue event. According to Lakshmi-2, Osiris helped with opening the Vex portal in the Eliksni district. During the battle to save the Eliksni from the Vex, we saw that he watched the chaos without participating. Sure, Osiris is supposedly no longer a Guardian–his Ghost, Sagira, was killed a couple of seasons ago–so he’d be at risk of dying if he jumped into the fight, but that didn’t stop Amanda Holliday or Mithrax from taking on the Vex.

Osiris has since disappeared, adding more fuel to the speculation that he’s actually Savathun. If that is the case, a lot of Osiris’s weird actions throughout the season make a little more sense as works of obfuscation and misdirection. But what is it that Savathun was trying to accomplish with the Endless Night? Was she just trying to knock out the Last City with what seemed like a fairly weak plan? Was she hoping to generate unrest in the populace and distrust in the Vanguard (which, it must be said, are outcomes the Endless Night successfully brought about)? Did she think Lakshmi might have been successful in her coup, undermining Guardian authority and plunging the Last City into chaos?

All that seems doubtful. If we’re being honest, the Endless Night never seemed like an especially dangerous threat. Sure, it was a problem, but it was mostly a creator of domestic issues within the City population, creating cracks in the unification of humanity that could make a lot of situations a lot worse over the long term. It never seemed like the Vex were poised to annihilate humanity or that Savathun was going to strike a devastating blow against the Guardians. The Endless Night could have been a lot worse for us, but it was never going to be a knockout.

So why execute this attack on the City and the Guardians, showing Savathun’s hand and sacrificing resources and minions, if it never seemed like the Endless Night was capable of truly destroying the Guardian forces? Simple: Savathun was testing us, in a number of ways, for a number of reasons. Osiris was her means to do that, and his suspect dialogue makes a lot more sense throughout the season if you assume that he’s observing and learning about us.

First, we’ve got our battle with the Vex and their network itself. After banging around in the network for a while, we discovered that Quria, a Taken Vex mind, was behind the whole thing, apparently at Savathun’s direction. In the Expunge: Delphi mission, players venture into the Vex network, fight, and destroy Quria–or so it seems. That puts an end to the Endless Night, but as we asked before, why would Savathun put one of her most valuable assets in danger by letting us get to Quria in the first place? This battle is a big deal, because Quria is the only remaining entity (we think) that’s able to “take” other life forms. Taking is the magic ability Oryx, the Taken King, used to control the minds of various creatures in order to build himself an army, and the power to turn enemies into allies seems way more useful to Savathun than trying to mess up the Last City with the Endless Night.

But the sacrifice of Quria (if that’s even what it was–I’m of the belief that Quria’s death was a fakeout) makes way more sense if that battle was actually a test for Savathun to gauge the capabilities of Guardians. Osiris has interesting dialogue throughout the Expunge missions about the Guardians’ ability to invade the Vex network, a strange computer space specific to the Vex that he’s surprised we’re able to penetrate, and mentions underestimating our abilities. There’s also a Taken enemy present during the fight with Quria called the “Evaluator of Savathun.” Osiris’s comments about gauging our abilities and the presence of an enemy called “Evaluator” both make this feel like we’re being observed for the purpose of gathering data. The Vex loving tests, experiments, and simulations, after all.

Previously, I speculated that Savathun’s aim with all of this is an attempt to gain Guardians’ help to fight and defeat the Hive’s worm gods, who themselves are allies with the evil force called the Darkness. In the Destiny lore, eons ago, the Hive made pacts with these parasitic worms to gain their incredible power, with the caveat that the Hive would have to constantly feed those worms through murder and conquest. Recent lore suggests that Savathun wants out of that pact, since the worms’ hunger never subsides–the more you feed them, the hungrier they become, and if the Hive ever stops feeding their worms, those worms will consume them.

If Savathun is considering teaming up with us against the worms and the Darkness, she would probably want to get a sense of whether we might actually be capable of winning before casting her lot with us. Hence, the presence of the Evaluator–and Osiris’s comments.

You can expand that “testing” theory to the rest of the season, too. Osiris has a few moments where he seems to open a path for Lakshmi to continue her machinations, which include attempting a coup against Commander Zavala and the Vanguard. In one lore entry, Osiris counsels Lord Saladin to steer clear of Zavala, rather than give the commander his support. At another point, he turns down Mithrax’s help to amplify the power of the device Lakshmi and the Future War Cult use to see into potential futures, which might have given Mithrax some new information about what Lakshmi had planned, or shown Lakshmi a different potential future that could have convinced her to change her actions. Over and over again, it seems that Osiris, if not purposely helping Lakshmi, is purposely avoiding hindering her. And during the epilogue, Lakshmi claims it was Osiris who helped her open her portal, and we see him watching the aftermath of the situation.

On their face, all of those moves seem like Savathun-as-Osiris was just trying to sow chaos in the City and create problems for the Vanguard and the Eliksni, but Savathun’s whole deal is plans within plans. Again, if we’re assuming that the Endless Night wasn’t the master stroke she thought would fully defeat humanity, then we have to ask what she would gain from all these machinations.

And specifically, she gained a whole lot of very specific information. With the Endless Night, Savathun created a situation in which the Guardians relied on Eliksni aid to save the City, and the Eliksni relied on the Guardians for a place to live safely. And then she started heating things toward a boil, staying out of Lakshmi’s way as she generated anger about the Eliksni refugees. She learned how humanity would grapple with the possibility of turning hated enemies into equal allies.

As Savathun-as-Osiris watched the epilogue battle from the rooftops, she learned that Guardians could change; that a man who crusaded against the Eliksni, who they had once considered a monster, could become their protector; that humans would risk their own lives to save their new allies.

If Savathun is considering whether it would be possible for her to ally with humanity against the Darkness, she would need to know two things: first, whether the alliance had a chance of actually defeating the enemy, and second, whether humanity could be trusted to honor an alliance at all. While some, like Lakshmi, might not ever accept their former enemies as friends, many did. Savathun learned that Guardians would fight to save Eliksni lives–and that means they might fight to save Hive lives, too.

We’re getting a better look at what to expect in the future of Destiny 2 later this month with a showcase on August 24, but there’s already plenty of evidence about where the story is going. Since the release of Beyond Light, Destiny 2 has explored themes of peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness. Savathun’s Endless Night wasn’t an attack on the home of humanity, but a test of our humanity. From what the story beats and lore entries of the season suggest, I think Savathun has been surprised about what answers she’s uncovered.

Note: This article contains spoilers for the end of Destiny 2’s Season of the Splicer, so you might want to complete the epilogue before reading further.

Two more weeks remain in Destiny 2‘s Season of the Splicer, but with the launch of the final Override activity, the story of the season seems to have officially concluded. The epilogue quest, “As Prophesied,” closes off the story threads of the season, brings together its themes, and sets up where things are going as we draw nearer to Destiny 2’s next expansion, The Witch Queen. In a big way, the Season of the Splicer also just upended a lot of long-standing elements in Destiny 2, and that could have a big impact on the game’s future.

First, a quick rundown of everything that’s happened during this season. After the Vex created the Endless Night simulation and Ikora recruited Mithrax and the House of Light Eliksni to help deal with it, we found ourselves in the uncomfortable situation of having Eliksni refugees in the Last City. After centuries of fighting the Fallen in a war that could have meant humanity’s extinction, we were giving quarter to our longtime enemy. That angered a lot of people in the City, the loudest voice being that of Future War Cult leader Lakshmi-2.

Despite Lakshmi’s objections and unrest brewing in the City, Guardians worked with Mithrax to learn who was behind the Endless Night and how to stop it, but that took time, which allowed Lakshmi to foment more resentment against the Eliksni refugees. With anger rising among the people, Lakshmi started working with the other faction leaders to launch a coup against the Vanguard, seemingly with the goal of installing herself as the leader of the Last City. She looked to major figures for support, including Saint-14 and Lord Saladin, although neither ended up aiding her.

Eventually, we ended the Endless Night with the help of the Eliksni. But that didn’t fully ease tensions, and in the epilogue, we saw what Lakshmi’s rhetoric finally wrought. Claiming she had the help of Osiris, she used Future War Cult technology to open a portal for the Vex in the City’s Eliksni quarter, in hopes that the invading robots would eliminate them. In the final mission, various major characters from the Vanguard and around the City worked together to save the Eliksni and drive back the Vex invasion.

That leaves a bunch of major changes in the wake of the end of the season. Lakshmi perished in the Vex invasion. The members of her Future War Cult have scattered, as have her supporters in New Monarchy, another of the factions. The third faction, Dead Orbit, has left the City as well, even though it didn’t participate in the coup. So it seems that in addition to Lakshmi, we won’t be seeing Arach Jalaal or Executor Hideo around the Tower again.

The three factions have been a part of Destiny since the first game released, originally appearing for the most part as part of an event called Faction Rally, in which players would pledge loyalty to one group in exchange for special weapons and armor. Faction Rally hasn’t been a part of Destiny 2 for years, though, and this story development more or less makes official the fact that there haven’t been factions for quite a while.

What’s interesting, though, is what the lack of factions might set up for Destiny’s future. Future War Cult, Dead Orbit, and New Monarchy were three groups that, along with the military leadership in the Vanguard and the Speaker, made up the Consensus–what was essentially the government of the Last City. The factions represented the City’s civilians, but they’re now gone, and the Speaker was killed back in Destiny 2 vanilla. All that’s left of the Consensus, then, is the Vanguard, which could leave a power vacuum of government in the City. That could also strain the already stretched Vanguard, which now has to take on whatever governmental duties formerly fell to the factions. Given how interesting intra-city politicking became in the Season of the Splicer, addressing how the people of the City govern themselves–or don’t–could lead to some very interesting situations in Destiny 2’s future.

We’ve also seen some big changes in many of the major characters of Destiny 2. After supposedly helping Lakshmi and watching the battle with the Vex without participating in it, Osiris has disappeared. There’s a lot of speculation for what that could mean from a plot perspective, and we may well have a new villain on our hands. Meanwhile, Saint-14 has become the Eliksni’s biggest ally, which is a huge shift. This is a guy famous in Destiny’s lore for fighting the Eliksni, so much so that they have stories they tell their children describing him as a monster. The epilogue cutscene saw Saint-14 fighting to defend the Eliksni, before he was eventually backed up by Ikora, Zavala, and Amanda Holliday. It seems very likely that this year’s continuing theme of re-evaluating our enemies and finding common ground with them is only going to continue now that we’ve watched several main characters risk their lives for their former enemies.

The Eliksni are staying in the City, at least for the time being. We can now likely expect Mithrax, and other Eliksni, to become regular characters as they become citizens under the same Guardian protections as other humans. That’s huge. It’s a major change to the Destiny status quo–as a reminder, the Fallen are the very first enemies you ever fight in Destiny–and it feels like it’s going to build to an even larger shift over time as Bungie fundamentally shifts the underlying premise of who are our allies and who are our enemies.

We don’t know where Destiny 2 is headed just yet (although we’re making some guesses), but it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that the Season of the Splicer has shaken up Bungie’s game world pretty profoundly. Elements introduced way back in Destiny 1 have been fundamentally altered or removed altogether. Characters we’ve known for years are changing their perspectives. The status quo going forward has already shifted.

That’s all great news for Destiny 2, even as it raises more questions about where the game is headed going into Season 15. We’ll likely learn more during Bungie’s Destiny 2 showcase on August 24, but even without more clues to the future, it’s rewarding to watch Destiny 2 continue to evolve into something new and exciting as it challenges its own underlying foundations.

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The time to play Back 4 Blood‘s open beta has arrived. If you were fortunate enough to play the closed beta, this is your next chance to spend more time with the game. For those coming in fresh, we’ve compiled some essential tips to help you better tackle the content found within Back 4 Blood’s beta.

If you’re looking to play it, check out our explainer detailing when the Back 4 Blood beta starts and how to download it. Otherwise, if you’re looking to secure yourself a copy once the game releases in October, then be sure to check out our Back 4 Blood preorder guide.

Coordinate Weapon Types With Your Teammates

While it’s not the biggest deal on the lower Survivor difficulty, there are several reasons why it’s beneficial to talk with your team and coordinate weapon loadouts. You can have teammates fill particular roles, such as a long-range sniper for picking off certain enemy types, an up-close shotgunner to protect the team, or an LMG user in charge of crowd control, to name a few. Ammo also becomes a concern as the difficulty increases, and picking different weapon types keeps players from having to worry about taking ammo away from teammates who might need it. Speaking of ammo, you can hold or drop ammo types you aren’t using for your teammates when they need it. Consider your teammates your very own ammo pouch!

Be Mindful of Ammo Types

Just as you should coordinate what weapons you and other teammates are using, you should be mindful of what two weapons you’re carrying yourself. At a basic level, you likely want to ensure you’ve got your bases covered and can deal with enemies both near and far, but the type of ammo your weapons use should also be accounted for. You don’t want to end up with two weapons that use the same ammo, since you’ll find yourself running out twice as quickly as you otherwise would. Even if you don’t care for melee weapons, you may be better off with one as your secondary as opposed to two weapons that use the same ammo type–that way, you’ll at least have some way to fend off the hordes if you run out of that ammo.

Stick Together

Sticking together is a good strategy in almost any co-op game, but as Left 4 Dead players can attest, it’s imperative in a game like this. Certain enemies can trap players, requiring them to be saved by a teammate. You can also revive a teammate who’s been knocked down, but you’ll need to be nearby to do so. Ensuring you don’t need to scramble to find a path to your teammate (while fighting your way there) will help your team get back to full strength quickly. That’s critical, as it’s easy for a shorthanded squad to get overwhelmed while trying to rescue someone and keep the enemies at bay with fewer guns.

Don’t Be Shy About Meleeing, Even If You’re Reloading

An in-game tooltip will alert you to this, but if you’re a veteran of this type of zombie shooter, there’s a certain behavior you may need to break. Even if you’re reloading, you’re still free to use the melee/bash ability to deal with any enemies who are right on top of you. You might be desperate to get your gun reloaded so you can handle them more permanently, but the melee won’t actually interrupt your ongoing reload, so ditch any hesitation you have about using it while trying to get your gun ready. You’ll still want to begin firing your weapon again as soon as you can, but when times are desperate, that melee can spare you from taking some unnecessary damage and/or give you the room to escape to a safer location.

Make Sure One Player Always Has a Tool Kit

Tool Kits are handy items that allow you to unlock special doors and crates. These doors are always worth opening, as they typically contain several piles of copper, better-than-average weapon drops, and Health Stations. You can also use tool kits to open locked minigun crates, which can be incredibly useful in sections where you need to hold off a hoard. Tool Kits are found in the world but are always available to purchase at the start of each act. You should always have at least one Tool Kit in your party at all times, so take a moment to coordinate with your team before leaving the safe room.

Sharing Is Caring: Redistribute Copper As Needed

If you have extra copper, coordinate with your team and drop your extra currency for teammates in need. This practice helps ensure your whole team is stocked on grenades, heals, and other items you can buy from the Safe House shop. And that’s especially important if there is a good but expensive team upgrade in the shop or if you need to get everyone a turn at a Health Station once the free charge has been used.

Use That Ping System!

While playing with a group of friends over voice chat would be the ideal Back 4 Blood experience, sometimes you have to play with randos online. This is where the game’s excellent ping system comes into play. Pointing out special Ridden, ammo, crates, or whatever is as simple as the press of a button and a valuable tool, as a major component of the game is taking the time to search every nook and cranny for valuable resources. Be a good teammate, press that ping all the time, and let your teammates know when useful items are around to be picked up.

Beware of Trauma Damage

Whenever you’re downed or take a substantial amount of damage, your maximum health starts to decrease; this is what’s known as Trauma Damage. If you’re not careful, Trauma Damage can sneak up on you and put you in situations where you will have to waste whole medkits on small amounts of recoverable life. Health Stations and some Safe Houses are your primary sources for regaining maximum health, but this can be expensive–after you use a Health Station’s free charge, additional charges cost 400 copper each. So try to be mindful of how much damage you’re letting yourself take, as taking too much means you’ll need to pay some hefty prices simply to survive.

And Friendly Fire, Too

Friendly fire can be devastating, especially if you’re hanging on by a thread with just a few points of life. If you’re often in the front of the group, make a habit of crouching; this will help prevent your teammates from accidentally shooting you in the back. Next, if you’re strafing or evading, try to keep track of where your teammates are so you don’t dodge right into their gunfire. Lastly, gas cans and Molotovs create a much wider spread of fire when they explode han you might expect, so be careful of setting them off near your team or in a small area.

Fine Tune Your Deck Order

In Fort Hope, you can set your deck order. This means you can have your preferred cards in the first round, allowing you to create combinations that give you a serious advantage. For instance, cards like Combat Knife are really useful in the early rounds, since it turns your melee into a one-shot stab against any common enemy–even those powered up by Ridden cards. Pairing that card type with others that grant health per melee can be vital for scraping some health back when you’re running low. Just try to avoid taking hits with the Ridden when doing this, or it’ll ultimately be for nothing. Regardless, be mindful of your card combinations and how they can serve the necessity of your current build.

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Democrats are calling for new laws which will keep loot boxes away from children, citing new rules being placed in the United Kingdom this September.

The Verge reports that Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA) wrote a letter to bring the UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code to the United States. The letter addressed 12 mainstream game companies such as Activision Blizzard, Disney, Sony, Microsoft, and Epic Games.

The US Congress claims in the letter that loot boxes are “encouraging purchase before a child knows what the “bundle” contains–akin to gambling.” Unlike micro-transactions, players are unaware of the contents inside the loot box until they purchase it. It usually takes at least a couple of purchases to get what you want. Some games let players preview possible rewards inside the loot boxes. The Congress members believe that games need stricter rules beyond the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s (ESRB) regulations.

Although the UK looked into the addictive aspect of loot boxes in 2019 and 2020 and has since enacted changes in the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) guidelines, it’s not part of the AADC. It resulted in ESRB changing its guidelines as well, but some members of Congress feel like it was not enough.

Democrats are citing the AADC for something it never refers to. The AADC “is a set of 15 flexible standards–they do not ban or specifically prescribe–that provides built-in protection to allow children to explore, learn, and play online by ensuring that the best interests of the child,” according to the AADC page. It doesn’t target loot boxes or microtransactions.

The AADC pushes for social media sites and popular games such as Roblox and Minecraft to prevent questionable practices for children until the age of 18. It would provide increased privacy settings and prevent unhealthy usage of a service.

However, the US already has the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act to protect the privacy of young children, so citing the AADC could be seen as another excuse to attempt a loot box ban. It’s a conversation in Congress that occurs seemingly every year, and earlier in 2021, lawmakers in Chicago wanted to ban games such as Grand Theft Auto 5 due to an increase in carjackings. This new letter also states “exposure to violent content” as another concern for young gamers.