A new Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings trailer dropped and focus on the eponymous Ten Rings organization led by Shang-Chi’s father, Wenwu aka The Mandarin.
Marvel has dropped a new trailer that delves deeper into the Ten Rings, a criminal organization that has a deep history in the MCU stretching back to the first Iron Man movie. After a false Mandarin was apprehended in Iron Man 3, the real Ten Rings and its leader, played by Tony Leung, will appear in Shang-Chi.
But beyond just the name of an organization, the rings also refer to the ten rings Wenwu wears. Their deadly abilities are front-and-center of the new trailer.
The trailer also traces the history of Shang-Chi as Wenwu’s son. Wenwu raised Shang-Chi seemingly as his successor, one day telling him that he will inherit the rings if he is worthy. At some point, however, the two had a falling out and Shang-Chi set out on his own and away from his father.
Other highlights from the new trailer include, and bear with me, a dragon and also maybe Abomination who returns after his stin in The Incredible Hulk.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will premiere in theaters on September 3. Unlike the upcoming Black Widow which will be released simultaneously on Disney Plus Premier Access, Shang-Chi will have an exclusive 45-day theatrical run.
Only a few months after airing its series finale, the CW is planning a return to the world of Supernatural. The network is developing a prequel series titled The Winchesters, focusing on Sam and Dean Winchester’s parents, per Deadline.
Jensen Ackles will reprise his role as Dean Winchester to narrate The Winchesters. Jensen and his wife, recurring Supernatural guest star Danneel Ackles, will serve as executive producer. Supernatural co-executive producer Robbie Thompson will serve as writer and executive producer.
“After Supernatural wrapped its 15th season, we knew it wasn’t over. Because like we say in the show, ‘nothing ever really ends, does it?’” Jensen Ackles said. “When Danneel and I formed Chaos Machine Productions, we knew the first story we wanted to tell was the story of John and Mary Winchester, or rather the Supernatural origin story. I always felt like my character, Dean, would have wanted to know more about his parents’ relationship and how it came to be. So I love the thought of having him take us on this journey.”
Supernatural is the longest-running sci-fi series in the history of American broadcast television, originating on the WB before migrating to the CW. The show completed its 15-season run last November, completing the story of demon hunter brothers Dean and Sam Winchester. Their parents, John and Mary, were played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Samantha Smith.
In our review of the Supernatural series finale, IGN gave the episode a 9, saying the story “took its time, gracefully balancing reference and nostalgia with a hunt and endgame worthy of its legacy.”
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J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.
Welcome to the great bargain conjunction. It’s the End of Financial Year Clearances meets the Steam “Summer” Sale. The first day of the former multi-day event has dished out some decent savings already. We’ve also scoured the console stores and local online retailers for the finest of their wares!
Despite Rainbow Six Extraction and Rainbow Six Siege‘s similarities, Extraction creative director Patrik Méthé isn’t worried about the two games possibly cannibalizing each other’s audiences. He said that developer Ubisoft Montreal is confident that Extraction will build its own sustainable audience instead of stealing players away from Siege.
“They’re both very different games offering their own challenges and pacing so there’s no worry in that regard, quite the opposite in fact,” Méthé told GameSpot. “The way [Extraction] is built in its PvE nature–we’re confident that it will appeal to a wide variety of players from both sides.”
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For Siege players looking to split their time with Extraction, Méthé says that Extraction’s formula changes how you play with certain operators and their abilities, so playing the game should be a “fresh experience,” even if it does feel familiar.
“In addition, should Siege players decide to push [Extraction] to its maximum threat level, it will offer a high-octane challenge, on par–and even above–what they’re used to in Siege,” Méthé said. “It’ll be interesting to see how they cope with these advanced challenges.”
And beyond the players willing to split their time between Siege and Extraction, Méthé says that Ubisoft Montreal is counting on Extraction pulling in a new pool of players that have never even tried Siege.
“For newcomers to the Rainbow Six universe–Extraction offers an enjoyable tactical co-op experience where they’ll be able to push themselves to the limit and will have to improve their skills and abilities every time they play, to make mission success easier,” Méthé said. “Communication and teamwork will be even more essential for these players.”
Whether Rainbow Six Extraction is able to differentiate itself enough from Siege in order for the two games to exist side-by-side in the already very crowded game-as-a-service market remains to be seen. But we’ll find out soon enough. Scheduled to launch for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, PC, Stadia, and Luna, Rainbow Six Extraction will release September 16.
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Scarlet Nexus takes us to a world where humans have developed psionic powers and the ability to connect their minds to each other. This has dramatically transformed life as we know it, allowing for a new era of connected consciousness and advanced technology. However, things aren’t all sunshine and roses for humanity–the populace lives in fear of the Others, grotesque brain-consuming monsters that randomly emerge from a mysterious belt that surrounds the planet. Their destructive impulses have rendered many areas uninhabitable, forcing humans to congregate in cities under the protection of the Other Suppression Force–an army of elite psionics trained to handle Other attacks. Yuito and Kasane are two fresh-faced recruits to the OSF, and they find their skills quickly put to the test during attacks. When a mission goes awry, they will be forced to take sides and fight to expose disturbing truths lying under the surface.
The setting of Scarlet Nexus is an intriguing mix of cyberpunk imagery, dystopian society, and pure sci-fi that captures your attention immediately. You get the feeling from the get-go that something is off about everything that’s going on, which only increases when you first lay eyes on the Others–horrendous aberrations that mix familiar organic and inorganic objects into monsters that move like living creatures, but feel disconcertingly unnatural. Additionally, the cutscenes are primarily presented in the form of comic-style still panels, giving the game the distinct feel of a high-stakes, episodic manga. It’s slick and distinct, which gives Scarlet Nexus a lot of personality.
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You begin the game by choosing either Yuito or Kasane as your primary playable character. Yuito is a fairly standard action-game swordsman, while Kasane is more of a technical fighter with her ranged daggers. Both characters have combo attacks, jumping strikes, dodges–the usual array of 3D combat maneuvers. However, they also have the ability to use psychokinetic powers, introducing an additional unique element to combat. By holding R2, they can grab a background object and slam it directly into a foe, potentially catching the enemy off-guard and opening them up for further combo attacks.
Combat doesn’t feel exceptionally good initially–it’s a little floaty and disjointed, especially when playing as Kasane. Chaining attacks together, in particular, can be hard on more resilient foes in the early stages. But it quickly improves with the addition of the SAS: a system where your playable character can connect their brain to other squad members and temporarily make use of their powers. Hook up with Hanabi, and she’ll give you pyrokinetic fire slashes that can set enemies ablaze. Borrow Kagero’s invisibility to hide from aggressive foes and you can perform sneak attacks. Utilize Tsugumi’s clairvoyance and you’ll be able to spot hidden enemies and weak points, and tap into Gemma’s sclerokinesis to quickly mitigate enemy attacks. Using these skills transforms combat from a fairly standard affair to something much more interesting, as certain abilities will be particularly advantageous in given situations–but you also have to learn to manage these skills, as they are all on cooldown timers.
Even more combat augmentations open up the further you go into the game. As you level up, you can fill out nodes in your Brain Map, which unlock special skills that grant new offensive and defensive capabilities to utilize in battle. You’ll also learn the Brain Drive, a super-powered mode that activates after filling a gauge that increases your damage output and combo ability. Finally, there’s the Brain Field: an absurdly powerful but extremely risky state that puts your psychokinesis into overdrive and lets you deal massive damage, but can kill you if you stay in it for too long.
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More mechanics get added into the mix, as well. Guard meters are introduced. Using the right skills and attacks you can break them down to render enemies helpless and perform a devastating Brain Crush attack for bonus loot. Unique objects also appear in environments that allow you to perform elaborate and immensely satisfying QTE-powered psychokinesis attacks, like pounding an Other into the ground with a marble statue or running over a line of enemies with a runaway train. And by establishing a good rapport with your teammates, you unlock the full potential of their abilities as well as new options like follow-up attacks on downed foes.
Outside of the story missions needed to progress, you can revisit already-explored areas for experience and sidequests. These sidequests are the standard-issue “kill enemy X” or “collect item Z” missions, sometimes with additional requirements like defeating foes with a certain SAS power. They don’t add much to the game in terms of story or worldbuilding, making their role that of an excuse to revisit areas to farm experience and items. Collecting enemy drops and environmental data is important, however, as you can trade those items at the store for exclusive weapons, upgrade plug-ins, and most importantly, items to give to your teammates during story breaks.
Giving your crew things they like raises their affection for you, unlocking “Bond Episodes” where you can hang out and learn more about their individual quirks and backstories. As their bond levels raise, you’ll have access to improved SAS functionality and additional attack and defensive options. They’ll also use their presents to decorate your team base, which is a nice visual touch. Bond Episodes range in tone from the completely ridiculous to dead serious character drama, but no matter what you wind up seeing, you’ll come out of it appreciating your in-game teammates even more.
It’s a good thing that the combat and character interactions of Scarlet Nexus are fun, because its story is a trainwreck. What starts as an intriguing sci-fi tale of superpowered youths being used to fight hideous creatures by a shadowy government gets completely derailed after a few chapters, becoming a hodgepodge of increasingly bizarre plot twists and inexplicable character actions. While you get different perspectives (and different progression) depending on your choice of Yuito or Kasane as your lead, you’ll still experience the same major “WTF was that nonsense?” events.
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While I won’t get into spoiler territory, a good example of how frustrating the plot can get is realizing that most of the mid-game conflict could be easily resolved if everyone would just sit down and talk about what’s going on (which Yuito repeatedly asks to do) instead of trying to kill each other. What’s even more befuddling is that some of the enemy characters still ask to hang out with your lead while this stuff is going on, making for a bizarre disconnect between narrative and characterization. Even once all that is resolved, there are numerous plot threads that become incredibly flimsy when you give them deeper thought. But as ridiculous as the story wound up being, I was interested in seeing how much more utterly bonkers it could get throughout, so I guess that’s something in its favor
Even though the plot devolves into a trope-filled sludge pool by the end, I don’t feel like Scarlet Nexus was a waste of time. Yes, the excitement of combat begins to taper off towards the end of Scarlet Nexus’s twenty-odd-hour runtime–and the areas in the final stretch of the game feel overly long–but I had a good deal of fun mixing up my SAS abilities, crushing enemies in my Brain Field, and watching my team have a video game tournament at our base to settle an argument over living space boundaries. It might not be a new pinnacle of action-game storytelling, but Scarlet Nexus is still plenty of fun in the right places.
The first trailer for American Horror Story Season 10 has been revealed. The season is titled American Horror Story: Double Feature, and it premieres in August.
As the title suggest, American Horror Story: Double Feature will feature two stories, which the official tagline describes “one story by the sand and one story by the sea.” This striking poster definitely suggests the season’s aquatic horror vibe, and shows some kind of weird, alien-like creature–with a fish for a tongue– getting intimate with a fanged woman, who could possibly be a siren or perhaps a mermaid. Check it out below:
American Horror Story: Double Feature premieres on FX on August 25, with episodes streaming on FX on Hulu the following day. The cast is set to be a mix of AHS regulars and new stars. Familiar face include Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Kathy Bates, Billie Lourd, Adina Porter, and Lily Rabe, while Maucaulay Culkin and Neal McDonough are among the new cast members.
Double Feature isn’t the only AHS show heading our way this summer either. Franchise creator Ryan Murphy has produced a spin-off titled American Horror Stories, which premieres FX on Hulu on July 15. The show will connect to earlier AHS seasons, with Season 1’s Rubber Man set to return, alongside the new Rubber Woman. Murphy has stated that the series will be “one-hour stand alone episodes delving into horror myths, legends, and lore. Many will feature AHS stars you know and love.”
World of Warcraft: Shadowland’s long-awaited patch 9.1, Chains of Domination, is set to release on June 29, and when it does, it will introduce a new system that is already causing players to howl in frustration.
It’s called Shards of Domination. In 9.1’s new raid, the Sanctum of Domination, players can acquire new pieces of gear that have Domination sockets, which can then be infused with Shards of Domination for powerful passive effects. Players can equip up to five pieces of gear that each have a Domination socket, and doing so is definitely in the best interest of players because of how powerful the effects of the shards are.
The issue with this new system is that gear with Domination sockets may take up a gear slot that is already occupied by a player-crafted Legendary item. Legendary items, of which players can only have one equipped, also give players powerful, unique effects they won’t want to give up. Over the last seven months, players have spent hundreds of thousands of gold and dozens of hours farming the expansion’s rogue-lite dungeon Torghast for the required Soul Ash material needed to upgrade their Legendaries to their highest item level. Now, Blizzard is essentially telling players they will need to do all of that work again to recraft that same Legendary in a different item slot, one that won’t be able to equip a piece of gear with a Domination socket.
Players are, predictably, not thrilled about this. Prominent WoW content creators have been brainstorming ideas on how to improve the system, ranging from letting players decraft their current Legendary in order to regain the Soul Ash, detethering Legendary item effects from gear, or simply allowing players to equip Shards of Domination on items of their own choosing. With the patch’s release date quickly approaching, changes to the system seem unlikely before launch, but many players are still waiting for Blizzard to address the issue in one way or another.
In addition to the Shards of Domination system and a new raid, Chains of Domination’s release will also bring updates to Torghast (which should at least make farming Soul Ash a little easier), a new zone to explore called Korthia, the Tazavesh mega-dungeon, new story chapters for each of the expansion’s four covenants, the ability to use flying mounts while in the Shadowlands, and more.
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Insomniac Games, maker of recent PlayStation exclusives such as Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, is in the process of hiring for a brand-new project. Perhaps more surprisingly, Insomniac has explicitly stated that this new game will be a multiplayer title, with the studio on the lookout for experienced game developers to lead the project.
There are five job listings in total, including the very senior Creative Director role suitable for an individual that can oversee the project from this early stage to its release. Other job listings include a Systems Designer specifically with multiplayer mechanics and system design in mind, as well as a Story Lead that will help craft a narrative, lore, and scripts. Listings for an Art Director and VFX Artist round out the post, which seems in indicate that the beginnings of this multiplayer endeavor still need need to take shape.
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Insomniac made no indication as to whether these listings were for a game within an existing IP or a wholly new one. Insomniac has been primarily associated with single-player games in its most recent history, with franchises such as Sunset Overdrive, Spider-Man, and Ratchet and Clank. The studio has made multiplayer titles in the past though, primarily with the critically successful Resistance franchise and less-fondly remembered Fuse.
The studio has been on a great streak lately too, releasing Spider-Man: Miles Morales for PS4 and PS5 late in 2020 and recently launching Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart exclusively for PS5 this month. They’re both fantastic games, with our Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart review saying, “The new generation of hardware has made some dramatic changes for the better, but in a very welcome and comforting way, this is still the Ratchet & Clank you’ve come to know and love.”
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While Fifth Edition saw a huge boost in popularity for Dungeons & Dragons, devoting time to a campaign and character can be a bit too much for some people and may not be great for families. And diving into D&D can be a little overwhelming, as it can be complicated for new players to learn. Luckily, WizKids has a new, fun game arriving this October called Dungeon Scrawlers.
WizKids’ Dungeon Scrawlers takes the dungeon crawling aspect all D&D players are familiar with it, simplifies it, and makes it easily accessible to everyone, no matter your age. Pre-made maps have players drawing a continuous line throughout a dungeon in order to collect points. You collect points by collecting numbered stones in order, scribbling out monsters, tracing spells, etc. The winner is whoever scores the most points during their adventure.
The full game arrives this fall and contains 10 maps and is for 2-4 players. It will cost $25, and you can preorder Dungeon Scrawlers from your local game store, or you can preorder it online here. Check out the “How to play” rules below, which also gives you a look at one of the maps.
Dungeon Scrawlers Rules
Dungeons Scrawlers is compact and portable. “We definitely wanted it to be something you could easily bring along to game night, while still fitting in a ton of gameplay,” said Eric Meyers, Board Game Project Manager at WizKids. “The whole box should fit right in with your D&D books.”
The game won’t teach you to play D&D, but it will introduce people to elements from the game. “One of the most important elements are the different character classes, and their special abilities,” said Meyers. “Each has an action that they can do faster or better than the others can–spells for the Wizard, collecting treasure for the Rogue, or defeating monsters for the Barbarian–that lets you do some light roleplaying as you lean into that activity. You even level up, in a sense, as each map grows more intricate, with more elements and challenges requiring the talents of experienced adventurers. Mostly, it perfectly captures the feeling of a tension-filled dungeon crawl.”
Dungeon Scrawlers has more of a light-hearted and fast-paced tone than D&D players are used to. “The designers were looking for a new way to use markers in a board game, when they realized that it could be a great way to explore maze-like dungeon maps in real time,” explained Meyers. “They brainstormed different elements that the dungeon could include, from monsters, to spells, to treasure, and ways to give special abilities to different adventurer classes, and they soon had a sample version to test. When everyone they tried it with wanted to immediately delve into the next dungeon, they knew they had something special.”
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Meyer continued saying they wanted to find unique ways to interact with D&D elements, using the scribbling mechanic. This includes casting spells, attacking monsters, and collecting loot. Dungeon Scrawlers will be available this October.
The makers of Ratchet & Clank and Marvel’s Spider-Man, Insomniac Games, appear to be gearing up for work on a project with a heavy emphasis on multiplayer.
This comes from multiple job postings at the studio, which Insomniac says are for a “multiplayer project.” Among other roles, Insomniac is looking for a creative director, a story lead, an art director, and a systems designer specifically for multiplayer systems.
Digging into the listings doesn’t glean too much in the way of specifics, though there are a few clues.
The systems designer role asks for candidates to design player interactions and systems “(including combat, navigation, progression, and economy) for a multiplayer environment” indicating that whatever this multiplayer game is, it’s likely pretty involved and complex (certainly more than just a multiplayer component thrown into a single-player game). The same listing also asks for a “thorough understanding of melee combat systems, enemy design, and boss design.”
The story lead job looks similarly detailed, and indicates that the narrative aspects are tied in closely with the multiplayer component as it asks for experience “with multiplayer narratives.”
Insomniac is hiring! We have five new job openings for a multiplayer project. Come join us and be part of the #PlayStationStudiosFamily as we work on exciting things!
Whatever Insomniac is making, it’s unlikely we’ll see this project in the light of day for several years, given that the studio has just wrapped up Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (which we loved) and is only just now looking for a creative director and several other leadership roles critical to making a game happen at all. Given the studio’s string of really, really stellar single-player narratives in recent years, this could be a fascinating new direction for the Sony-owned studio.
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Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
