Author: Trafficblast

Showtime is bringing back one of Dexter Morgan’s biggest foes. John Lithgow is set to reprise his role as Arthur Mitchell, aka the Trinity Killer, in the network’s upcoming revival of Dexter, as reported by Deadline.

While there are few known details about Lithgow’s role in the Dexter revival, it is reported that the actor is only expected to film for about a day or so on the production. Showrunner Clyde Phillips and the series’ team of writers have figured out a way for the Trinity Killer to return in a way that makes sense within Dexter’s storyline.

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Spoilers ahead for Dexter.

Of course, the prospect of Arthur Mitchell returning to the series is a tricky one. The Trinity Killer bit the bullet in the Season 4 finale when Michael C. Hall’s Dexter took a hammer to him. While Lithgow’s tenure on Dexter only lasted for a season, the actor instantly became a fan favorite among the show’s audience.

Lithgow’s performance as Arthur Mitchell also drew critical acclaim. His performance won the actor his fifth Emmy in 2010, beating out the competition in the category of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. Lithgow has also won Emmys for his work on Amazing Stories, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and Season One of Netflix’s The Crown. Lithgow could also pick up another nomination this year for his performance in HBO’s Perry Mason.

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Showtime announced the revival of Dexter last October. The new episodes will be set about a decade after Dexter Morgan went missing in the eye of Hurricane Laura. The 10-episode season is eyeing a premiere date sometime in the fall. For more about the upcoming revival, read about how it is reframing the original series’ controversial finale.

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J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

(Photo by Michael Tran/Getty Images)

Xbox Cloud Gaming is now available to all Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, Xbox announced Monday.

“Starting today, Xbox Cloud Gaming is available to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members with Windows 10 PCs and Apple phones and tablets, via browser, across 22 countries,” the announcement reads.

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To sign up, you’ll need to go to Xbox.com/play on Microsoft Edge, Chrome, or Safari on a PC or mobile device. Games will be streamed to your screen at 1080p and “up to” 60 FPS.

Getting access to Xbox Cloud Gaming previously required an invitation from Microsoft. Last week, content creator Klobrille spotted that Xbox appeared to be rolling out Series X server blades across its Cloud Gaming platform. The server blades previously ran on the less powerful Series S, so players like Klobrille noticed the switch when Rainbow Six Siege was able to run at 120 FPS, something that the Series S can’t achieve.

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If you’re still depending on your Xbox One, Microsoft has announced that it intends on expanding the older console’s lifespan by letting users stream Series X/S games. Microsoft hasn’t stated when it plans to launch such a service, though.

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Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/cloud gamer for IGN.

All 13 episodes of Godzilla: Singular Point are available to stream on Netflix.

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Netflix Original Anime Godzilla: Singular Point offers up a new spin on the King of the Monsters mythos, and sadly it’s a plodding, incomprehensible mess of metaphysics and exhausting exposition. Yes, despite some occasionally gorgeous art that resembles an awesome apocalyptic tapestry, this reimagining of Godzilla is a tiresome trudge featuring characters who never ever stop talking about the tedious faux science behind everything that’s happening.

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It’s been a running joke — one that’s been rekindled by Legendary’s MonsterVerse — that the Godzilla movies would be perfect if they only featured the monsters and dropped the human characters. It’s funny to indulge the idea but truthfully you need the “boots on the ground” characters to create an atmosphere that viewers care about other than rote destruction. It’s making those humans feel fun and vital and not corny that’s been the continuous challenge. Here, in Singular Point, it’s almost like they’re bending the joke backward so that the entire story is mostly people and the Kaiju are frustratingly an afterthought. It’s one thing to wait for a Godzilla reveal and it’s another to wait for more than half a season and then relegate the behemoth to a few minutes of background warfare per episode.

And all these human characters? The extremely large ensemble of heroes working to save the world from a mysterious invasion of alternate universe red dust that creates monsters and also an element that exists in both the future and the past? They’re flat, clinical, and serve as little more than unyielding spewers of scientific nonsense that drags each episode down into a monotonous spiral of monologuing.

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An enigmatic signal in the form of a song, the invasion of flying Pterosaurs (the “Rodan”), a rampaging armored dino-beast (the “Anguirus”), and a confounding cloud of crimson draw together science student Mei and smart guy Yun, a genius tinkerer at a company called Otaki Factory (who also happens to dabble in advanced A.I. and are building a world-protecting robot named Jet Jaguar). After meeting briefly, Mei and Yun will spend the rest of the season apart, texting each other from opposite ends of the world while they both explore separate yet equally uninteresting angles of the crisis. All the while, a folklore foretold world-ending Catastrophe (with a capital “C”) looms. One that’s connected to, but somehow isn’t, everything and everyone being attacked by gigantic monsters that are practically unbeatable because they can see into the future.

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This is a simplified summary of events that extend far above and beyond the realm of polite comprehensibility. Whether or not the scientific jargon being volleyed about is based on real theories or not isn’t the point (they may very well be). The point is that it’s all supremely tedious and, most of the time, completely irrelevant. The bulk of time in most episodes is spent discussing a space/time theory while monsters are raining havoc down on the planet. There’s mass destruction everywhere, but human casualties are never presented. Nor is the threat that anything bad is happening to, or will ever happen to any of the principal characters. More thought and care are put into over-explaining Archetypes (molecules from a different dimension that can transmit light into the past) and — kid you not — a MacGuffin solve-it-all called the “Orthogonal Diagonalizer.” It’s all so intricate and impenetrable that one feels it all must be based on real math, but again, that would hardly make it more interesting than freakin’ Godzilla.

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Animation studios Bones and Orange deliver wild and beautiful scenes when the Kaiju are allowed to create calamity, using the red of the multiversal dust to stain the sea and sully the air, shrouding the giant beasts with a plague-like atmosphere. When Godzilla, on rare occasions, is allowed to unleash atomic bio-weaponry, it’s stunning. There’s also some fun to be had with this series’ reinvention of Jet Jaguar, which as a robot defender who can go toe-to-fang with the smaller monsters carries the bulk of the action in Singular Point. However, the series spends way too much time presenting theories when it should be crafting compelling characters and streamlining the story.

2021 LG C1 Series 4K OLED TVs

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These are the best prices we saw on Amazon Prime Day for these TVs, and fortunately they’re still available at this price. The LG C1 series OLED TVs are successors to last year’s CX-series models. Unlike Sony and Vizio, LG now has several generations of updates under its belt, and its well-oiled OLED lineup overcomes pretty much all of the OLED pitfalls while incrementally improving image quality each year. The LG C1-series OLED TVs feature an improved A9 Gen 4 processor that boasts slightly better image quality, better 4K scaling, and improved audio handling as well as an upgrade to its webOS smart TV interface.

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2020 Sony A8H 55″ 4K OLED TV

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Here’s another popular OLED TV deal that we saw on Amazon Prime Day. The 55″ Sony A8H is the least expensive 55″ OLED TV you can get right now. It’s only $100 more than what we saw on Prime Day and it’s image quality is on par with the 55″ LG OLED TV but at a significantly lower price. If the LG OLED is a bit out of your price range, then this TV is the one to get.

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2021 48″ LG CX Series 4K OLED TV

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After 10 months of using the LG CX 48″ OLED TV as my primary gaming monitor, I can say that this is the best gaming monitor I’ve ever had (and I’ve own many gaming monitors), especially if you can pair it with an RTX 30 series video card. Both the CX OLED and RTX 30 series cards support HDMI 2.1, so you can output 4K at 120Hz. The LG CX also supports 4:4:4 chroma at 4K and G-SYNC technology. The OLED panel blows away any IPS, VA, or TN monitor in terms of image quality, thanks to its best-in-class black levels and color accuracy, sub-1ms response times, and HDR quality.

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50% Off Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

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The sheer amount of value you get with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is impressive. This membership gives you both Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Game Pass, and Xbox Game Pass for PC. Xbox Live Gold is required for online gaming. Xbox Game Pass gives you access to a huge library of games that is free as long as you maintain your membership. The list includes AAA games that you can play as early as launch day. These include MLB The Show 21, FIFA 21, The Medium, and every Bethesda game ever. If you’ve also got a great gaming PC, Xbox Game Pass for PC offers games like Crusader Kings 3, Forza Horizon 4, Nier Automata, and more.

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The Least Expensive RTX 30 Series Gaming Laptops

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During Amazon Prime Day, there was literally a single RTX 30 series deal during the entire 48-[[hour period. Fortunately, there are better deals today. You can score an RTX 3060 laptop for as low as $1050, or an RTX 3070 laptop for as low as $1350. The RTX 3060 is as powerful as the RTX 2070, and the RTX 3070 is almost as powerful as the RTX 2080.

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Eric Song is IGN’s deal curator and spends roughly 1/4 of his income on stuff he posts. Check out the IGN Deals articles and subscribe to the IGN Deals Twitter page.

After years of post-launch DLC and support, Forza Horizon 4 is getting its final batch of new content in its next update, at least for a while.

Senior producer Tom Butcher discussed plans for Forza Horizon 4 in the latest Forza Monthly show (first spotted by Video Game Chronicle), detailing how the development team is shifting focus to Forza Horizon 5.

“With Forza Horizon 5’s release being our priority over the next few months, we’ve made some changes to Forza Horizon 4’s monthly series update,” Butcher said. “So starting with Series update 38, players who know the game well will start to see the return of content from Series 7 to 32. Think of it a bit like a mixtape, featuring the return of some of your favorite content combined with recently added new features”.

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Butcher added that developer Playground isn’t planning on adding any new cars or features over “the next few months.”

“You should have a lot of fun revisiting these moments and seeing how you handle them the second time around,” Butcher said. “And obviously with all of our recent Series updates, you’ll have photo challenges, rewards, Forzathon Shop, and backstage voting all going on as well as usual.”

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Forza Horizon 4 will still receive updates in the future, with Butcher stating they’ll be focused on making sure the game “continues to be a fun experience,” but said Playground isn’t ready to discuss details.

Forza Horizon 4 received an upgrade for Xbox Series X and S back during console launch, allowing players to hit 4K 60 FPS on Series X and 1080p 60 FPS on Series S.

Forza Horizon 5 is releasing on November 9, 2021 and takes the racing series to Mexico. Check out nine new details we learned from Playground’s developer livestream, and how to play Forza Horizon 5 four days early. Forza Horizon 4’s Series 37 Update launches on June 29.

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Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/getaway driver for IGN.

Actor Shamier Anderson and the official John Wick Twitter account revealed that John Wick 4 has started filming, a little less than a year from when the movie releases. The fourth John Wick film featuring Keanu Reeves as an extremely competent assassin hits theaters on May 24, 2022.

Anderson was confirmed for John Wick 4 on June 4, but his role has been kept a secret. Rina Sawayama–British pop star–and Donnie Yen are part of the cast as well, with similar mystery around what characters they’ll assume in the movie.

John Wick 3 featured the series’ eponymous hero dealing with the consequences of murdering the High Table crime lord Santino D’Antonio at the New York Continental Hotel, neutral territory where fellow assassins are supposed to not kill each other. The film ends with Wick agreeing with the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) that the High Table is, to put it lightly, highly annoying. While John Wick 4’s plot has been kept under lock and key, it’s likely that the fourth installment will deal with the third movie’s loose ends, namely the conflict between Wick and the High Table.

John Wick 4 features new writers–Michael Finch and Shay Hatten–making it the first John Wick movie not to include writer and creator Derek Kolstad.

According to an interview with Collider, Kolstad wasn’t asked to return to the John Wick franchise. “No, it wasn’t my decision. When you think of the, contractually, of these things, the third one I shared the credit with any number of people, they didn’t have to come back to me, and so they didn’t,” Kolstad said.

Hatten was a writer for John Wick 3, while Finch’s past projects include Predators, American Assassin, and Hitman: Agent 47.

Valve’s multiplayer shooter, Team Fortress 2, hit PC 14 years ago and despite its age, it just broke its own all-time concurrent players record on Steam.

This news comes by way of Eurogamer, which caught that over the weekend the game had reached a new concurrent players high of 151,253 players. The previous record was held by the 147,360 players that played the game last December.

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Eurogamer published its piece on this new record over the weekend where it saw a concurrent player count of 141,741. At the time of this writing, that number is 118,626 and it’s easy to imagine that the number might be lower at the moment due to it being a Monday.

As for why Team Fortress 2 is bigger than ever, the answer likely stems from a recent update that brought a brand new Summer 2021 Cosmetic Case to the game. This case is Crate Series #132 and it includes 18 community-contributed items and six community-made Unusual effects, according to Eurogamer.

Team Fortress 2’s Snakewater map also received some tweaks recently that improved general movement on the map and prevented clipping from happening. Eurogamer suspects these improvements came at the cost of the map’s Kitchen area, as it’s no longer there. They report this update should “make bot behavior slightly less annoying,” too.

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There are plenty of games out there that eclipse Team Fortress 2’s new personal record of 151,253 such as Valve’s own Dota 2 (1,291,328), Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (1,305,714), or even Left 4 Dead 2 (161,590), but for a game that came out in 2007, it’s doing quite well. Bravo, Team Fortress 2.

Check out our thoughts on the game in IGN’s Team Fortress 2 review and then read about how the Team Fortress 2 community built cheater-killing bots to combat cheaters playing the game. Check out this list of every IGN Valve game review after that.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

The Stanley Cup Finals are set to begin this evening, June 28, with the Montreal Canadiens taking on the Tampa Bay Lightning. EA Sports has now released the results of its simulation of the final series, choosing Montreal to win in seven games.

According to the simulation, which was conducted using NHL 21, the Canadiens will take Game 1 by a close score of 1-0 before dropping Game 2 by getting blown out 1-5. The Canadiens will then win two in a row before dropping the next two as the Lightning force a Game 7. With the series tied three games to three, the Finals heads to a decisive Game 7 where the Canadiens topple the Lightning by a score of 4-2 to hoist Lord Stanley’s trophy.

The Canadiens already have the most Stanley Cup wins in NHL history, and their legendary status will only grow further this year if EA’s simulation is correct.

NHL 22 hasn’t been announced yet, but EA Sports normally reveals the new game in June or July before releasing it later in the year. If that pattern holds, we should hear about the game anytime now, or perhaps at EA Play Live in July.

NHL 21 featured Alexander Ovechkin on the cover and introduced a number of new skill moves to the series, including the incredibly difficult lacrosse-style shot and more.

Fans are buzzing after the season post-credit scene for Marvel’s WandaVision appears to have been altered. But did Marvel sneak in an extra teaser for future Marvel projects?

Eagle-eyed fans noticed that certain details about the WandaVision post-credit scene where after Wanda leaves Westview and goes to a secluded cabin in the woods — looks a bit different.

There are more trees, and a duck that has been edited out digitally, but some fans were convinced that there was actually a Doctor Strange easter egg added in as well.

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Doctor Strange Visits Wanda, Maybe?

The post-credit scene begins with a shot of the secluded forest Wanda has hidden away in. But in the left corner of the screen is a weird invisible blob that kind of looks like a human figure descending towards Wanda’s cabin.

Some fans have taken this to be a secret Doctor Strange appearance that was edited in months after the WandaVision season finale. As you may recall, the non-appearance of Doctor Strange was one of the biggest disappointments for fans, even after WandaVision star Paul Bettany teased a big cameo.

Was this new addition to the post-credit scene a make-good from Marvel to disappointed fans? Not so fast. One filmmaker on Reddit has seemingly found a more benign explanation for the human-shaped blob.

An Editing Mistake

User u/Cinephobe has published a short video on Reddit that suggests that Marvel did appear to add more trees and remove some other bits of scenery to the post-credit scene, but the mysterious Doctor Strange-shaped blob is in fact another scenery edit gone awry.

Cinephobe says that there is a light in the original scene that is distracting. Marvel’s editors seemed to notice this light as well and digitally removed it as part of the wider scenery changes made to the environment.

However, this edit was not removed from the whole scene, so it created this tracking mirage that is easily mistaken for an invisible cloaked figure descending to Wanda’s cabin.

What About the New Credit?

Another change that convinced fans there is a new Doctor Strange cameo is actually in the credits themselves. Doctor Strange composer Michael Giacchino has been added to the list of composers for the series, and his name was not there during the original airing of WandaVision.

But IGN’s Joshua Yehl spoke with WandaVision director Matt Shakman and received confirmation that the Doctor Strange theme was used in the post-credits scene. Giacchino was uncredited during the original airing, presumably to prevent spoilers while the show was live. It seems now that the series has wrapped Marvel has added the proper composer credit.

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After the backlash against extreme fan theories that suggested characters like Magneto and Doctor Strange would make cameos, it would be weird for Disney to stoke those flames further with newly altered post-credit scenes.

And while creators like George Lucas have tinkered extensively with their movies after the release, it seems the post-credit changes for WandaVision are more innocuous.

Disney Plus is currently running its news Marvel series, Loki. Check out IGN’s review of the first Loki episode.

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Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor.

One of the big surprises of E3 2021 was Microsoft’s announcement of Forza Horizon 5. Ahead of that game’s release, it appears that new development for Forza Horizon 4 is being wound down: there won’t be any more new cars or features coming to it.

In Playground Games’ Forza Monthly livestream for this month, the studio announced that it will no longer be adding vehicles or features to Forza Horizon 4 after several years of consistent live-game support for it. Due to most of the employees shifting their full attention over to Forza Horizon 5, seasonal updates will transition to feature remixed sets of past seasons’ content.

“So starting with Series update 38, players who know the game well will start to see the return of content from Series 7 to 32,” senior producer Tom Butcher explained. “Think of it a bit like a mix tape, featuring the return of some of your favorite content combined with recently added new features.”

In addition to sharing this development update on Forza Horizon 4, the studio also revealed some info on what to expect for Forza Horizon 5’s performance on the current generation. The default on Xbox Series X is 4K resolution at 30fps, while the Xbox Series S will run at 1080p 60fps. Both versions will have a performance mode option to turn up the framerate to 60fps, although this mode comes with a reduction in certain graphics features.

Forza Horizon 5 will be released on November 9 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and it’ll take place in Mexico. The developer has stated that it will be the biggest and most diverse game in the series, and preorders are up now. As with all Microsoft first-party games, it’ll also be available for Xbox Game Pass subscribers. If you’re not already signed up for Game Pass, be sure to take advantage of a limited-time offer that gets you your first three months for $1.