For many of us, months of lockdown and quarantine has provided the time to finish projects, learn new skills, or perhaps just sit around watching lots of Netflix. For author George R.R. Martin, it’s meant one thing–working on much anticipated six novel in the fantasy series that Game of Thrones was adapted from. In his latest blog update, Martin has revealed just how tedious his life has got while he tries to finish the book, titled The Winds of Winter.
Martin revealed that his life has entered a routine that revolves around food, drink, and writing–the first two being provided by assistants which he refers to as “minions.” “My life up here is very boring, it must be said,” he said. “Truth be told, I hardly can be said to have a life. Everyone morning I wake up and go straight to the computer, where my minion brings me coffee (I am utterly useless and incoherent without my morning coffee) and juice, and sometimes a light breakfast. Then I start to write. Sometimes I stay at it until dark.
“Other days I break off in late afternoon to answer emails or return urgent phone calls. My assistant brings me food and drink from time to time. When I finally break off for the day, usually around sunset, there’s dinner. Then we watch television or screen a movie.”
Martin doesn’t reveal how close he is to finishing The Winds of Winter, but in any case, fans have learnt not to trust promised delivery dates. The most recent update on that occurred back in June, when he stated he hoped the novel would be finished by the next summer. However, he did also state, “It’s going to be a huge book, and I still have a long way to go.”
Although Game of Thrones finished last year on TV, there is a spin-off show in the works. House of the Dragon will be set 300 years before the events of the main series, and will focus on the rise of House Targaryen. The series will consist of 10 episodes, and HBO programming chief Casey Bloys previously stated that he was hopeful we would see it in 2022. For more check out Game Spot’s guide to everything we know about House of the Dragon.
Click To Unmute
Size:
Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?
While the Nintendo Switch only has two official controllers–the Joy-Con and Pro Controller–a practically endless supply of third-party options are available at this point. Many of the less expensive third-party controllers are themed with popular franchises, and what’s more popular than Super Mario? If you’re looking for a new, budget-friendly gamepad and happen to be fond of the Italian plumber, Hori and PowerA both have new controllers releasing next month for $25.
The Hori Mini Pad is specifically designed for kids, as it has a much more compact shape by eliminating the lengthy handles seen on most modern controllers. Still, it retains all of the buttons of the Pro Controller, and this iteration has a charming Super Mario graphic featuring Mario and Bowser in front of Peach’s Castle. This wired controller releases September 1 and is available to pre-order now for $25 at Amazon.
PowerA’s Enhanced controller line features mappable buttons, so you can change inputs on the fly to fit your preferences. The accessory manufacturer is easily the most prolific when it comes to third-party Switch controllers, and the latest “Golden M” model stands out. Mushrooms and various blocks combine to make the letter M in gold, which looks great against the red background. This wired controller releases September 4 and is available to pre-order at Amazon for $25.
If you’re looking for a new wireless controller option for Nintendo Switch, make sure to check out our roundup of the best Nintendo Switch controllers. Our list includes a wide variety of gamepads, including numerous models from Hori and PowerA.
Cold Symmetry’s Mortal Shell is a tribute to From Software’s Souls series that incorporates a cast of heroes to build throughout your adventure. Playing as the protagonist known as The Foundling, you’ll take on several nervewracking and death-defying challenges while exploring a hostile and desolate world. To do that, you’ll inhabit the bodies of different warriors who have their unique connections to the world of Fallgrim. Mortal Shell has many echoes of the popular and challenging Souls-like games, while also injecting its twists on the formula. But there’s also a hidden way to turn the difficulty up even further.
While controlling the shells in Mortal Shell is one of the game’s biggest highlights, it’s possible to make things even more challenging by permanently disabling them entirely. In doing so, you’ll stay in The Foundling’s base form, who has nearly unlimited stamina but will die in one hit. Given that the game’s flow is about that careful balance of offense and defense, this added challenge isn’t recommended for newcomers to the game, and it’s best to at least finish the game once before attempting it.
Surprisingly, you can activate this alternate version of the game shortly after the opening minutes. Once you venture into the core area of Fallgrim, shortly after the quick cutscene pointing you in the direction of the Fallgrim tower, make a right down the path leading down further into the swamps. You’ll encounter some spear-wielding enemies and poisonous frogs, but it’s best to run past them once you reach the shallow river, head right, and then make an immediate left to head back north. Right next to you will be a tree, make another right to walk up a walkway to find a hole leading further into the tree.
Once inside, you’ll find a shrine that will give you a choice to renounce your shells and proceed with the rest of the game as just The Foundling. There will be a warning accompanied by this choice, giving you one last chance to reconsider. If you proceed, The Foundling will take on slightly different form, and all shells will be unusable for the rest of the game. This also means that you won’t be able to gain upgrades for your character. Sester Genessa, who upgrades your shells, will also be there to offer insight into the world and serve as a glorified checkpoint from here on out.
While this may seem harsh, you’re still given access to a suite of weapon and gear upgrades to boost your weapons’ power. Plus, all the tar and glimpse you would have spent on your shells can now be used on the merchant to buy items and other trinkets. The Foundling is still capable of holding its own in a battle–arguably more so in some cases. As mentioned previously, they have an immense about of stamina, allowing them to last longer in fights. However, one blow from an enemy take them out instantly, and without a shell to retreat back into, you’ll instantly be booted back to your last checkpoint if you fail in a fight.
It’s certainly a bold challenge to take on, and it does have some echoes of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which also had a similar mechanic that you could enable. After my first playthough, I can how much of a challenge it would be to finish the game without getting hit once in a fight, but it certainly seems possible, and I don’t doubt that some of the more skillful players will be able to pull it off.
In our full review of Mortal Shell, editor Phil Hornshaw praised the game’s unique approach to paying tribute to From Software’s games.
“Mortal Shell succeeds more often than not at capturing the specific feelings intrinsic to Souls-like games. The twists it adds to From-inspired mechanics do well to help this sort of game become more approachable than most, while maintaining the same air of mystery and foreboding that makes the genre itself so intriguing. Mortal Shell makes for a strong introduction to Souls-likes, a demonstration for new players of what so many have found so interesting about From Software’s games and those like them. But Mortal Shell is also a lovingly crafted, weird, and deceptively deep game in its own right that rewards you for wandering its twisted paths and challenging its deadliest foes.”
For more on Mortal Shell, go check out our extensive guide on some helpful tips for those venturing into the hostile world of Fallgrim for the first time.
In the latest development of the very public spat between Apple and Epic Games, Epic has issued a new filing in which it claims that Apple has “retaliated ferociously” to its lawsuit. While we already knew that Apple had removed Fortnite from the App Store, it’s now taken things further. According to Epic, Apple will cut off Epic’s access to development tools later this month–including those it uses to work on the Unreal Engine utilized by Epic and numerous other developers in the industry.
Epic’s filing quickly notes that Apple has not indicated that the Unreal Engine itself has violated any App Store policies. “Not content simply to remove Fortnite from the App Store, Apple is attacking Epic’s entire business in unrelated areas,” the filing states.
In response to this threat, Epic is seeking an injunction against Apple. Epic argues that it would eventually succeed in its recently filed legal case, but that Apple is attempting to “crush” Epic before the case can get to that point with what it says would be a “catastrophic” action against its Unreal Engine business.
Specifically, the injunction looks to block Apple from doing three key things: de-listing Fortnite from the App Store (or otherwise making it unavailable); taking adverse action against Epic, such as terminating its access to the Apple Developer Program; or removing Fortnite from existing users’ devices. As it stands, existing Fortnite players can continue to play the game on iOS or re-download the game, although Epic has said that forthcoming updates (including the new season) will not be available to download on the platform. This filing suggests the possibility that Apple could take things further and outright disable the game from being played, even in its current form, on iOS devices. So far, Apple has not publicly indicated that it intends to do so.
Essentially, Epic is asking the courts to force Apple to put its actions–both those it’s taken and might take in the future–against Epic and Fortnite on hold while its court case is adjudicated.
Epic also argues that it would suffer “irreparable harm” if Apple were to cut off its Developer Program access. From the filing:
Apple’s retaliation represents an existential threat to Epic’s Unreal Engine. OS providers like Apple routinely make certain software and developer tools available to software developers, for free or a small fee, to enable the development of software that will run on the OS. Apple intends to deny Epic access to that widely available material. Without that access, Epic cannot develop future versions of the Unreal Engine for use on iOS or macOS. Developers that intend to sell their apps for use on iOS or macOS devices will have to forgo the Unreal Engine in favor of other engines. The effects will reverberate well beyond video games; it will affect developers who use the Unreal Engine on Apple products in many fields. The ensuing impact on the Unreal Engine’s viability, and the trust and confidence developers have in that engine, cannot be repaired with a monetary award. This is quintessential irreparable harm.
This new filing is lengthy, although portions of it simply re-state what was argued in the lawsuit last week. Essentially it boils down to this: Epic accuses Apple (and Google, in its separate lawsuit) of operating a monopoly with the way the App Store operates. The entire situation began when Epic introduced an alternative payment method inside of Fortnite, giving players an option to purchase V-Bucks directly from Epic and cutting Apple out entirely. Apple responded by kicking Fortnite off the App Store, prompting Epic’s lawsuit.
We’ll report back as we learn more.
Click To Unmute
Size:
Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?
In the five years since its release, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has seen some steep discounts on its console versions, making one of the greatest open-world RPGs ever made even more attainable to players on PS4 and Xbox One. Since the Switch port released last year, however, the game has hovered around the $50-$60 price range, compared to the sub-$20 prices seen on other consoles. If you’ve held off on buying the game on Switch, now’s a great time to do so, as Best Buy is offering The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition for $40 in its latest Deal of the Day. The PS4 and Xbox One versions are also discounted to $17 each.
If you’ve never played The Witcher 3, you’d be better off picking up the game on PS4 or Xbox One if possible, as the game’s visuals are downgraded on Nintendo Switch and, of course, those versions are much cheaper. However, if you just want to experience the game’s story and gameplay and have the ability to play in handheld mode, the Switch version is still a fine way to experience the adventure. Overall, the Switch port still earned a 9/10 in GameSpot’s The Witcher 3 Switch review.
“For returning players, the visual downgrade may require some getting used to. However, focusing solely on The Witcher 3’s visuals does this port a disservice. Four years later, the game is still massive in scope, and seeing the battle-scarred swamps of Velen, jagged peaks of Skellige, and sprawling countryside of Toussaint on a technically inferior platform is still a sight to behold,” wrote Jake Dekker. “Although the Nintendo Switch might not be the best platform to play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it’s still a fantastic experience that shouldn’t be missed.”
Jurnee Smollett would like very much to reprise her role as Black Canary from this year’s Birds of Prey. In an interview with Variety to promote the new HBO series Lovecraft Country, which premiered this last weekend, Smolett mentioned in passing that she still finds herself thinking about her DC superhero turn from earlier this year.
“I mean, you can’t help but imagine it a little bit…like, ‘What would I do with a Black Canary show?'” Smollett wondered aloud. “It’d be exciting, I know that.”
Birds of Prey, about the “fatanbulous emancipation” of Harley Quinn following her break-up with Joker, came out in February earlier this year–just before COVID changed the landscape for film releases, production, and life as we know it, so it really says something that Smollett is still daydreaming her character.
“It’s no secret how much I love Black Canary. It’s a dream character, and was a dream to play her,” Smollett said. “If [the] dynamics fell in the right away, I would absolutely do it in a heartbeat.”
While movies and projects don’t get greenlit on a star making it know they’d like to participate in them alone, it certainly doesn’t hurt to express such things publicly.
Smollett’s new series, Lovecraft Country, is an adaptation of the 2016 novel of the same name by Matt Ruff. Like the book, the HBO show is an exploration of the contrasting horror fiction of H. P. Lovecraft and racism in the United States during the era of Jim Crow laws, as experienced by Black science-fiction fan (and Korean War veteran) Atticus Freeman and his family. Smollett plays Freeman’s (Jonathan Majors) friend opposite George Freeman (Courtney B. Vance), as the trio embark on a road trip across 1950s America.
WB Games Montreal has been teasing its next game, with a talk scheduled for DC Fandome. But we may hear more about it as soon as tomorrow, judging by new teasers for the game rumored to be called Batman: Gotham Knights.
A teaser issued on Twitter includes an encoded message, along with a short video clip drawing diagrams in a grid. It quickly flashes a more organic-looking image, which some fans have speculated looks similar to an owl. This follows rumors that the new game will be based on the Court of Owls storyline.
Meanwhile, the official site has started a countdown timer which appears to end at 8 AM tomorrow, 8/18. That could finally be the reveal of the game ahead of the developer chat this weekend, but of course, it could also lead to more teasers.
The teases for WB Montreal’s next game have been slowly releasing since September 2019, so an announcement has seemed imminent for some time. Most of the promotion has used the slogan “Capture the Knight.” Rumors have suggested this may be called Gotham Knights, a reference to an early 2000s series revolving around the entire Bat-family of crime-fighters.
The WB Montreal panel at DC Fandome will begin at 10:30 AM PT on August 22. Later that day, at 5 PM PT, Rocksteady will show off its Suicide Squad game with a panel titled “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.” It’s unknown right know if that’s also the name of the game. Check out the full Fandome schedule for more details on how to watch.
In this episode of Remember When, Kurt Indovina looks back on how Halo was nearly a Mac exclusive, dissects exactly how it almost happened, and dares to question what a world would have been like if it actually did happen.Aiding Kurt on his journey is Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto, who gives some insight into what it was like to be a Mac developer in the 90s, early iterations of Halo, and the possibilities of what Halo would have been like if it was released only on Mac.
It’s hard to separate talking about Mortal Shell from discussing the Souls games–Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice–because developer Cold Symmetry has obviously created a love letter to From Software’s work. But Mortal Shell isn’t a simple retread. It adds ideas and mechanics that shift your way of thinking about its duelist-style combat. Mortal Shell is a small-scale Souls-like game, demanding less of an investment of time and frustration. It feels tuned for more casual players–people who have been interested in this brand of experience, but who maybe struggled in the twitch reactions department–while still striking all the same essential nerves.
You play a faceless, voiceless being dubbed “The Foundling,” more akin to a spirit than a person, who leaves what seems to be a sort of astral plane in order to venture into a decaying, poisonous world known as Fallgrim. There, you meet various characters who give typically spooky, cryptic speeches about the gradual degradation of the world and the religious zealots who populate it. Practically, just about anyone you come across wants to murder you, and in your white spirit-ish form, you’re little match for them–one hit will destroy you.
To survive, you need a better body, which is where the name Mortal Shell comes from. You’re able to inhabit the corpses, or shells, of some tough warriors you find along the way, which make you a little less prone to instant death. The four shells in the game each play a little differently from one another, providing a set of different character builds you can swap between as you play. Each also has unique special perks you can unlock in a typically Souls-like way by spending currencies you earn from killing enemies–currencies you can permanently lose if you’re killed and don’t retrieve them from your own dead body. The four shells keep Mortal Shell approachable, as you only need to learn how to handle each one (or just your favorite), rather than worry about developing the stats of an RPG-style character build.
Combat in Mortal Shell owes its underlying basics to Dark Souls and Bloodborne, functioning in almost the exact same way. You have a faster light attack and a slower heavy attack, as well as a backstep that you can convert into a roll to dodge your enemies. How much you can swing your sword and how many times you can dodge are dictated by a stamina gauge, which quickly refills when you’re not swinging away or rolling like mad.
There’s also a parry and riposte that’s almost exactly like Bloodborne’s Visceral attack, but with a different essential function. If you can time a parry correctly, the riposte attack you get afterward restores health, making it the most reliable way to heal yourself in the game–otherwise, you’re reliant on consumable items you find around the world. You can’t activate the parry unless you build up a meter called Resolve, however, which you get by dealing damage. So while harden is a defensive ability that gives you options for waiting and letting your opponents come at you, the Resolve system pushes you to be more aggressive, landing hits and making parries so you can stay alive.
The thing that sets Mortal Shell apart from its inspirations is the “harden” ability, something intrinsic to your spiritual form that you bring to each of the shells you inhabit. When you harden, you briefly turn to stone, allowing you to tank a hit before the stone breaks. Blocking a hit with harden will also often stagger your opponent as their blow bounces off you, putting them slightly off-balance. Harden has a short cooldown, so you can’t use it constantly–it’s meant for strategic activations, particularly as you’re facing a volley of blows or even when you’re in the middle of your own attack animation. You can start a swing and harden midway through, ignoring your opponents’ attacks so you can land your own.
The harden ability provides a whole new set of essential strategies to Mortal Shell’s combat. Hardening lets you turn yourself into a Trojan Horse, baiting your enemies to attack you so you can get in under their guard. Especially with tougher bosses, the key to victory is almost always to strategically harden yourself so you can score a hit when you’d otherwise be eviscerated. Used mid-fight, it can let you slam your way through enemies, keeping your own string of devastating blows going while knocking your prey off-balance and mitigating any punishment your aggression would earn you.
Harden makes Mortal Shell’s combat calculating and deliberate, and along with a very forgiving dodge that leaves you nigh-on invincible, also lessens Mortal Shell’s difficulty–without necessarily tipping you off that the game is somewhat less brutal than its inspirations. And that seems to be the alchemy Cold Symmetry is going for. Mortal Shell feels like a Dark Souls game, pushing you to build skills, study enemies, carefully dole out resources, and intelligently mix aggressive and defensive play. But it’s also one where you can dodge through basically any enemy attack or ignore them altogether by hardening to score a free hit. These abilities still allow combat to feel intense most of the time in Mortal Shell, but the game also doesn’t expect you to spend hours defeating a single boss.
The big drawback of Mortal Shell’s combat system is that it’s easy to become too reliant on hardening to slowly chip away at enemies and bosses, one slice at a time. One boss fight comes down to pretty much turning to stone, landing a hit, then dodging to avoid any reprisals, and repeating that process for five or 10 minutes until it’s all over. This combination is actually a viable strategy in many of the fights in the game, and it can turn battles against some of your tougher opponents into lengthy, plodding slogs where you never feel like you’re in any real danger.
And while you get a smattering of weapons and shells, there are definitely major incentives to sticking with just one of each for most of a run as you unlock upgrades and damage increases. I’d loved to have spent more time with the huge Martyr Blade or the fire-infused Smoldering Mace, but being comfortable with the first sword you come by makes it a lot more reliable for winning fights and avoiding the punishment of death.
Mortal Shell’s big focus outside of combat is on exploration, and it’s part of every other system of the game. You spend most of your time exploring Fallgrim, and as you do, you’ll soon happen across its three huge temples, which stand as Zelda-like dungeons and house three Sacred Glands you need to claim from the bosses within. Each temple is markedly different from the others and provides some gorgeous, inventive locales to fight through, including a deep, icy cave, a flaming crypt, and a twisted obsidian tower that would be right at home in a game like Control or Destiny 2. Each location feels specific to the challenges within, and exploring them is a treat as you’re rewarded with lore and weapon upgrades for checking every corner.
You’re not just exploring the physical space of Mortal Shell, but also what you find there. This manifests in the Familiarity system, which implores you to try the items you come across in the game and to deepen your understanding of them. You might find a strange mushroom, a hunk of rotten meat, or a batch of dubious moonshine, but you won’t know how any will affect you until you stuff them in your face. Using an item once uncovers its properties, but continuing to use it builds Familiarity, making it more effective. You can even build Familiarity with inconsequential items–use a lute enough times and you’ll get really good at playing it, even though it serves no purpose except to listen to a short bit of music and maybe entertain the occasional non-player character.
The Familiarity system pays off experimentation and encourages your curiosity, helping to ground you in Mortal Shell’s world in some cool ways. Snacking on a mushroom got me poisoned and then immediately killed in one early fight, but after eating a few more (despite my better judgment), my Familiarity made poison mushrooms give me poison resistance. You find Effigy items that allow you to switch between shells while you’re out in the world, but you take damage every time you summon one–unless you build Familiarity with the effigies, which cuts back on the penalty. You also can unlock additional lore tidbits on items the more you use them, to further play up the sense that you’re learning about Mortal Shell’s world as you wander through it.
You even can explore the shells you find, which is where the drip-feed of Mortal Shell’s story mostly resides. As you unlock perks for the shells, you’re treated to “glimpses” into their former lives and the people they were, which show connections to other characters you encounter and give you some information about what’s going on in Fallgrim through your shells’ experiences. In typical Souls fashion, however, you’ll have to make the major leaps on your own, and after one run through the game, I’m not sure the story ever comes together into anything more coherent than a bunch of interesting lore tidbits from shells, item descriptions, and short snatches of dialogue.
And it’s in some of that exploration that Mortal Shell stumbles most. The swampy Fallgrim area that connects the dungeons all tends to look the same, with few clues as to where one section is in relationship to another, or how they link together. You only need to get to those three temples to advance the game, and yet I wandered around for a while trying to find the right path forward, often accidentally stumbling back over ground I’d already covered, or winding up back where I started.
There are also times when enemy placement can feel frustrating or cheap. Mortal Shell really likes to ambush you with combatants you can’t see until they show up, so much so that it’s easy to get overwhelmed at a few points, forcing you to run back through big, confusing areas that can feel like a drag. Mortal Shell is built to put you through a gauntlet every time clear a dungeon, forcing you to run back all the way to the starting point while facing a new onslaught of enemies, and save points are just distant enough that dying feels irritatingly prohibitive if you make a mistake or get caught in a corner. With Mortal Shell placing a premium on healing items, you can easily find yourself fresh out of roasted rats and medicinal mushrooms, leaving you pretty much dependent on a lucky break to make it to the next checkpoint.
Still, Mortal Shell succeeds more often than not at capturing the specific feelings intrinsic to Souls-like games. The twists it adds to From-inspired mechanics do well to help this sort of game become more approachable than most, while maintaining the same air of mystery and foreboding that makes the genre itself so intriguing. Mortal Shell makes for a strong introduction to Souls-likes, a demonstration for new players of what so many have found so interesting about From Software’s games and those like them. But Mortal Shell is also a lovingly crafted, weird, and deceptively deep game in its own right that rewards you for wandering its twisted paths and challenging its deadliest foes.
Souls-likes aren’t long just because they’re difficult–there are plenty of hidden pathways and lore to discover in their expansive worlds. Developer Cold Symmetry’s Mortal Shell, while being Souls-like in nature, isn’t nearly as long as its contemporaries. The 40+ hours it takes to beat something like Nioh 2 can easily stretch to 100+ hours as you slam your head–and maybe your controller–against its punishing challenges while exploring the unpredictable world. Mortal Shell looks to adhere to the “brevity is the soul of wit” adage.
Launching on PC (via the Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, Mortal Shell drastically shaves the expected Souls-like length. It will only take about 12 to 15 hours to finish the game.
Mortal Shell’s length is a stark contrast from the genre’s expectations, with most Souls-likes easily reaching the 40-to-50-hour range on just the main campaign alone. Add in secrets, optional bosses, hidden weapons, and the like, and these lengths become much longer than initially thought. Mortal Shell doesn’t fit that mold, despite a New Game Plus being available that allows you to carry over your previous run’s equipment.
In other Mortal Shell news, publisher Playstack has confirmed that physical editions of the game will launch on October 2 for $30 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The digital version, also priced at $30, comes out on August 18.
