No Man’s Sky, the huge open-universe exploration game that has continued to expand since release, recently came to Xbox Game Pass. It’s been a bit over a month since the game joined the service, and according to programmer Sean Murray it’s led to a huge increase in players.
“Last month we welcomed over a million new players into No Man’s Sky by virtue of Xbox Game Pass and the Windows 10 release,” he writes. “This, together with our cross-play update, meant that we are seeing some of our biggest ever in-game numbers, all playing together regardless of their gaming platform.”
Murray calls this huge boost in players “genuinely humbling.”
We’ve reviewed No Man’s Sky three times as the game has received updates and improved, and its current iteration earned a 9/10. “The drastic improvements made to No Man’s Sky in its Beyond expansion are the new gold standard for how to gracefully cope with a game’s flaws post-release,” wrote reviewer Justin Clark.
Recently, 2K Sports announced that NBA 2K21 for PS5/Xbox Series X will cost $70 USD, which is a $10 price increase from the $60 USD that has been commonplace since the Xbox 360/PS3 era. Other publishers are expected to follow suit and raise prices for next-gen games, but the full picture has not yet become clear. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has now commented on the matter, telling The Washington Post that he sees no problem with the price increase. Gamers will ultimately vote with their wallets, after all.
“As an industry, we can price things whatever we want to price them, and the customer will decide what the right price is for them,” Spencer said. “I’m not negative on people setting a new price point for games because I know everybody’s going to drive their own decisions based on their own business needs. But gamers have more choice today than they ever have. In the end, I know the customer is in control of the price that they pay, and I trust that system.”
Spencer declined to say if Microsoft’s own new games will cost $70 USD, but the situation at Xbox is somewhat different. With Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft offers a subscription service that gets you all first-party Xbox games for around $10 USD per month.
Before the $10 price increase for NBA 2K21 was announced, PlayStation boss Shawn Layden spoke about how the current AAA games business is unsustainable.
“It’s been $59.99 since I started in this business, but the cost of games have gone up ten times,” Layden told GI.biz. “If you don’t have elasticity on the price-point, but you have huge volatility on the cost line, the model becomes more difficult. I think this generation is going to see those two imperatives collide.”
IDG Consulting’s Yoshio Osaki said that, despite increasing development costs, the price of games has not increased in the same way that something like a Netflix subscription has. “Even with the increase to $69.99 for next-gen, that price increase from 2005 to 2020 next-gen is only up 17%, far lower than the other comparisons,” he said. “While the cost of development and publishing have gone up, and pricing in other entertainment verticals has also gone up substantially, next-gen software pricing has not reflected these increases. $59.99 to $69.99 does not even cover these other cost increases completely, but does move it more in the proper direction.”
Osaki added that he believes other publishers are “exploring moving their next-gen pricing up on certain franchises.”
Since its 2005 debut to mixed reviews, Constantine, which cast Keanu Reeves as a demon hunter on a holy mission, has gained a cult following. The movie turned a small profit worldwide on a $100 million budget, and never got a follow-up. But the film’s director, Francis Lawrence, says that he’d still be keen–and so would Reeves.
Speaking to Slashfilm, Lawrence says that the whole team wanted to do a sequel, but it would have had to make some changes. “We wanted to make a responsible, more R-rated movie,” he says. “By responsible, I mean we’d make a movie that wouldn’t cost quite as much as the original, which we thought was going to be PG-13.”
Lawrence says that they worked on a sequel for a while, and says that the team has talked about it again recently. “Keanu, (producer Akiva Goldsman), and I have actually talked about it,” he says, clarifying that they talked “recently” about a sequel. But it’s complicated, as Constantine is a comic license that there might be other plans for.
“I don’t even remember who has it, but with all these shared universes that exist now, with Constantine being a part of Vertigo, which is a part of DC, people have plans for these shared universes,” he says. “You know, possibly different Constantines and things like that. Right now, we don’t have that character available to us for TV or movies, which is a bummer.”
“I think it’s kind of crazy when you have Keanu, who would love to do another Constantine, and us wanting to do another Constantine, and people are like, ‘Uh, no, we got other plans,'” Lawrence adds.
Lawrence has gone on to work with actor Jennifer Lawrence (no relation) multiple times, directing the last three Hunger Games movies, as well as Red Sparrow and a Dior ad. He also directed another cult classic for an iconic actor in 2007’s I Am Legend, starring Will Smith.
Keanu Reeves’ career has gone through a resurgence lately, partly because of excellent performances in the John Wick trilogy and amazing, self-aware cameos in Always Be My Maybe and Toy Story 4, and partly because of his reputation as the nicest guy in Hollywood. He’s also going to be all over Cyberpunk 2077.
Constantine got a game adaptation to Xbox and PS2–check out our original review if you’re interested.
Fans anticipating the perennially postponed Godzilla vs. Kong — the sequel to both Godzilla: King of Monsters and Kong: Skull Island — can now catch a glimpse of the movie via some sneak peek art spotted on the back of Playmates Toys’ figure packaging.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
Pop open a Mountain Dew and do a kickflip over a guard rail because it’s time for WWE’s July PPV, Extreme Rules. However, unlike what was considered “extreme” during the ’00s, this event will feature some crazy stipulations, see competitors hit each other with weapons, and more. This year’s event has been branded “the Horror Show,” so expect the unexpected.
The PPV will be taking place at WWE’s Performance Center in Florida, as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the company to stop performing in arenas in front of thousands of fans. Depending on where you live in the world, this show will air at a reasonable hour or super-early in the morning. Check out the start times below.
Start time:
4 PM PT
6 PM CT
7 PM ET
12 AM BST (July 20)
9 AM AEST (July 20)
If you’re looking to watch the event, you’ll have to sign up for the WWE Network. The streaming service allows users to watch old episodes of Raw, Smackdown, and more–including PPVs. Additionally, you can stream PPVs live, and it’s honestly the best way to watch them as you’re paying $10 a month compared to $35 and upward per PPV.
The match card is interesting, to say the least. Either Rey Mysterio or Seth Rollins will lose an eye in the Eye for an Eye Match–which GameSpot’s Wrestle Buddies find very silly. Braun Strowman will take on Bray Wyatt–not the Fiend–in a swamp battle near the Wyatt compound. Additionally, there are numerous title matches happening during the evening. Check out the match card below.
Match card:
New Day vs. Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura – Tables Match for Smackdown Tag Team Championship
Apollo Crews (c) vs. MVP – United States Championship
Rey Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins – Eye for an Eye Match
Bayley (c) vs. Nikki Cross – Smackdown Women’s Championship
Asuka (c) vs. Sasha Banks – Raw Women’s Championship
Drew McIntyre vs. Dolph Ziggler – WWE Championship
Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt – Wyatt Swamp Fight
Below, you’ll find live coverage of the event as it happens, and if you’re looking for something else to add to your life, check out GameSpot’s weekly podcast Wrestle Buddies. Each week, Mat Elfring and Chris E. Hayner talk about the fun side of wrestling, from silly gimmicks to their favorite PPVs. Also, they occasionally interview wrestlers. New episodes arrive every Thursday, and you can check it out on Spotify, Stitcher, and Apple Podcasts.
Kickoff Show
The Kickoff show for Extreme Rules begins at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET
It’s another Sunday, which means another day of deals! The weekend continues to treat Funko Pop collectors well, as the Pokemon deal at Amazon is still in full effect, letting you pick up dozens of new POPs at a discounted price. If you’re in the market for tech, check out the cheap Corsair RAM on sale at Newegg, or the awesome 20,000mAh power bank on sale at Best Buy.
Call Of Duty: Warzone, Infinity Ward’s battle royale shooter, released in March of 2020 and is entering season 5 in August with some unconfirmed map altering events. This year Activision is also expected to publish a Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War title which is being developed by Treyarch. It’s unclear at this stage if Cold War’s multiplayer will tie into Warzone directly, but it would make sense for Cold War items to turn up in Warzone.
Ahead of season 5, this video takes a look at eleven changes that could be made to the game right now during season 4. Some of these changes include a better drop system, expanded communication ping wheel, improved armor mechanics, better climbing system, balancing, and major map changes and events. Warzone has teased in-game events most notably when players discovered phones ringing around the map that allowed them to solve a puzzle and enter Bunker 11. Inside they found a blood-covered room where nuclear weapons appeared to have been stolen. The missing warhead later turned up in another bunker on top of a ballistic missile. Fan-favorite Captain Price arrived in season 4 with his re-formed task force 141 to handle the problem. As of yet, nothing else has happened.
Warzone is one of the many cross-progression multiplayer modes in Call Of Duty: Modern warfare. Warzone has also experimented with many limited timed variations including increasing the player count to 200 and a mode where players fight over juggernaut suits. Modern Warfare is currently out for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Warzone is also available standalone and free-to-play.
At this weekend’s virtual Skybound Xpo panel — Skybound: Past, Present, and Future — Skybound co-founder and Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman gave fans an update on the Rick Grimes sequel movie, which will follow Andrew Lincoln’s character Rick following his departure from the TV series in Season 9.
“There’s tons of stuff going on behind the scenes,” Kirkman said. “I don’t want anyone to think that we’re just kind of waiting around for this pandemic to end.”
“I would say that, if anything, the pandemic is going to make a lot of movies better,” he added. “I think the Rick Grimes movie chief among them, just because we’re getting a lot more time to cook this thing and make sure it’s perfect.”
“But when things do quiet down, you guys are going to hear a ton more about this movie.”
The Walking Dead’s Season 10 finale never aired, due to the pandemic interrupting the post-production work needed to complete the episode, so fans have been left stranded on the precipice of a brutal war with Beta and his horde of walkers for months now.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
