Author: Trafficblast

Warning: The following review contains spoilers for the Agents of SHIELD two-part series finale. 

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After seven seasons, and a notable full split from the MCU around the time of Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel’s Agents SHIELD wrapped up its massive (and sometimes overstuffed) saga with a two-parter that was all about giving us a warm send-off for this tight-knit, ragtag family.

Yes, surprisingly, everything smoothed out just fine for the SHIELD team, which was somewhat unexpected given the show’s habit of dealing out somber tragedy on a regular basis. Of course, the ending couldn’t exactly repeat the dour, but also appropriate, ending to Season 5 — back when the writers were crafting a possible series finale because they had a strong suspicion it was the end — where Coulson died for real. That felt like a true bookend. Continuing two seasons past that, things had to go down differently.

The fans love the characters and the cast loves each other, so there was no reason to not send us out with a big love fest. In fact, the final ten minutes or so of “What We’re Fighting For” was dedicated to giving us closure and a big “where are they now?” epilogue.

Seeing the core team (absent Deke and Sousa), still intact, with no members having perished during the final showdown with the Chronicoms and Nathaniel Malick, all sitting around in a virtual reunion, it became apparent how little the rest of the season meant. That’s not meant to be a dig, really, but just a way of noting that it didn’t really matter, overall, who the villains were, or what the threat to the planet was. The series has been all about these characters for years now and the rest of it’s just “big bad” dressing.

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Of course, without this year’s cross-time caper, Sousa wouldn’t have gotten swept up into the mix, which has been a big boon for the show, but Fitz returned (yes, they really did save his big Deus Ex Machina moment for the finale) and basically told the team that basically everything they’d just been through (including Mack losing his parents) didn’t count because he was now back from the Quantum Realm to switch them all over to the original timeline just seconds after they initially blipped out of it. Their main goal had been (unknowingly to them) to get Daisy’s sister, Kora, who didn’t even become a plot point until more than halfway through the season.

Nothing undercuts the adventure like having someone come in and say “it doesn’t matter what you did, it only matters what we do now.” That being said, this final season has still been entertaining, even if the revelation in the finale worked to undermine most of it. I guess that’s the risk you run when you’re dealing with time travel, resetting timelines, and temporal tinkering. It’s nothing we didn’t already experience to some extent back in the second half of Season 5.

Still, given all this, “The End Is at Hand” — which featured Mack, Daisy, and Sousa rescuing Simmons and Deke — and “What We’re Fighting For” were both rollicking affairs filled with action, heart, and humor. Daisy even got to have a final Quake-tastic battle with the anti-Quake, Nathaniel, as a cool one-on-one super battle. And their fight even came with a death tease when it seemed like Daisy would actually go out swinging, sacrificing herself for the team. But she was saved, Kora blasted Sibyl’s Chronicom army with empathy (sure), and the entire evil plot to conquer Earth was undone.

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Though as much as these two episodes featured spirited action, as well as a fitting send-off for young the John Garrett (played by Bill Paxton’s son, James), the focus here, for a show that’s arguably lingered on a few years after it gave us a fitting finale, was on the characters and their fates. What really mattered was the interpersonal interplay between them: Daisy and Sousa finding love; Daisy being able to redeem the sister she never knew existed; Fitz and Simmons actually getting a “happily ever after” (and not just in the end, but in a time pocket that we never even knew about – and that Simmons had made herself forget about – where they had years together and a child). Oh, and then there was Deke staying behind in the changed timeline to run SHIELD and/or be a rock god. These were the heartfelt character moments that truly fueled these final two episodes.

It was interesting to see Coulson and May not wind up with each other in the end, given the fan fervor around them, but that just plays into the whole idea of not wanting to repeat Season 5. Plus, Coulson’s new life as an LMD created enough of an emotional barrier/buffer to help us detach.

Coulson, May, Mack, and Yo-Yo all still remain part of SHIELD at the end of the finale, though: Mack and Yo-Yo as the Director (with a Fury-style trench coat) and the top agent, respectively, May as an instructor, and Coulson as a recruiter (who still gets to zoom around in Lola!). Fitz is retired, Simmons is partly out, and Daisy is now part of some sort of galactic diplomatic mission (which probably also connects to SHIELD). Plus, she’s found love with Sousa and family with Kora.

When a show’s gone on a bit past its sell-by date, this is the type of ending you want, because those still watching SHIELD are the die-hards who’ve stuck with the series and probably don’t care too much about its original MCU ties. That’s not to say that viewers won’t appreciate the occasional Easter egg or callback to when the show was tucked more snugly into in the nest of Marvel’s larger movie-based narratives, but the real draw is the world the show has created for itself now. With that in mind, this was the right way to go out for all involved.

Warning: The following contains spoilers about the Agents of SHIELD two-part finale…

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Agents of SHIELD has ended its seventh and final season, and we had a chance to speak to the cast of the long-running Marvel series about their feelings on shutting down the saga and where all the characters wound up when the series finale’s credits rolled.

At a Zoom roundtable shared with other outlets, IGN spoke to stars Clark Gregg, Chloe Bennet, Ming-Na Wen, Henry Simmons, Elizabeth Henstridge, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Iain De Caestecker, Jeff Ward, and Enver Gjokaj, digging a little deeper into the series finale and where every member of the team ended up.

Chloe Bennet’s Final Scene

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Though the final episode, “What We’re Fighting For,” wrapped things up with the team all reuniting in a virtual world (sound familiar, 2020?) as holograms, that wasn’t the final scene everyone filmed. In fact, Bennet shared how much she disliked her last day of filming.

“I hated my last day,” she said. “I’m going to be completely honest. I begged for our last day to be the one where we’re sitting in the chairs together. Because of scheduling reasons we couldn’t do that. My last day was actually the entire Quake fight and it’s really hard to shoot physical things when you’re emotional because you’ve got the exact opposite parts of your brain lighting up. And then my last last shot was just very SHIELD, which was me on a green screen, bored, with a bald cap floating in space. Looking dumber than you can imagine.”

“We’d already shot the [reunion scene] earlier on in the episode so I was kind of a wreck,” Bennet added. “I was just broken open from those scenes and then to do the fights and have to lay on a green board, while bald, was pretty odd.”

Daisy Johnson and Daniel Sousa

In the end, we found out that most everyone, except for Fitz (who retired), was still working for SHIELD in some capacity. But for Bennet’s Daisy Johnson, her future also meant a new life with Gjokaj’s Daniel Sousa. A relationship that took Bennet by surprise.

“I was a little hesitant about a love interest,” Bennet explained, “because [Daisy’s] narrative was really about finding herself and her family and her relationship with Coulson and the SHIELD family. This one snuck up on me as Chloe as much as it did for Daisy I think. It’s one of those things where you say ‘Oh, she needed this.’ Not in a way like ‘she needs a man’ but just the way that he compliments her so well. It felt perfect as an ending for her. It took a man out of time to come in and compliment her in this way and she was completely caught off guard by it.”

As for Gjokaj, joining the SHIELD squad was a dream come true. “Jed [Whedon] and Maurissa [Tancharoen] made it clear that they didn’t want to reprise Sousa from the moment he left [Agent Carter],” the actor said. “They wanted to see that time had passed and that he’d continued to advance in the ranks and in his skills. They wanted to see more of a super agent.”

“I got to have the best of both worlds,” Gjokaj added. “I got to continue that character on the trajectory he would have gone on if Agent Carter had gone on and then — when I collected Marvel as a kid I loved the ‘What If?’ comics. This felt like such an amazing ‘What If?'”

Of course, not all of the show’s ships wound up on a happy note. Fans of Coulson and May might be distraught over the two ending up apart. “I think the ‘Philinda’ fans are going to be a little bit sad about the outcome. Again,” Wen laughed. “But you know what? We’ve seen this happen before. So don’t be surprised if you see him resurrected again.”

Agent of SHIELD’s Finale Ending Explained

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No one knew at the time when the series finale was shot (which was last summer) that virtual connecting would become the new normal in 2020. But that’s how we left things on Agents of SHIELD. The actors all got to be in the same room but the characters were only there as holograms, as part of a video call, each having gone their separate ways.

“I remembering thinking ‘Oh, it’s so sad that they’re not together,'” Cordova-Buckley said. “It’s so sad that they’re now connecting technologically and not in the lab discussing what they’re going to do next.”

Gregg likened the scene to the “Zoom nightmare-slash-reality” we all use to communicate with each other now. “So much of the show felt like life and art bled back and forth,” he said. “Certainly saying goodbye to people you’ve been working with for years — some for two, some for seven — and checking in with them and knowing your lives are taking these different paths. On one hand: Thank God for technology for allowing you to do it, but also there’s a real limitation to technology. That you’re not there hugging. That you’re not there in the way you’d like to be.”

“It was a tough thing to shoot because there were moments when we were realizing it was our final scene together as a group,” Wen shared. “And then it was tougher still because we’d pause and one of us would leave. It’s sort of like what the last scene was in Season 5, when we didn’t know if we were coming back and we thought it was the end of the series. Knowing for sure though, now, that this was the series finale made it bittersweet.”

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Mack and Yo-Yo

When the roundtable topic switched to specific characters’ fates, Cordova-Buckley expressed how happy she was for Mack and Yo-Yo. “We’ve seen them go through so much. They’ve sacrificed so much. They’ve given so much to the team. So for them to end up together but also be individuals — like she’s doing her own thing and he’s in command — it feels like the relationship has now settled for ‘MackElena.'”

As for Mack, the Director of SHIELD dons a trench coat at the end that definitely feels reminiscent of another famous Director. “Quite honestly, the original get-up — and everything underneath like the pants and everything, I don’t know if it was intentional — was very similar to Nick Fury. And the powers-that-be were like ‘let’s nix that because we don’t want to have any overlapping. We just want Mack to be his own Director.'”

Fitz and Simmons

For Henstridge’s Simmons and De Caestecker’s Fitz, the ending meant the two characters could finally find their “happily ever after.”

“We’ve been ripped apart so many times and so many tragedies have happened, and you talk about earning moments of happiness for them, and I think they definitely earned that happy ending,” Henstridge said. “And it’s also nice that they still have that conflict between them where Simmons is sneakily staying in the game a little bit and he’s completely checked out for a while. They have their happily ever after but they still have that classic bickering. They’re not perfect.”

De Caestecker mentioned how weird it felt returning to the group after being gone for so long (pretty much all of Season 7). “It was a bit bizarre,” he said, “because I had a bit of time away. A huge part of that too is that [Fitz has] taken a bit of a backseat here as Simmons has gone off and done all the hard work.”

But what of their grandson, Deke? Not around for the final moments of the show, Deke’s exit happened earlier when he agreed to be the one to stay behind in the alternate/altered timeline. A universe where he’ll either be the leader of the remnants of SHIELD…or be a huge rock star. “We’ve been discussing this,” actor Jeff Ward joked, “and I know [Deke’s fate is] a blend of the two because imagine if you found out that Bruce Springsteen was actually the head of the FBI. Like, you’d never suspect it. So Deke’s using his rock star persona as the ultimate ‘hiding in plain sight’ tactic to be running an international superhero policing ring. And then at night doing gigs, using various songs that he’s ripped off and passed off as his own.”

Coulson and Daisy’s Final Goodbye

Coulson and Daisy’s final interaction together is a sweet and supportive one. Daisy lets LMD Phil know that he’s needed out in the world, finding promising young recruits for SHIELD, while she reflects on the moment that Phil first believed in her and how she’s now used that to find a bond with her sister. For Gregg and Bennet, the relationship between their characters mirrors real life as well.

“From the first interrogation scene with Skye, after we pulled her out of her van, there was just something different about Chloe Bennet,” Gregg said. “And the way she has a realness and a fire to her as a performer. There are a lot of great actors to work with on that show but the through line of that relationship, that friendship, that family-type relationship…people say father/daughter, and it definitely has that in it, but I think like my relationship with Chloe it has so many permutations and it isn’t that simple. Where she’s helping and teaching and rescuing me as much as I’m doing that for her. For me, it was that part of the show where I grew the most as an actor and as a human.”

“I don’t think most people have the privilege of having this type of dynamic relationship that you can’t put into any sort of box,” Bennet said. “It’s only something you’d get in an environment like SHIELD.”

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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.

Animal Talking, Star Wars: Rogue One writer Gary Whitta’s talk show set inside Animal Crossing: New Horizons, has aired an interview with head of Xbox Phil Spencer. The man, who has always seemed to have a soft spot for Nintendo, appeared inside Animal Crossing to talk about the next generation of Xbox, and the recent delay of Halo Infinite.

You can watch their full chat below–Spencer joins at about the 19 minute mark–but we’ve rounded up some of the highlights.

Spencer says that some other plans were considered for handling the delay of Halo Infinite, including shipping the game out in parts. There were rumors ahead of launch that the game’s free-to-play multiplayer could come after launch, but Spencer says that Xbox did not want to do this.

While he knows that people are “bummed” about the game’s delay, he also believes it’s the right move–and a decision he would not have been able to make 5 or 10 years ago. Spencer says he has Microsoft’s full support in the decision, even though it would have been nice for the Series X to be the first system since the original Xbox to launch with a Halo game.

He also reiterates that the system itself will not be delayed, and reminds us again that he has had one at home since last year. After playing games on Series X, he says, it’s “hard to go back” to Xbox One, as games feel better on the new system.

Spencer also teased that more “big” Game Pass announcements are coming. Many of the games announced for Series X so far are heading to Game Pass.

Spencer touches on some other topics, including the PS5, why the systems have such radically different designs from one another, and how Microsoft and Sony’s strategy differ. He also promises that the Xbox Series X won’t be a loud console, saying it makes only as much noise as the Xbox One X.

This isn’t the first time the competitor’s next-gen systems have been discussed on Animal Talking–God of War director Cory Barlog recently talked about the PS5. Now Whitta just needs to get someone from Nintendo on the show.

The Xbox Series X is expected to launch in November.

China Mainland Daily Box Office Top 6 for Wednesday, August 12, 2020
1. Interstellar – $622k / $138.92M
2. #1917Movie – $516k/$6.62M
3. Sheep Without A Shepherd – $464k/ $186.57M
4. Dolittle – $369k/ $17.35M
5. FordvFerrari – $161k/$1.7M
6. #SonicTheHedgehog – $68k/ $2.43M

— China Box Office (@ChinaBox_Office) August 12, 2020

The release of high-definition piracy resources will still be a disaster for Hollywood movies, especially those with general reputation.
Bloodshot, Sonic the hedgehog and now Bad boys result impacted by piracy.

— China Box Office (@ChinaBox_Office) August 10, 2020

The 90s classic Zombies Ate My Neighbors is getting a spiritual successor. The newly-announced Demons Ate My Neighbors is a rougelike twin-stick shooter, and its coming to PC and Switch in late 2021 from developer Tuned-Out Games and HumaNature Studios (Toejam and Earl: Back in the Groove).

The game, which will be set in 1991, is not an official sequel to the original game it takes inspiration from. It’s about April and Joey, two heroes who need to save their suburb of Fairweather Valley from the demons unleashed by a cursed VHS tape.

The game will feature local co-op, and you’ll need to squirt the bad guys with a water gun to keep them at bay. You can check it out in the trailer below.

The game will feature procedurally-generated levels, but each character will be able to use their “RadWatch” radar to seek out the survivors they need to rescue in each level, as well as the demons that need to be killed.

A Kickstarter will launch on September 1 for the game, and while the PC and Switch versions are definitely happening, the $175,000 goal will be used for Xbox Series X and PS5 versions, if it’s reached. More levels and monsters will be added if the campaign is successful, too.

The game is due to release in autumn 2021, so it’s a while away yet. If you’re interested, keep an eye out for the Kickstarter next month.

Even though neither company officially announced the promotion, Microsoft and Monster Energy recently teamed up to create Halo Infinite-branded energy drinks that offer double XP for the game. The fine print on the cans that appeared in the wild with no fanfare mentioned that the XP offer extends to December 31, 2020.

But with Halo Infinite now delayed to 2021, people who bought the cans are wondering if they will still receive the bonus when the game finally arrives next year. The good answer is that, yes, the double XP will still be available, though the details are still being sorted out.

Halo’s community director, Brian Jarrard, said on Twitter, “Details are being ironed out but there will be an updated process / it’ll be accounted for. More info soon.”

People who bought the Monster Energy drinks will want to hold on to them to not only get the double XP for Halo Infinite’s free multiplayer, but also because the cans may become something of a collector’s item with Halo Infinite now delayed to 2021.

The marketing materials from the Monster Energy drinks also state that some kind of “AR Experience” for Halo Infinite is set to begin on September 1. However, with Halo Infinite now delayed to 2021, it’s unclear if this is still going forward.

Halo Infinite is scheduled for release this holiday as a launch title for the Xbox Series X. The game will also come to the regular Xbox One as well as PC. Developer 343 Industries sees Halo Infinite as a platform instead of game, and one that the studio plans to support until 2030 or later.

For more on Halo Infinite, check out GameSpot’s editorial below.

The Playdate console was announced last year, and it looked very interesting–a small handheld with inbuilt games, a black-and-white screen, and a hand crank that some developers will use as a control mechanism. Over a year later, we’ve only gotten minor updates, but today the Playdate Twitter account has dropped previews of some of the games external developers are working on, with a promise of more news to come.

About 250 people around the world have their hands on development kits, the Twitter account says, and it wants to show off some of their work. It’s worth noting, though, that not all of these games will necessarily ship with the Playdate–they could end up as experiments that don’t release, or might just not make it into the system’s first season of content.

The first game is Down the Oubliette by Rebecca König, whose previous work includes the world’s smallest version of Tetris.

Some of the other games are a bit more conceptual, like this calligraphy experience and drifting game, seen below.

They also show off a new take on Tetris, a version of solitaire, an accelerometer-controlled adventure, and an adventure game about pushing blocks.

Inevitably, the Playdate will also receive a version of Doom, and this one has an exciting detail–you can use the crank to fire the Doomguy’s chaingun. Rip, tear, and rotate.

More details on the Playdate are being promised soon, including a release date and a list of titles you’ll get at launch with the system. A “surprise” is also being promised, which is intriguing.

The system can be developed for, once you have one, which means you can theoretically make your own games for the system to bolster the library.

Playdate isn’t the only interesting handheld on the horizon, as the Analog Pocket also recently sold out at its pre-order stage.

Second Extinction, the dinosaur-hunting FPS from Just Cause developer Avalanche’s new Systemic Reaction studio, will come to Steam Early Access very soon. The studio has confirmed the game will launch there in September 2020.

Second Extinction’s early access version will include a “really robust rock-and-roll shooter to play with,” the developer said in an FAQ. The purpose of launching in an unfinished state is to “dial in our core gameplay and mechanics to the perfect frequency at launch,” the team said.

The early access will include the newly announced War Effort “metagame.” The overall dino threat level in the game will depend on how players perform by killing dinosaurs, completing missions, and partaking in extra activities. “This constant wave of conflict will affect the kind of enemies, activities, rewards, and more you’ll encounter in any given region,” Systemic Reaction said.

Systemic Reaction is not sure how long Second Extinction will stay in early access, only stating that it will be there for “as long as it takes.”

“When the community is happy with the overall direction, and when we are ready to welcome more players to the party, we will leave early access,” the studio said.

Progress made in the early access version of Second Extinction will carry forward to the full release when it launches. “So you’ll be able to show off and strut around the community when all the full release noobs show up,” the developer said.

The dinosaurs in Second Extinction won’t be what you expect. They are mutated, and more deadly as a result. For example, there is a raptor in the game that has the power of electricity in addition to its own chompers. The game supports co-op for up to three players at a time.

Second Extinction is also coming to Xbox Series X, but there is no word on if it will come to the Game Preview program, which is similar to early access.

Marvel’s Avengers is releasing on September 4, and if you’re planning on buying and playing it on PC you’ll want to know whether your computer is up to the task. Thankfully, developer Crystal Dynamics has released the minimum and recommended specs for the game, as well as the exclusive features coming to the PC version.

No matter what, you’ll need at least 8GB of RAM and a fair chunk of HDD space. Check out the minimum and recommended specs below.

Minimum Specs

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: i3-4160 or AMD equivalent
• 8GB RAM
• NVIDIA GTX 950 / AMD 270 (min 2GB video ram)
• DirectX 12
• 75GB HDD space

Recommended Specs

• Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K, 3.4 Ghz or AMD Ryzen 51600, 3.2 Ghz
• 16GB RAM
• NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB or AMD Radeon RX 480, 8GB.
• DirectX 12
• 110GB SSD space

The PC version will also give you the option of downloading a 30GB high-resolution texture pack, if you don’t mind sacrificing some HDD space for enhanced visuals. You’ll likely want a 4K monitor to get the most out of this. Ultra-wide resolutions are also supported for the PC version, as well as multi-monitor set-ups.

The PC version also sports an unlocked framerate, and full customization options across keyboards and controllers. You’ll be able to check out some of these features yourself in the upcoming closed beta across August 14-16 if you’ve preordered; there’s also an open beta on Steam across the August 21-23 weekend. If you jump in, look out for the hidden mission that stands as the beta’s highlight.

It remains to be seen when the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions release, and whether they’ll include some of these higher-res textures.