Author: Trafficblast

Chastity brings you all the biggest gaming stories for your May 26 Save State. No Man’s Sky is coming to Xbox Game Pass and the Windows PC store in June. Developer Hello Games has more ambitious updates to the game planned for 2020.

XCOM 2 Collection, Borderlands Legendary Collection, and BioShock: The Collection all come to Switch May 29th. Could more big games get ported to Switch? One dev definitely thinks so. And finally, Sony’s next State of Play will focus on The Last of Us Part 2, and it’s happening tomorrow! We tell you what to expect. For all the latest gaming news stories, be sure to get your Save State every Monday through Thursday on GameSpot.

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The new Bill & Ted movie, Face the Music, will feature the first new original music from the rock band Mastodon in years. Mastodon guitarist Bill Kelliher said on the RRGB podcast that the group wrote an original song for the movie’s soundtrack.

“We got asked a couple months ago to be a part of the new Bill & Ted movie, to put a song in there. So we wrote a song to be in that movie which we’re kind of wrapping now,” he said (via MetalSucks.net).

That’s all Kelliher had to say about the song for Bill & Ted 3. Whatever the case, it’ll be the first new Mastodon music in some time, as the band’s latest full album was 2017’s Emperor of Sand. The group covered “Stairway to Heaven” in 2019 as a tribute to their longtime manager, Nick John, who died in 2018.

This isn’t the first time that Mastodon has been asked to write music for a popular piece of Hollywood media. The group also wrote the song “White Walker” for the official mixtape for Game of Thrones, Catch The Throne. The band’s 2004 song, “Island,” was also featured in Pixar’s Monsters University in a particularly great throwaway gag.

Face the Music brings back original stars Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, who starred in the 1989 original and the 1991 sequel. The new movie is expected to debut in theatres this August, despite the COVID-19 crisis.

For lots more, check out GameSpot’s roundup of everything you need to know about Face the Music.

A little empathy goes a long way. Especially when it comes to those we seek unconditional love and support from, it can mean the difference between spiralling into a black hole of depression and having the comfort to simply exist free of judgment. It’s one of the many themes If Found so vividly represents in sketchbook-style visual novel form. Through expressive minimalist illustrations, ethereal sound design, sharp writing, and thematic coherence, the chaos and serenity of young adulthood jumps out of its pages for a story that’s heartbreaking, heartwarming, and wholly affecting.

With a diary and eraser, we recollect and move past the memories of main character Kasio during a pivotal time in her life. It’s December 1993 in County Mayo of Ireland, and having come back to her small hometown of Achill from Dublin for the holidays, she’s kind of lost. With two higher-education degrees to her name and a lukewarm desire to pursue a Ph.D, she gets the “why don’t you get a decent job and start a decent life” spiel from her mom–a conversation that some of us are all too familiar with. But underlying in this early exchange is a hint that a source of pain comes from her own mom seeing right past who Kasio really is.

In real life, not everyone has a place to go, a network to build off and help spring you into adulthood, or even a loving home to fall back on–such is Kasio’s life. As you literally erase each scene on screen with your cursor to move through the day-by-day events, all of her introspections and interactions are laid bare. Erasure is a simple gameplay mechanic, making you peel layers upon layers of vivid memories, and one with powerful implications.

Ultimately, this is Kasio’s journey in finding where she belongs. The core group of friends–Colum, Jack, and Shans–are a bunch of young misfits in their early 20s squatting in a remote house that’s falling apart. They play in a three-piece punk band, and as an outsider herself, Kasio tags along for this brief stint. Despite the house’s condition, it’s a home where she has the freedom to be herself. The morning fry up (a traditional Irish breakfast), band practice, gathering around the TV, and blazing up in the attic while looking out at the stars–this is where she finds solace. But deep down she knows things like this are only temporary.

The lengths at which If Found is willing to go to invite us into Irish culture further humanizes the overarching narrative and the characters that embody it.

The couple Colum and Jack are a great backbone and seem to have it together the most, so it’s through Kasio’s interactions with Shans–who she hadn’t known prior–that we see her deeper thoughts and feelings surface. Their budding friendship is an unsettlingly accurate portrayal of the anxious excitement in getting to know someone new who might just be like you and a perfect fit in your life. It’s also a case in showing just how fragile and fleeting those relationships can be.

In its writing, If Found cuts deep. Whether it’s the tense dialogue sequences or the earnest self-reflection, every line serves a purpose and projects believable personalities without trying too hard or being overly verbose. It also doesn’t shy away from conveying trauma. It hurts to see Kasio face the bigotry from her own family, obliviously misgendered by her own mom and told that it’s just a phase, and berated by her awful brother Fergal who constantly blames her for things falling apart using coded transphobia. But through the honest portrayal of this pain, contrasted with the joys she experiences elsewhere, and her efforts in understanding her place in the world, you’re taught to empathize with Kasio in a very real way.

Throughout the story are her abstracted dreams of being an astronaut floating about in space, investigating an anomaly to save the world from destruction. Although the nature of these visions is rather vague at first, its metaphorical purpose becomes quite clear by the end. It’s a showcase of Kasio’s passion for astronomy that also helps her make sense of her hardships. I wouldn’t necessarily call it profound, but it reminds me of when I’d try to draw parallels between my own studies or interests and personal struggles, often in cheesy ways explored in my old Tumblr posts. For me, it was a coping mechanism, and in my interpretation, it’s Kasio’s as well.

These astronomical scenes are mesmerizing trips, often with striking hues against the infinite field of stars in space. However, when things are brought back down to Earth, If Found’s artwork gets to really shine and create a distinct sense of place.

For as poignant as the writing can be, it’s the wondrous illustrations that truly speak a thousand words. Sometimes there’s a bit of color in the backdrop to set the stage or to provide contrasts, but the real beauty lies in the pencil-sketch style. Every character and most scenes are brought to life through rough free-hand drawings, yet their appearances and characteristics are fully realized, beaming with definitive charisma. Facial expressions, body language, attitudes, and the precise emotions of the moment, all sharply communicated in that simple pencil-sketch art style.

If Found’s ability to communicate so much by showing so little with a variety of impressive techniques is an unequivocal accomplishment, and a sterling example of the adage that less is more.

The harsh scribbles that signify a rowdy crowd at the crew’s punk show one night recreates the madness of being packed wall-to-wall as Kasio fights her way through the pit to get closer to the front. Only after erasing the layers of the crowd several times do you then reveal the crew rocking out on stage in all their glory. In a more intimate moment, Kasio and Shans find respite in Shans’ family’s chip shop, sharing life stories and reflecting on the things that make them outsiders. It’s a charming scene of colored etchings that captures both their comfort and nervousness with each other in a series of subtle gestures and expressions as they chomp on fresh bags of chips (well, fries).

If Found is packed with moments like these, where its lively manga-like character designs tell the story just as much as the text does. The game also isn’t afraid of shifting its presentation style, sometimes going from a neat pop-up book to a surrealist dizziness, or from simple doodles on lined paper to canvases colored in duotone. If Found’s ability to communicate so much by showing so little with a variety of impressive techniques is an unequivocal accomplishment, and a sterling example of the adage that less is more.

The game is made whole through an effective, ethereal soundtrack of post-rock instrumentals and ambient tones. It’s minimalist in many respects, sometimes letting light and steady synths provide a foundation for acoustic guitar strings, often soothing for contemplative moments or the warmer feelings Kasio experiences. At other times, heavy basslines create tension as a somber melody hovers over it, setting an uneasy mood that you can also oddly vibe with. And when things get real, the music will kick into an affecting, fully composed post-rock track to tie it all together.

The ambience can be just as provocative, as if to transport you right then and there in its storybook scenes. When Kasio has a heart-to-heart with Colum’s aunt Maggie on the shore of Keem Beach, you can hear the hum of the still air and the light waves crashing about. Out in the middle of the night, the gusting wind gives the sensation of a cold winter. In each of its chapters, If Found leverages a wide range of sound and music to make each sketch all the more intimate.

Tying it all together is a heartening adherence to the game’s Irish setting. It’s important for If Found because, just like the painterly style, the cultural references and vernacular pull you into a world that’s real and very much alive. You’ll learn some regional terms and catch a few things that make everyday life in Ireland a bit different from yours (if you don’t live there), such as holiday traditions, the role of religion, or even how the post office provides many core civil services (and has a pub attached to it). Helpful footnotes offer definitions, pronunciations, and the context in which these terms are used. The lengths at which If Found is willing to go to invite us into Irish culture further humanizes the overarching narrative and the characters that embody it.

Even with Kasio’s visions of space interspersed throughout the story, her struggle and turmoil is firmly of this world. If Found’s pillars of stellar writing, artwork, and sound design create a perfect storm of emotions that effortlessly express what it feels like to be lost, and found, as a marginalized young adult barely scraping by. Relationships and identity, happiness and despair–they’ve all been blended in the storybook we’ve been incessantly erasing the whole time.

As you trek toward the conclusion, Kasio’s mental health is tested in a swirl of panic. But ever since the start, what she’s really been yearning for is acceptance and empathy, which might just be what saves us from denying ourselves happiness, and possibly even our own lives. And when we find both, only then are we able to take full control and begin writing our story for ourselves. That’s not the sole takeaway from If Found, but it’s one that’s powerfully contextualized throughout its affecting, humanizing story.

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Xbox boss Phil Spencer has acknowledged that it’s been challenging to demonstrate the true leap that the Xbox Series X will provide over the Xbox One. In Reggie’s new podcast, Spencer said one of the most defining characteristics of next-gen games is how they “feel” with faster and more stable frame rates.

It’s not possible to demonstrate this with videos, Spencer said. And with physical events canceled or postponed due to COVID-19, Microsoft is facing a new dilemma in trying to communicate the appeal of faster frame rates. This is a new challenge, Spencer said, because for previous console transitions throughout history, the power of new systems was immediately apparent with better graphics.

“One of the things I’ve talked about publicly … but it’s hard to come across, is the way it feels to play games on a box where frame rates are higher, frame rates are more stable,” Spencer said. “The fluidity of it, showing that in video form, is just impossible. How do you show how something feels?”

He added: “We’re getting to the point where the immersion feel that you get through fluidity and other things is now up to par with the visual capabilities that we have. How do you share that with people in this kind of world?”

Spencer said he is optimistic about being able to put the Xbox Series X in front of consumers at some point in the future before launch to help them understand the appeal of the new system. But it’s unlikely to happen soon due to government restrictions around social-distancing.

“The feel relative to previous console generations will be something people remark positively about,” Spencer said.

The Xbox Series X is technically capable of delivering frame rates of up to 120 FPS, but developers will ultimately get to decide what works best in terms of the balance between visuals and frame rate.

Also in the interview, Spencer reiterated that he expects the Xbox Series X launch to go forward as planned this holiday. He said his teams are doing an “amazing job” during a challenging environment.

“We had another hardware review. We did that this week. Our supply chain, we feel good about the hardware side. It feels like we’ll be able to get enough units. We’re pretty committed to a worldwide launch which regretfully we didn’t do with Xbox One,” Spencer said.

The software for the Xbox Series X is also “making good progress,” Spencer said. He added that game development is also moving along, but with some interruption.

“Games are making good progress. The collaborative nature of game development and the scale of game development today,” Spencer said. “Any of the functions that require physical collaboration–things like motion capture, things like symphonic capture–those kinds of things, some of that is put on hold. On the games side, things that are pre content-complete might be impacted more than things that are post content-complete.”

The COVID-19 crisis has led to changes in Microsoft’s policies. For example, Spencer pointed out that third-party developers are now allowed to take their Xbox Series X development kits home–this would not have been allowed under previous circumstances.

Finally, Spencer also spoke about the rebuilding process within the Xbox team. The Xbox One launch in 2013 was marred by controversial policies and a $100 higher price point than the rival PS4. This contributed to Microsoft coming up short against Sony in the previous console generation. Spencer took over as Head of Xbox in 2015, and things seem to be on a better path for the Series X launch this year.

“The team had lost trust in the leadership … the leadership capability and the commitment of the company to this category and our decision-making,” Spencer recalled. “Rebuilding that inside the company was important and it takes time.”

The Talking Games With Reggie and Harold podcast is a charity campaign to raise money to give scholarships and provide other help to students in New York. People who donate can get access to an auction where they can bid on a many special items, including an Xbox Series X signed by Spencer.

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Mortal Kombat 11’s next expansion, Aftermath, is out now. It features a new cinematic story, three new fighters–Sheeva, Fujin, and RoboCop–and three more skin packs launching over time. Also featured in the new expansion are more “Friendships,” which are the non-violent finishing moves that are nothing like the franchise’s better known Fatalities and Brutalities.

In this GameSpot video, we take a look at every character’s Friendship–and they’re pretty great. We won’t spoil the surprise for you, so be sure to check out the full video to see what they are.

Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath is out now for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The expansion costs $40 USD.

Amazon is working on a new series based on Lisbeth Salander, the character that originated in Stieg Larsson’s book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. A report on Variety outlines plans for a new series on Amazon’s streaming service, which will not be a direct adaptation or continuation of the previous books or films.

According to the report, the new series will feature a new setting, characters, and story, separate from those written by Stieg Larsson and David Lagercrantz (who has continued the book series, as Larsson died before the first three books were published). It’s not clear whether the series’ other main character, Mikael Blomkvist, will feature.

No writer or actor has been attached yet, but the series will be executive produced by Andy Harries (Outlander, The Crown) and Rob Bullock (The Night Manager).

No writer or lead actress is currently attached to the series. Andy Harries, founder and CEO of Left Bank Pictures, will executive produce along with Rob Bullock. Amazon Studios and Left Bank will produce in association with Sony Pictures Television.

The character of Lisbeth Salander has been played by three actors previously–Noomi Rapace in the original Swedish trilogy, Rooney Mara in David Fincher’s 2011 adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Claire Foy in 2018’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web, which was a financial flop.

Amazon has several other major series in the works, including a Lord of the Rings series.