The new Gears of War strategy game, Gears Tactics, is available now on PC. But what are critics saying about it? To help you get an idea for if it’s worth your time and money, we’ve rounded up review scores and opinions from outlets across the internet.
Here at GameSpot, we scored the game an 8/10. Reviewer Mike Epstein said, “The rush of pulling together a victory from the jaws of defeat carries an exciting, chaotic energy.”
You can see a sampling of other review scores and excerpts posted below. You can also visit GameSpot sister site Metacritic to see a fuller rundown of review scores for Tactics.
Gears Tactics was developed by UK studio Splash Damage, which previously created the multiplayer element of Gears 5. Microsoft’s dedicated Gears studio, The Coalition, assisted in the game’s development.
A prequel to the original Gears of War, Tactics follows a group of soldiers led by none other than Gabe Diaz, who is the father of Gears 5 protagonist Kait Diaz. The story dives into the Diaz family tree, which is an interesting one given what we came to learn from Gears 5.
Gears Tactics is currently exclusive to PC, but it will be released on Xbox One later this year. As a first-party game, Tactics is free with Xbox Game Pass for PC and Xbox One.
Game: Gears Tactics
Platforms: PC (Xbox One version coming later this year)
Developer: Splash Damage, in association with The Coalition
Release date: April 28
Price: $60 USD
GameSpot — 8/10
“Though Gears Tactics wears itself a little thin by the end of its protracted campaign, the rush of pulling together a victory from the jaws of defeat carries an exciting, chaotic energy. Unlike most strategy games, playing well doesn’t necessarily make you feel like a mastermind, so much as though you’ve cheated death. Every successful plan, even a last-ditch effort, feels like a small stroke of genius. That’s no small feat.” — Mike Epstein [Full review]
VG247 — 3/5
“Any turn-based strategy game that can successfully mimic the changability of third-person shooters deserves to be celebrated for it, and in its finest moments, Gears Tactics does just that.” — Jeremy Peel [Full review]
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
“This is 100% a Gears Of War game, that also happens to be a top flight strategy effort. Arguably the best of its kind on the market, in fact, despite a bit of trouser trouble. It’s a spectacular thing to play through, and it’d be more than enough to merit the fifty quid price tag if it deleted itself on completion. Thankfully, however, the replay value is much greater than you’d expect.” — Nate Crowley [Full review]
Destructoid — 9/10
“The core–getting onto the battlefield and agonizing over every move–is excellent. There’s a smart experience here, one that feels both authentically Gears and tactics. That’s the best possible outcome. Gears Tactics is a great Gears game and a great tactics game. This 90% doesn’t miss.” — Brett Makedonski [Full review]
Windows Central — 4/5
“Gears Tactics is tied together nicely with some epic set-pieces, stunning, well-optimized visuals, and hey, it’s on Xbox Game Pass for PC, which in some ways makes it a no-brainer to at least try. While I think this one could have done a lot more to evolve its macro-level progression layer, the minute-to-minute combat is some of the best I’ve experienced in the genre.” — Jez Corden [Full review]
IGN — 8/10
“Gears Tactics does an excellent job of grafting Gears’ signature look and feel onto XCOM’s turn-based battle format and looks great doing it.” — Dan Stapleton [Full review]
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After being delayed indefinitely in early April, Naughty Dog has announced a new The Last Of Us Part 2 release date of June 19. Meanwhile, another PlayStation exclusive, Ghost of Tsushima, has had its release date changed to July 17, moving from its original June slot.
The Uncharted movie starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg also has a new release date, and is now coming Summer 2021. In non-release date move news, hot off the release of its Wastelanders expansion, plans may be afoot to add pets into Fallout 76, according to the team at Bethesda.
Join us every day for all the breaking gaming news stories, right here on Save State.
UPDATE: Disney has confirmed that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will begin streaming two months early on Disney+ in celebration of May the 4th, also known as Star Wars Day. In the Netherlands, however, the movie will launch on May 5 due to the Memorial Day holiday.
The complete Skywalker Saga, all in one place. Start streaming all 9 films, including Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, on May the 4th, only on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/qNNAHsrOkh
Disney+ will also honour the artistry of Star Wars with a week-long concept art takeover on the service, with the artwork for each movie and series from the franchise being updated on May 4 to feature original concept art from celebrated artists such as Ralph McQuarrie and Doug Chiang. In addition, the Star Wars brand tile on the Disney+ home screen will be upgraded with a new animation to commemorate the signature hyperspace jump.
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ORIGINAL STORY: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has been added to the Disney+ app with a release date of May 4 (aka Star Wars Day).
IGN captured a screenshot of the Episode IX placeholder on the US version of the Disney+ app, which states: “Due to existing agreements this title will be available on May 4, 2020.”
Disney+ is yet to announce the official release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker on its streaming service. Therefore, it is currently unclear whether this title will be added to the platform on the same date in all available countries and regions.
The Rise of Skywalker’s prospective release date aligns itself with Star Wars Day, an annual celebration of the iconic space opera franchise. This year, the force is strong with fans of binge-worthy content, as there is a small batch of new original content due to arrive from the galaxy far, far away.
Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, an eight-episode documentary series, will start streaming on Disney+ on May 4. The multi-part show is expected to offer fans of The Mandalorian a behind-the-scenes look at the development of the series. It will be released on the streamer on the same day as the highly anticipated Clone Wars Season 7 finale.
These new additions come shortly after the digital and home release of The Rise of Skywalker, which was accompanied by “over two hours of bonus material,” including a feature-length documentary titled, The Skywalker Legacy, which takes fans behind-the-scenes of the final chapter of the Skywalker Saga.
Resident Evil 4 is one of the most beloved games in Capcom’s seminal series, and different mod groups have started projects to remaster the game over the years. One such effort is the Resident Evil 4 HD Project, which aims to totally overhaul the survival-horror shooter’s visuals to align with modern standards, like as updating its 2D textures for real-world objects into true 3D models.
In a recent update, modder Albert said that the duo behind the project remain committed to finishing it despite recent rumors of a total RE4 remake in the vein of the recent Resident Evil 3, which sold quite well. “I don’t really care if it’s done or not,” he wrote. “Capcom’s latest remakes are way different from the original versions. The original game will still be unique and worthy of a remastered version.”
The current release of Resident Evil 4 HD Project only includes the work of the two modders up to July 2018, but it represents a substantial improvement to the original visuals. According to their progress tracker, though the meat of the project is completed, they’re a little more than halfway finished with their final revisions to the core game.
Widely considered one of the greatest action games ever made, Resident Evil 4 recently turned 15 years old. If you’re confused about the labyrinthine series of events that make up the Resident Evil series, check out our timeline.
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Gearbox Software is adapting its World War 2 shooter series, Brother in Arms, into a TV show with the help of showrunner Scott Rosenbaum.
The show will follow a team of eight soldiers on a mission to rescue their colonel from the Nazis before they discover the D-Day plans. It will explore both Allied and Axis sides of the war, and feature characters based on real people from the period.
The original Brothers in Arms games, which began in 2005, explored the D-Day landings from the perspective of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment. Seen through the eyes of Sergeant Matt Baker, the games are known for their historical accuracy, with levels built using contemporary maps and combat tactics influenced by 1940s army training. The TV series will continue that look at real history, as well as the more personal stories of infantrymen on the front-line.
“I love the stories we told in the games, and we do have more stories to tell, but a TV show lets us explore this subject matter and the effect on the relationships and people in broader ways,” Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford told The Hollywood Reporter.
“The story we ended up using has never been dramatized on TV,” says Rosenbaum. “Almost 800 U.S. servicemen were killed and it had to be covered up because the Allies were preparing for the real Normandy invasion.”
The series has only just been put into pre-production, and so the hunt is currently on for directors and a broadcast partner. While casting won’t be settled for some time, Picthford is looking for fresh talent.
Randy Pitchford will serve as executive producer alongside Rosenbaum. They are joined by Richard Whelan – who previously worked on Band of Brothers and Captain America: The First Avenger – as well as Jean-Julien Baronnet, producer on the Assassin’s Creed movie, and Gearbox Software’s chief business officer, Sean Haran.
This is the second Gearbox Software game getting the live-action treatment; Eli Roth is directing the Borderlands movie, which is allegedly going to be an R-rated action flick.
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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter.
Last week WWE confirmed that there will be no WWE 2K game this year. Today 2K Games revealed why that is, and also took the opportunity to announce a new WWE game called WWE 2K Battlegrounds.
2K Games won’t be releasing a new WWE 2K game this year, but to ease the blow the company announced a new WWE game. WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a new arcade-style brawler developed by NBA 2K Playgrounds studio Saber Interactive. You can check out a reveal trailer below:
Favorite wrestlers from across eras in “over-the-top Superstar designs” will star in the new wrestling game. 2K says it’s focusing on “social pick-up-and-play fun” instead of a more traditional wrestling sim like the WWE 2K series. WWE 2K Battlegrounds is scheduled to be released this fall.
As for WWE 2K21, the company said that it has heard feedback from fans regarding WWE 2K20, which was panned for its many issues like poor graphics, gameplay glitches, and bugs. In order to deliver experience fans want from a WWE game, 2K says it’s extending the production timeline for the next WWE 2K game.
“We are applying what we’ve learned to the next WWE 2K simulation with a renewed focus on quality and fun,” 2K says in a press release. “As part of that commitment, we are extending the production timeline and will not be releasing a WWE 2K simulation game in fiscal year 2021.”
As part of this renewed commitment to quality, 2K and developer Visual Concepts hired Patrick Gilmore as executive producer. Gilmore is a 25-year video game industry veteran with credits dating back to Disney’s Aladdin on Sega Genesis as well as work on Killer Instinct, Medal of Honor, and Amazon’s New World.
Along with the longer development time, 2K announced it will keep servers for WWE 2K19 running and active.
Visual Concepts took over the WWE 2K series from Japanese developers Yuke’s after the latter split with 2K to work on its own wrestling game. For more on why WWE 2K may be going into extra development, read our review for WWE 2K20.
Given the life-or-death dependency on taking cover in the Gears (of War) games, I can’t think of another long-running series better suited to sidestep from third-person shooter into XCOM-style turn-based tactics than this one. Gears Tactics is a spin-off with a more focused approach to the genre, ditching the larger strategy layer side of the XCOM formula in favor of pitched tactical battle after tactical battle. That comes at the cost of some replayability, but most of those fights are rewarding puzzles with fantastically polished graphical payoff.
The story of Gears Tactics takes place 12 years before the original Gears of War – of course, when it comes to gleefully cutting alligator-looking dudes in half with chainsaw guns it’s very much business as usual. Through some impressively animated cutscenes we get to fill in a few gaps in the pre-Outsiders Diaz family history, though Kait’s father, Gabriel, never really comes into his own as a memorable main character. He has his tortured past of having fallen from grace after leading an operation gone wrong and going into self-imposed exile in the COG motorpool, but being brought back for one last job doesn’t really change his mind about anything – he was fed up with the COG’s corrupt leadership before we meet him. Even the heated friction between grizzled old Gear Sid and the prickly engineer/sniper Mikayla never amounts to much. And despite some hints that he might attempt it, the villainous Ukkon never develops beyond one-dimensional evil. Still, the dialogue is written and acted well enough that it serves its purpose of establishing the signature Gears flavor and giving us a monster to hunt without getting in the way.
Gabe leads a squad of up to four Gears into battle against a substantial lineup of recognizable Locust enemies (introduced at a steady clip throughout with a gruesome close-up and a couple of tactical tips) that range from basic grunts and exploding Tickers to buffing Kantuses and tricky Theron Guards. They all have distinctive and interesting abilities to counter, including some that automatically attack if you get too close (countering the insta-kill Lancer chainsaws) and some who explode in a cloud of debilitating poison gas on death to discourage executing them when they’re downed. The only ones that ever got on my nerves were the melee units – including those Ticker jerks – where I could never quite tell if they were in range of striking my troops or not.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=You%20may%20only%20ever%20have%20four%20troops%20at%20once%2C%20but%20they%20can%20feel%20like%20an%20army.”]The fundamentals of combat are about improving your lethality by flanking, using melee charges, tossing grenades, and other abilities, and it’s great. Where things really get interesting is when you start chaining together abilities from the five different classes that grant you additional action points, either for one character or your entire squad. That can turn them from generally effective fighters into spectacular killing machines that can mow down two or three times their number of enemies. Having a Vanguard soldier like Sid spend one of his three action points to charge into the midst of a group of Locust Hammerburst drones and skewer one on his Retro Lancer’s bayonet, only to recover that action point because of his passive Free Bayonet skill, then blast another one with his Rage Shot ability for extra damage to put them in the Gears-signature down-but-not-out state that allows him to perform an execution kill, which in turn grants his teammates an extra action to tear into the Locusts with four action points apiece instead of three, is a joy. You may only ever have four troops at once, but they can feel like an army.
The directional Overwatch ability is also extremely useful – essential, really – for stopping enemy advances during their turn can be enormously powerful if you can cleverly predict enemies’ movements. The satisfying “clink!” when an enemy steps into your killzone and sets your plan into motion is one of my favorite sound effects in Gears Tactics. The Locusts think it’s handy, too: they’ll almost compulsively use Overwatch to pin you in place rather than take a shot on their turn. Countering a web of overlapping Overwatch cones without taking a hit can be a tricky puzzle, and you have many abilities designed for doing exactly that. For instance, Disabling Shot comes standard with every solider’s sidearm, which has high accuracy and a good chance to knock a grub off his guard. Grenades are handy for this, too – and there are class-specific abilities that are even more effective.
One of Gears Tactics’ best ideas, though, is effectively turning downed enemies into powerups. Executing a downed enemy will grant an action point to every other squadmate, making it a tantalizing reward for risking the safety of one Gear to allow the others one more move. There’s a pretty good chance that reducing an enemy’s health bar to zero will put them into the downed state, which is actually a good incentive to not use instant/overkill options like chainsaws, bayonets, and grenades at every opportunity.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Sliding%20into%20cover%20for%20a%20movement%20bonus%20is%20a%20great%20nod%20to%20classic%20Gears%20moves.”]Movement in general feels very fluid, which is both liberating and eventually a little tiresome. There’s no visible grid to constrain you as you move the cursor over the map, with markers on the projected path line to clearly indicate if you’ll spend one, two, or three movement units to get there. There’s even a movement-range bonus you can get for having your troops dash and slide into cover, which is a great nod to classic Gears moves and an extra incentive to stick to cover. Overall, though, it became a bit annoying after a while to have to mouse over so many potential destinations to see what I could reach and what I couldn’t, since it’s not clear just by looking at the map.
No matter where you move or what you do, Gears Tactics really does look spectacular – nearly up to par with Gears 5 itself. Character models are fantastically detailed and the ruined, mostly urban environments of the planet Sera are elaborate. Animations are top-notch as well; coming from XCOM 2, I was impressed to never see anybody appearing to fire in the wrong direction or hover in the air for a moment before moving. Virtually everything looks and sounds like you’d expect a flashy Gears game to, including gory Lancer chainsaw kills that leave both chunks of Locust and blood splatter on the environment. Occasional cinematic camera shots zoom in on a wall with textures that don’t bear scrutiny up close, but other than that Gears Tactics is polished to a thrilling shine. What’s more, it’s well optimized: I played on a PC with a Core-i7 7700K with a RTX 2080 and it ran all but flawlessly on ultra settings at 4K resolution.
Some of that efficiency is likely because Gears Tactics isn’t as ambitious as XCOM 2 when it comes to the structure of its maps. They don’t appear to be procedurally generated, only specific pieces of rickety-looking cover are destructible, and there are no multi-floor structures where one unit could stand directly above another. And we’re only dealing with four squad members at a time rather than six – though it’s not exactly shy about throwing a dozen enemies at you at once!
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Gears%20Tactics%20goes%20100%25%20all-in%20on%20tactical%20battles.”]Your squads are made up of your choice of five available classes: Support, Vanguard, Sniper, Heavy, and Scout – though some slots are often taken up by mandatory hero characters. Each class has a fairly expansive skill tree with some very powerful, very distinctive abilities to unlock as a character levels up, and it does provide significant room for distinguishing one Sniper from another. (Though if you don’t load up on the highly stackable Anchor abilities for your Heavies, which increases accuracy and damage with every shot and heals you as long as you don’t move, you’re blowing it!)
Filling out the skill tree is one of the few things you do between missions, because as the name implies, Gears Tactics goes 100% all-in on tactical battles. There are virtually no management decisions to make beyond which soldier classes to recruit and shuffling gear around. There’s no R&D, no resources to collect or spend on new equipment, and no grand campaign map to conquer. That’s not really a weakness – what’s not to like about one great tactical battle after another? – but now that my 35-ish-hour Experienced difficulty playthrough is over, the lack of a strategy layer definitely leaves it feeling less replayable than XCOM. Without thinking about what big choices I’d make differently in another playthrough, I’d be limited to trying different squad compositions and gear loadouts to emphasize different abilities. That has some appeal, certainly, but not nearly as much.
Gears Tactics’ approach to progression means that your team never gets any new weapons, just new weapon mods that give you stat boosts and new passive abilities. A lot of those are extremely powerful and can absolutely change the way you play more than a slightly better shotgun would, and it’s great to see modifications like a fancy stock or barrel attachment have a visual effect on the gun model. Some of these are similar to XCOM 2’s, like a scope that gives you better accuracy or a magazine that improves your ammo capacity, but then they start layering on new benefits like more damage at the cost of ammo capacity or better damage resistance or reduced grenade cooldowns. On their own they’re significant, but stacking together bonuses produces some amazing results. I put a bunch of critical chance and damage boosts on Sid to turn him into a close-range killing machine, and toward the end I put together a scout who could throw an amped-up frag grenade every single turn.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Stacking%20together%20gear%20bonuses%20produces%20some%20amazing%20results.”]Gear is plentiful – you’ll get new items every mission, and more if you complete optional objectives or collect crates during missions. Managing that mountain of items becomes a bit tedious after a while, in part because you have to (or rather, you should) tweak weapons and armor often and also because the UI makes you drill down several steps to see what someone has equipped and what the alternatives are. Every soldier has four different gun parts, a sidearm, three armor pieces, and a grenade slot to individually check on if you haven’t used them in a little while and might’ve snagged their gear for someone else in the meantime.
There’s virtually no resource management at all on the battlefield, either. Ammo is unlimited — outside of ammo for power weapons that are dropped in the field — but costs an action point to replenish when you’ve exhausted your magazine (XCOM’s system), and grenades are also unlimited but on a cooldown timer. Even health isn’t a big concern, since there are no persistent wounds that last between missions, so you’re free to use your tank-like troops to absorb as much damage as you like as long as you don’t get them downed too many times.
Permadeath is in play, but the presence of so many hero characters who must survive every mission they’re on makes it all but moot. Sure, you can lose a disposable soldier, but if Gabe or Sid or Mikayla gets their head caved in by a Locust thug that’s the ball game and you have to restart the mission (or at least your last checkpoint). If you’re playing on Iron Man mode that’d make them like kings on your chessboard who must be protected at all costs, but otherwise it’s pretty difficult to actually fail a mission and be forced to accept some casualties and move on unless you deliberately leave your heroes at home on a side mission where they aren’t required.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=If%20Gabe%20or%20Sid%20or%20Mikayla%20gets%20their%20head%20caved%20in%20by%20a%20Locust%20thug%20that%E2%80%99s%20the%20ball%20game.”]If one of your non-hero crew gets dismembered, fear not: replacement troops are free (they’re limited in number but the pool is refreshed after every mission) and usually come at high enough level out of the box to take the sting right out of a death. And while you can change a character’s name and customize their look, I’m a little bummed there’s no option to customize their faces so that I can accurately recreate my friends and coworkers as disposable Gears. And they really are disposable – I managed to lose a few over the course of my playthrough, but at the end there wasn’t so much as a memorial recording the names of the fallen. That was kind of disappointing given the dramatic self-sacrifice a few of them had made.
Gears Tactics’ three act-capping boss battles against enormous creatures are especially interesting because this is something the XCOM series has never attempted. They all basically boil down to keeping your troops out of the way of a giant monster’s clearly telegraphed attacks while you whittle away its health and bat down its minions. That said, the spectacle of battling these beasts straight out of the shooters makes fights fun to take part in even if they get mechanically simple after you figure out the patterns.
Between story missions are a round or two of semi-randomized missions that you have to complete two out of three, or three out of four of before proceeding to the next piece of storytelling. This is where Gears Tactics makes its biggest unforced error: it uses these to pad itself out significantly longer than it should.
Don’t get me wrong: side missions are generally good challenges and there are a respectable handful of types that range from rescuing soldiers in torture pods to holding out against waves of Locusts and gathering loot boxes ahead of an advancing bombardment. To keep things interesting they’ve all got secondary objectives that reward you with extra loot if, say, you avoid using grenades or never have a soldier go down; and on top of that, many have modifiers that might make you play differently. I had one mission where my troops couldn’t use Overwatch, one where certain enemies got a 2X damage multiplier, and one where my troops only had two action points per turn instead of three.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Side%20missions%20are%20where%20Gears%20Tactics%20makes%20its%20biggest%20unforced%20error.”]Only a couple of these resulted in really unfair-feeling scenarios, like one where I was expected to hold two points on the map with only two soldiers against waves of heavy enemies. And that mission where I only had two action points to work with was one where I had to stay ahead of the advancing bombardment line – not fun! Fortunately, since you only have to beat two out of three or three out of four in a round, Gears Tactics gives you the ability to opt out of one where the deck seems to be too heavily stacked against you.
That also means there are a lot of these missions, making up the bulk of the 35 hours I spent playing through the campaign. It’s certainly a good opportunity to gather top-tier loot and improve your chances in the story missions, but grinding my Gears started to feel drawn out after a while. Especially considering you’re free to keep doing these missions to endlessly hunt Legendary loot after completing the story, it might’ve made more sense to wrap the plot up about 10 hours earlier.
Most of my other complaints are related to the UI. It rarely gives you enough information in the mission select screen to know what you’re going up against, which means loading out my squad often felt like a shot in the dark rather than a decision I could make intelligently (and sometimes I found I had to restart with a new squad to feel like I had a fighting chance). When you’re unboxing a new weapon mod, it doesn’t tell you which weapon they’re for – and they’re all unique to a specific class – so until you learn to recognize the icon you have to go hunting for it in your inventory. And while I love that when you’re loading out a soldier it lets you browse through your team’s equipped gear and pull someone else’s goodies over to this one without first unequipping it from that person, it doesn’t tell you who has those items equipped until you click on it. Also, it doesn’t gray out the gear that’s unavailable because it’s equipped on a trooper who’s already been deployed on this round of sidequests.
Esports continues to dominate the world of self-isolation, this time with EA Sports’ Madden NFL 20 taking the spotlight on ESPN2. The 2020 Madden Bowl is coming up soon, and with a lack of in person sporting events taking place, is likely to see even more interest than usual.
ESPN2 kicked off a month full of Madden with five hours of back-to-back play on Sunday April 27, including a celebrity Madden NFL 20 tournament for charity, the Madden Bowl Last Chance Qualifier, and the first two episodes of the Road to Madden Bowl mini-series.
If you missed watching live, you can catch the Last Chance Qualifiers on the Madden Twitch account, while the Road To Madden will only be available on ESPN2 for now, with re-runs on April 28 starting at 11 PM EST. The third and final episode will air on May 2 at 11 AM EST.
All of this is leading up to the Madden Bowl finals, which will take place on May 16 on ESPN, Twitch, and YouTube. The action will start on Thursday May 14 with the Wild Card Play, followed by the Quarterfinals on Friday and the Semis and Grand finals happening on Saturday.
The Madden NFL 20 Bowl is the crowning event in the Madden Championship Season, with the game’s top players competing for a $220,000 prize pool.
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With just one more episode left in Season 3 of Westworld, the pieces are being moved across the board and the stage is being set for Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) to take on Serac (Vincent Cassel) and his emissary, Maeve (Thandie Newton). However, as is always the case with this show, things are much more complicated.
Westworld Season 3, Episode 7, “Passed Pawn,” is primarily an episode focused on Caleb (Aaron Paul). The down-on-his-luck former soldier turned tag-along participant in Dolores’s fight for liberation (and his own). However, in this episode, we learn that there was more to Caleb’s history than we knew and, in fact, his hands may be covered in blood. His role in upcoming events, meanwhile, could be far beyond he even realizes, as Dolores’s schemes begin to come in focus.
This episode also includes some big world-building revelations, confirming more about the fate of the so-called outliers, and introducing us to Solomon, a failed architect of a new world. Naturally, there’s a whole lot to unpack, analyze, and theorize about, which is exactly what Lucy and Tamoor do.
Having followed the series from the very start, and broken down every episode, they have their guesses for where things could be headed and which characters will play key roles. Watch and find out what they thought of the episode, as well as hear their predictions. Westworld airs Sundays on HBO.
When movie theatres do eventually re-open, it’s expected that cinemas may bring back blockbusters to encourage people to return. Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame are two of the biggest movies of the past five years, and their directors would welcome the idea of these films returning to cinemas.
Joe Russo told CinemaBlend that it was a career highlight for himself and his brother the way that people flocked to cinemas to see the final two Avengers films and enjoy them communally with friends and family. They would be “ecstatic” for Infinity War and Endgame to return to cinemas to try to spark the movie business once more to help the theatre business get back on track after the COVID-19 crisis.
“For us, that’s really the strength of the theatrical experience is that it combines audiences, and it combines you globally. To have been a part of movies that did that, on that scale with that level of emotional connection from the audience, was really very touching, and will be the highlight of our careers,” Joe Russo said. “So, using those films to get people back into the theaters? We would be ecstatic. I mean, any opportunity for people to go back and share in those stories together is one that we would support.”
In China, hundreds of theatres re-opened, and cinema-owners announced they would screen Infinity War and Endgame, as well as other blockbusters like Inception, Avatar, and Interstellar, to help draw crowds.
Endgame recently celebrated its first anniversary of its theatrical release in April 2019. The movie enjoyed massive success in theatres, where it made $2.79 billion to become the highest-grossing movie at the global box office of all time. The movie also has become the most profitable film in history, bringing in $890 million in net income.
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