Author: Trafficblast

Dishonored Is Getting A Tabletop RPG

Dishonored has not had a new video game since Dishonored: Death of the Outsider in 2017, but tabletop fans will soon have another way to delve into the rich world of the series. Modiphius Entertainment has announced a Dishonored tabletop RPG is currently in the works, and will release in summer 2020.

The game will use a streamlined version of the 2d20 system that the company designed for its Star Trek Adventures and Conan games, and is being designed in collaboration with Dishonored director Harvey Smith. The game has brought on a “diverse selection of writers and artists,” many of whom were involved in the creation of the games too. It will involve exploring the Empire of the Isle.

The rules system will be developed by Nathan Dowdell (Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of) and is aiming to be fast-paced, with a new “Momentum System” being designed to incorporate the series’ Chaos mechanics and Void powers.

The game will come in a deluxe, 300 page hardcover book, and there will be custom dice and cards available too. The book is said to feature:

  • An introduction to the Empire of the Isles, and an in-depth look at its history, its people and the struggles they face.
  • A step-by-step guide to play the role of the Protagonists: from grim assassins and rugged criminals, to intrepid explorers and stoic crown loyalists.
  • A host of antagonists and a myriad different storyhooks to inspire you, from the harsh, cold lands of Tyvia to sunny Karnaca.
  • Insight on the strange nature of the Void, as well as rules to harness the its reality-bending powers.
  • “The Oil Trail”, a mini-campaign in four acts that serves as a perfect introduction to the City of Dunwall.
  • A streamlined narrative edition of the Modiphius 2d20 game system.

Modiphius has also worked with Bethesda on The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms and Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. They also created the tabletop version of Mutant: Year Zero.

Aside from this tabletop series, the Dishonored series was last said to be “resting for now” in August 2018, so it might be a while before we see another video game in this universe.

Now Playing: Dishonored: Death Of The Outsider Gameplay

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The Outer Worlds Wins Game Of The Year At New York Video Game Awards

The 9th annual New York Videogame Awards were held this week in Manhattan, and The Outer Worlds was the night’s big winner. The Obsidian-developed RPG took home the overall Game of the Year award.

Other titles that received Game of the Year nominations included Outer Wilds, Luigi’s Mansion 3, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Resident Evil 2, Death Stranding, Telling Lies, and Disco Elysium.

Obsidian has more in store for The Outer Worlds, as the studio is planning to release story DLC for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC game later in 2020. The game is available on Xbox Game Pass, so subscribers can pick up the game at no extra cost.

Other titles that won big at the New York Videogame Awards were Disco Elysium (Best Indie Game and Best Writing) and Sayonara Wild Hearts (Best Mobile Game and Best Music). You can see the full list of categories and winners below.

Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime was honored with the Andrew Yoon Legend Award, and you can watch his acceptance speech in the video above.

2020 New York Videogame Awards

  • Big Apple Award for Best Game of the Year:
    • The Outer Worlds
  • Andrew Yoon Legend Award:
    • Reggie Fils-Aimé
  • Statue of Liberty Award for Best World:
    • Outer Wilds
  • Herman Melville Award for Best Writing:
    • Disco Elysium
  • Coney Island Dreamland Award for Best AR/VR Game:
    • Minecraft Earth
  • Tin Pan Alley Award for Best Music in a Game:
    • Sayonara Wild Hearts
  • Central Park Children’s Zoo Award for Best Kids Game:
    • Luigi’s Mansion 3
  • A-Train Award for Best Mobile Game:
    • Sayonara Wild Hearts
  • Off Broadway Award for Best Indie Game:
    • Disco Elysium
  • Freedom Tower Award for Best Remake:
    • Resident Evil 2
  • Great White Way Award for Best Acting in a Game:
    • Courtney Hope as Jesse in Control
  • Captain Award for Best Rookie Esports Team:
    • FPX (League of Legends)
  • Joltin’ Joe Award: Best Esports Player of the Year:
    • Arslan Ash

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Mr. Peanut Is Dead

The world’s most iconic groundnut, Mr. Peanut, has died. Planters, the company that created the cane-wielding, top hat-wearing legume, confirmed his death on social media. He was 104.

Mr. Peanut died after the car he was driving–the Nutmobile–attempted to swerve to avoid an armadillo in the road. The snack pitchman was driving with Wesley Snipes and Matt Walsh on the fateful day. The three found themselves dangling on a tree. Their combined weight was too great, and Mr. Peanut sacrificed himself to save his friends.

This is all recounted in a Super Bowl 54 advertisement that Planters released early–check it out below.

It seems unlikely that this is the end of the story–people are theorizing that Mr. Peanut somehow survived the fall and the ensuing explosion. Others believe Planters might be re-branding, with a new mascot to be announced during the Super Bowl.

What we do know is that Planters is paying big money for this ad campaign. Super Bowl broadcaster Fox is charging $5.6 million for 30 seconds of airtime during the Super Bowl. The game takes place on Sunday, February 3, and sees the The Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers do battle at the Hard Hock Stadium in Miami, Florida.

The Mr. Peanut mascot was created by 14-year-old Antonio Gentile in 1916 as part of a contest that Planters put on to create mascot for the up-and-coming peanut company.

Tributes for Mr. Peanut poured in from other popular food and entertainment brands following the announcement of his death.

First Look At Apex Legends Season 4 Coming In Livestream This Thursday

Respawn has announced that a special edition Devstream for Apex Legends will be held Thursday, January 23 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. The livestream promises to provide the first official look at Season 4.

During the stream, Respawn will also be holding an early celebration for the one year anniversary of the reveal and launch of Apex Legends. The anniversary is officially February 4, which we believe might be the start date of Season 4. The current season of Apex Legends, Season 3: Meltdown, is scheduled to end February 3.

Apex Legends is currently in the midst of its latest limited-time event, Grand Soirée Arcade. The event is a 14-day in-game celebration for Apex Legends, hosting a rotating collection of seven limited-time modes throughout its runtime. Grand Soirée Arcade adds several new in-game challenges and weapon and character skins (both rare and legendary). The event concludes on January 28.

A new update for Apex Legends was launched alongside Grand Soirée Arcade, which addressed numerous bugs. The update also added a pretty substantial nerf to Wraith, as well as much-needed buffs for Gibraltar and Crypto. Gibraltar now also has a brand-new animation for when he’s reviving teammates while in his Dome Shield.

The most surprising change in the update is the removal of extended energy mags, a change that Respawn clarified it hadn’t intended to push live so soon as it actually addresses something that’s being added to Apex Legends in Season 4. Though this cryptic tease does offer some credence to the rumors that another Titanfall 2 weapon will soon be added to Apex Legends, Respawn has not yet clarified what exact change is happening in Season 4 to warrant the removal of extended energy mags. Perhaps we’ll find out tomorrow.

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Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan to Return in Picard Season 2

Star Trek: The Next Generation fans can expect to see another familiar face in Star Trek: Picard’s second season. Star Patrick Stewart has invited Goldberg to reprise her role as the sage bartender Guinan in Season 2.

Stewart made the gesture during an appearance on The View, which is co-hosted by Goldberg. The actor, who plays Jean-Luc Picard, made it clear he wasn’t merely wishing for Goldberg to return, but formally passing along an offer from executive producer Alex Kurtzman and the producing team. Goldberg happily accepted, which seems to confirm she’ll indeed be appearing in Season 2.

Goldberg as Guinan and Stewart as Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Goldberg as Guinan and Stewart as Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

You can see a clip of Goldberg and Stewart’s conversation on The View’s official Twitter feed.

In response to Stewart’s offer, Goldberg told her audience, “I’ve said it on this show before, but Star Trek was one of the great experiences from the beginning to the end. I had the best, best, best time.”

Ever the gentleman, Stewart responded, “It was wonderful having you, and we cannot wait to have you with us again one more time.”

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This news serves as our first taste of what’s to come in Season 2, which was officially greenlit in January 2020, just ahead of the show’s January 23 premiere. Previously, Deadline reported Season 2 will be 10 episodes in length.

For more on what to expect from the newest Star Trek series, find out which Trek timeline Picard takes place and which version of Data could be appearing in the show.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Xbox Streaming Service xCloud Comes To Canada Next Week

Microsoft’s Netflix-style game-streaming service, Project xCloud, is expanding its global rollout. The beta for the service is launching soon in Canada. This will be the fourth region where xCloud is now available, following the US, UK, and Korea.

“Canada has been one of the top-requested markets for expansion and we’re delighted to deliver for gamers in Canada starting next week,” xCloud boss Catherine Gluckstein said in a statement.

xCloud will launch in Canada on January 29. Players can register for the beta on Microsoft’s website. In all parts of the world, access to the xCloud beta is available by invitation only. If you don’t get in right away, keep checking back, as Microsoft says it will invite more players in over time.

The launch of xCloud in Canada comes just days after Microsoft beefed up the catalogue with nine more titles, including Destiny 2 and Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

As for other regions of the world, Gluckstein said Microsoft plans to launch xCloud in additional markets “in due course.”

The first public preview for Project xCloud launches in October 2019. The service allows players to stream Xbox games from the cloud to their mobile device over Wifi or a mobile network without the need to own an Xbox. The program currently only supports Android devices.

Project xCloud is separate from Microsoft’s Xbox console streaming program which allows players to stream games from their home console to their mobile device.

Now Playing: Project xCloud – Official Trailer

Tencent Plans To Fully Own Conan Exiles Developer Starting In February

Chinese megacorporation Tencent has announced plans to purchase all of Funcom. The acquisition, valued at about $148 million USD, will allegedly have no impact on how Funcom presently operates as a studio.

Tencent explained that the studio’s “impressive” nearly 30-year history is why the company has opted to acquire all Funcom shares. “We are impressed by Funcom’s strengths as a developer of open-world multiplayer, action and survival games,” senior vice president Steven Ma said in a press release. “Funcom has a strong track record in developing new titles with long [lifespans]. We are glad to deepen our relationship with Funcom and look forward to collaborating with Funcom to deliver more exciting and enjoyable game experiences to fans worldwide.”

Funcom is a Norwegian-based studio founded in 1993. The developer has dabbled in a variety of game genres, including puzzlers and sports titles, but Funcom is best known for its interpretation of Conan the Barbarian. 2018’s Conan Exiles, an action-survival game, is the studio’s latest iteration in the franchise. Funcom also published 2018’s Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, a turn-based tactical-RPG.

Funcom expressed excitement about deepening its relationship with Tencent and is looking forward to the future. “We have had a great relationship with Tencent as our largest shareholder so far and we are excited about this opportunity,” CEO Rui Casais said. “We will continue to develop great games that people all over the world will play, and we believe that the support of Tencent will take Funcom to the next level.”

Despite Tencent preparing to fully own Funcom, the studio has made it clear that the acquisition doesn’t affect its management, staffing or structure. In fact, Funcom said it will “remain an independent business.”

Tencent has a stake in many of the video games industry’s business companies, including Activision Blizzard, Bluehole (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds), Epic Games, Glu Mobile (Baldur’s Gate), Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile), Paradox Interactive (Pillars of Eternity), Riot Games, Supercell (Clash of Clans), Ubisoft, and more.

Now Playing: Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden – Nintendo Switch Announcement Trailer

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All Of Terminator Dark Fate’s Mexico Scenes Were Shot 5,000 Miles From The Country

Movie locations can be a tricky thing. Sometimes, you can’t shoot somewhere because of the cost. Sometimes, it’s politics. However, one thing the Terminator: Dark Fate home release revealed is that every shot from Mexico–the central location for the majority of the movie–didn’t even take place in that country. It was all shot in Spain.

That odd fact is revealed on the “World Builders” featurette, which is included in the home release of Terminator: Dark Fate. The creators behind the movie discussed making Spain look like Mexico. “Spain is a good double for Mexico,” explained production designer Sonja Klaus. “It’s often used because of the topography, the light, the shapes that you get.”

But why couldn’t Dark Fate take place south of the American border? “A lot of the movie takes place in Mexico and the southern US,” said director Tim Miller during the featurette. “And we couldn’t go to Mexico for a variety of reasons, so we shot 30-some days in Spain.”

While this probably comes as quite a surprise to people who saw the movie, it’s a relatively common practice in Hollywood. Many TV shows and movies find themselves filming the movie elsewhere. The first Wayne’s World movie, which takes place in the far west Chicago suburb of Illinois, only has one shot in the entire film of that city–a quick look at a local White Castle, on the outskirts of Aurora. Why this Dark Fate revelation is a great accomplishment is because the set decorators and dressers really pulled this feat off exceptionally well, even though they filmed 5,000 miles away from the story’s location.

In GameSpot’s review of Terminator: Dark Fate, Michael Rougeau said, “Terminator: Dark Fate doesn’t set a new bar for action movies like Terminator 2 did back in 1991. But that’s not a realistic expectation–T2 was a once-in-a-generation kind of film. What Dark Fate does is establish a new–if-familiar–jumping-off point from which the Terminator series can hopefully move forward. It breaks the cycle of terrible Terminator sequels and spin-offs, and begins a new, brighter timeline. Humanity may always be its own worst enemy, but Dark Fate proves that we at least have the capacity to make some more kick-ass Terminator movies before judgment day arrives.”

Terminator: Dark Fate special features:

4K UHD Blu-ray combo features:

  • Deleted and Extended Scenes
  • A Legend Reforged
  • World Builders
  • Dam Busters: The Final Showdown
  • VFX Breakdown: The Dragonfly

Digital only features:

  • Creating a New Threat
  • Future Tech
  • Previz Sequences
  • Factory Fight
  • Air Battle to Humvee Falling
  • Humvee Dam
  • Commentary by director Tim Miller and editor Julian Clarke
  • Deleted scenes introduction and commentary by Tim Miller

Terminator: Dark Fate is available now and comes to 4K and Blu-ray on January 28.

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The 11 Most Bizarre Moments Throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation

The final frontier was filled with weirdness.

The final frontier was filled with weirdness.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, like all Star Trek television shows, is sanctified by the passage of time. There aren 178 TNG episodes; the sheer volume and relative consistency means that the great episodes rise to the forefront of our memories, and the remaining ones blur together as solid Trek.

It also helps that Star Trek: The Next Generation was a character-driven show rather than a plot-driven one. People may have tuned in for the science fiction, but they stayed for the characters–the senior crew that included iconic, sympathetic characters like Data, Worf, and of course, Captain Jean-Luc Picard. The characters redeem even the worst episodes; we may not remember the details of yet another hostile alien race that attempted to take over the ship, but we always felt reassured that Picard would fight them off, most likely by using his words instead of a photon torpedo.

The show’s most jarring moments are when the main players behave wildly out of character. Many of these moments are from the first season, when the show was finding its footing. Others were the result of failed comedy or left-field premises.

As we get ready for Star Trek: Picard, which debuts on CBS All Access on January 23, 2020, we’re looking back at the good Captain’s illustrious career. Here are the 10 most bizarre moments from Star Trek: The Next Generation. And if you liked this gallery, check out our galleries on the greatest TNG Picard episodes, the most badass Picard moments, and everything you need to know about the Borg.

Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company.

Was a Young Kanan Jarrus in the Newest Clone Wars Trailer?

SPOILERS AHEAD for Star Wars Rebels.

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A brand-new trailer for the seventh and final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars has been released and, while it gave us another glimpse at some of our favorite characters (Ahsoka!) from the show that hasn’t aired since 2014, it also appears to show a young Kanan Jarrus from Star Wars Rebels.

Spotted by those like @ThomasLHarper on Twitter around the 25-second mark, viewers can catch a glimpse of a young Padawan standing next to Jedi Master Depa Billaba.

KananAs was revealed in Star Wars Rebels and expanded upon in works like the comic series Star Wars: Kanan – The Last Padawan, that boy was named Caleb Dume and would grow up to take the name Kanan Jarrus following the tragic events of Order 66.

During Order 66 on the planet Kaller, Master Billaba sacrificed herself to save Dume and he ended up meeting a smuggler named Janus Kasmir. He was forced to hide that he was a Jedi and had to learn to live as a fugitive to survive in a world where Jedi were being openly hunted.

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Dume went so far as to abandon his name and past, and thus became Kanan Jarrus. While he was lost in his purpose for a while, he eventually ran into a Twi’lek female named Hera Syndulla and the rest, they say, is on Disney+. Seriously, go watch Star Wars Rebels.

While we don’t know if we will see or learn more about Caleb Dume besides this one cameo, it is pretty clear that this final season will venture into the timeline of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. What’s even more, it appears we will see scenes from Episode III played out in animation form, as you can see below from @ImmortalSoldier.

There are other small Easter Eggs in this trailer that hint at the ROTS timeline, including the shot of Anakin and a seemingly-pregnant Padme holding virtual hands by @Sithreeepio. We know Anakin didn’t find out she was pregnant until the third film, so this would indicate the timelines will be crossing.

Screenshot_2020-01-22 (1) Memo on Twitter Padmé holding her belly she's pregnant here right https t co 9pHeQwJzIC TwitterThis also backs up previous statements by both Dave Filoni and Pablo Hidalgo in 2015 who had hinted that, before its cancellation, there were plans for Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ final episodes to have taken place after Revenge of the Sith.

It won’t be long until we all find out the truth when we return to our favorite galaxy far, far away for Star Wars: The Clone Wars final twelve episodes on February 21, 2020.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who can’t wait and is so excited he just can’t hide it. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.