Author: Trafficblast

When The Walking Dead delayed its Season 10 finale due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there was no word on when fans would actually see the episode. After its Comic-Con@Home panel, though, we now know when it will air–and that it’s not exactly the finale anymore.

During the panel for The Walking Dead, it was revealed that the Season 10 finale, “A Certain Doom,” would finally broadcast on AMC on Sunday, October 4–one week before the premiere of Fear the Walking Dead. However, showrunner Angela Kang also revealed that it’s technically not the final episode of Season 10, as AMC has ordered additional episodes. Six more Season 10 episodes will premiere in early 2021, though no specific dates were announced.

To celebrate the extended season, the opening three-and-a-half minutes of the Season 10 finale were revealed in the panel, showing the various settlements gearing up for war against the Whisperers and their army of walkers. What’s more exciting about the clip, though, is the return of Maggie (Lauren Cohan), who is shown finding a letter catching her up on what’s been happening since she left in Season 9. Since then, Maggie has only been seen once, in a hallucination by Michonne. However, based on this clip, it looks like she’s headed back to join the fight. And according to Cohan herself, during the panel, “It’s more than a visit. She’s coming back.”

It’s not all good news, unfortunately. While Season 10 will be longer, Season 11 will miss the show’s traditional October premiere window. Because of the pandemic, the next season of the series has been delayed with no set time for it to actually premiere.

Instead of dwelling on that, though, think about the good news. The Walking Dead will return on October 4.

I’m a bit of an Xbox guy and indie game guy so when Microsoft announces that it’s releasing over 70 brand-new game demos on Xbox One via its ID@Xbox program, I already know that I’m going to try playing as many as I can. I haven’t checked out all 73 yet–I’m only about halfway through the list–but one in particular stood out to me: The Vale: Shadow of the Crown from developer Flying Squirrel.

While the demo was downloading, I quickly skimmed through the description of the game. In The Vale, you play as Alex, a woman who’s the second born in a royal family–essentially the backup if something terrible happens to the first kid. But because she’s blind, Alex hasn’t had the same type of upbringing as her older brother. In fact, her father seemingly doesn’t want anything to do with her. So when she’s old enough, Alex’s uncle (a fellow second born) takes her away to be the warden of a small castle on the outskirts of the kingdom. 500 miles into the journey, Alex and her uncle are attacked and she’s separated from him. Alex decides her best course of action is to make her way home but as she sets out, she runs into a shepherd that informs her that an invading army is occupying the land between where she is and her brother’s castle.

My initial thoughts were that it sounded like a very typical setup for a fantasy-based RPG, save for the main character being blind. But this isn’t the first video game to feature a blind protagonist–typically they rely on some form of magic or echolocation or technology in order to see the world in a different way so that even if the character is blind, the player can still see. That is not what The Vale is.

My first indication that this would be a rather different game was the title screen. The game has been designed to be accessible to people who can’t see very well or are blind, and a voice guides you through every selection while you set up your game and adjust your difficulty. And then the game starts. “That can’t be right,” was my immediate reaction. I could hear voices but the screen was all black save for a few fluttering dim spots of light. Figuring it was a glitch (this was a demo after all), I reset the game. But nope: I got the black screen again. And then it hit me: “Oh, this game is actually making me blind to its world too.”

The Vale is the first game I have ever played that makes you as blind to its world as the protagonist you play as. You can’t see anyone or anything. Instead, you need to rely on the noises around you to gather all the information you normally would just see. Instead of looking for a clearing to find a river and fresh water, I had to listen to the sound of running water and shuffle in that direction. I couldn’t just easily see where the blacksmith’s shop was in a town’s square. I had to listen to the cacophony of a busy market and pinpoint the telltale clang of a blacksmith’s tools in order to figure out where he was. And when I bought a supposedly fabulous bow and arrows from him, I just had to hope that they matched the quality that he described. There’s no menu or stats to see, only voices coming to me from an endless black void. You have conversations with shopkeepers instead of immediately jumping into a list of items to scroll through.

Here’s the thing: The Vale is an action-based RPG. You do all the things that are traditional to the genre. You talk to people and make choices. You explore hub-like locations and pick up side quests for extra coin in order to buy new weapons and armor. You use those weapons and armor in combat. But you do it all as a person who’s blind and needs to rely completely on your other senses (which in The Vale is primarily sound but also a bit of touch through controller vibration feedback) to both navigate the world and interact with the people in it.

Given this dynamic, combat is especially intriguing. It begins relatively simple. You have a sword and must listen to where enemies are and swing at them when you can hear a tell that their guard is down. Stamina prevents you from swinging wildly, and since there’s no in-game UI to look at, you need to listen to Alex’s breathing to determine how much stamina she has left. But then combat gets more complicated–you get a shield and a bow, you’re given opportunities to stealth your way through areas. And when I spoke to Flying Squirrel founder David Evan, he told me that there’s a lot more in the full game. Specifically, combat gets much more complicated.

“Pattern recognition isn’t super important in the demo, at all,” Evan said. “And managing combat isn’t super important. But once you’re given enemies that have different tells that you have to listen for or they have alternating tells, you have to respond differently. And you’ll also be given different abilities that you don’t have at the beginning. You’ll have heavy attacks, you’ll have weapons that will open up new abilities like guard-breaking, and then you’ll have some magic as well–simple stuff, you’ll have a sword that lights on fire and an explosive AoE effect, which you’ll use strategically to do certain things.”

He continued: “You start with a sword, then you get a shield, then you learn how to use a bow, then you can combine those three things in how you handle encounters. And then eventually–it’s not in the demo–you’ll be able to move through spaces, listening for enemies and deciding whether or not you want to fire at them from range or move in and attack them and there are certain advantages to doing one or the other.”

Originally, Evan was simply aiming for something novel with The Vale. No one has really made a game like this before, at least as far as both he and I can tell. “But very quickly, when [The Vale] became a game that might be for the visually-impaired community–at least more focused in that direction–I sort of forgot about the novelty and started developing a game that needed to be accessible first and then rediscover the novelty of it,” Evan said. “And once I started, I realized how intimate the experience was and that there would be some interest and excitement for playing a game like this, that had the limits that it does have.”

Within the first month of developing the game, Evan figured he needed to connect with the blind community in order to create both an accessible and immersive experience. The first playtests of The Vale were set up at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and the first people to get their hands on the game were those with low-vision or who were blind. “That was the focus and we learned quite a bit about our game–universal issues with what we were doing and trying to do as well as specific things that meant something to the blind community,” Evan said.

To that end, Evan made sure The Vale always followed one rule: You could not have an advantage in the game if you happen to be someone who can see. But surprisingly, the blind community weren’t the ones that struggled with The Vale’s controls. It was the players who could see, who were used to playing games in a certain way, that initially struggled with The Vale.

For example, unlike in traditional games, pushing left or right on the left thumbstick does not make Alex walk left or right. Instead it makes her turn left or right. But players who can see have been mentally trained to think that pushing left is go left and pushing right is go right. To address that, small colored particles float around on the black screen and act as a handhold for players who can see. So when you push left, for instance, the particles move in a way to emulate the act of turning your head left–a reminder to players who can see that this game doesn’t work in the way they’re likely used to.

But in all honesty, I had the best experience playing The Vale with my eyes closed. There is a learning curve to The Vale. I bumped into stuff when I first started playing the demo–like a lot. But over time, I learned to “see” the world around me. I crafted mental maps of the locations I visited multiple times. I got better at orienting myself in the middle of a fight. And closing my eyes made the process easier because it removed the distraction of any visual stimuli around me. I was forced to just listen. I got all my relevant information through my headphones (trying to play this game through speakers is not ideal, you need to easily know from which direction a sound is coming from). I have never played an RPG like that before and I had a good time with The Vale’s demo, both because the experience was refreshingly novel and because Alex is a wonderful character who I love and want to play as. I have no idea how the rest of the game is going to stack up, but I can’t wait to find out.

For now, The Vale has no exact release date, but the hope is that the game will come out this year. “We’ve left [the release date] open because of COVID,” Evan said. “The linchpin has become voice over. We have one or two sessions left and things have opened up in Canada to the point where we can go and safely record. We have this whole stage system here and Toronto is going into Stage 3 a week or two weeks from now. And that, I think, is a good sign that we’ll be able to go in and get the final recording. But production has started back up in the studio. Once all that’s done? I feel like we’re a month or two away. I would like to be looking at a time of year that we still call the summer–that’s my hope. But we’ll have to roll with it because of what we’re up against.”

If you’re looking to play the demo for The Vale: Shadow of the Crown ahead of its official release, you don’t have much time–it, along with all the other ID@Xbox Summer Game Fest demos will no longer be available to download and play after July 27. The Vale is not the only demo that has us excited for future Xbox releases either–seven ID@Xbox Summer Game Fest demos caught our eye.

Having launched a decade ago in June 2010 during the PlayStation 3 era, Sony is now celebrating PlayStation Plus’s 10-year anniversary by giving loyal subscribers PlayStation Store credit for free.

Sony is handing out a free $10 credit to at least some PlayStation Plus subscribers. There’s no need to redeem a code or do anything on your part; the credit, should you receive it, will be automatically awarded to you and will sit in your PlayStation wallet. “Thank you for choosing PlayStation Plus,” the notification message from the company reads.

It’s unclear exactly what the requirements are to receive the free $10 credit. Some at GameSpot have received the credit, while others have not. We’ve contacted Sony to get clarification on the matter. To check to see if you’ve been rewarded the celebratory gift, you can check your Account Profile on the official PlayStation Store by logging in and clicking your profile icon at the top right of the page.

Also in celebrating PlayStation Plus’s 10-year anniversary, the company is giving away a free theme to any PlayStation user. You can download it directly from the PlayStation Store.

While July may be almost over, this month’s free PlayStation Plus games are still up for grabs. This time around, you can download Erica, NBA 2K20, and Rise of the Tomb Raider free of charge.

It’s fair to say that Google Stadia hasn’t lit the world on fire. Despite a promising technical test and the deep coffers of one of America’s largest companies, the tech has been underwhelming and the library is anemic. This would be a problem for any new emerging technology, but a weak launch can be course-corrected given enough time. For Google, that time is running short now that Microsoft has announced its own, much more robust streaming plans and is leveraging the Xbox brand to do it.

Due to some combination of curiosity and poor impulse control, I bought both an OnLive and a Stadia Founder’s Edition at launch. Streaming has always been a fascinating concept, and I’ve wanted to see it firsthand, for better and for worse.

Stadia has failed to impress. Pro customers get discounts and a couple of free games, but other promised features like 4K output have been inconsistent. (Google pointedly blamed developers for this.) When Stadia does announce a new slate of games coming to the service, it’s often ones that have already been out on other platforms for months. It has precious few exclusives. The promise of Stadia is to play anywhere, but I don’t travel all that often even in the best of times, much less in the midst of a global pandemic. To top it all off, the games on Stadia are full-priced, often going for the standard price on other platforms, sometimes long after other platforms have offered significant discounts for older games that are marked as “New Releases” on Stadia.

With all this, I’m left with a platform that offers me full-priced games that I’ve already played, that are cheaper elsewhere, with at least some degree of lag, using a less-than-ideal controller on a service that could vanish if Google decides to scrap the project.

It’s in this environment that Microsoft recently announced plans for its xCloud streaming tech. Starting in September, xCloud will be bundled with Game Pass Ultimate, the all-you-can-eat subscription service that also includes Xbox Live Gold. Game Pass has long been an impressive value proposition, and Microsoft has been pushing hard to promote Ultimate as the go-to version of the service thanks to it bundling together the console and PC libraries.

Just in terms of sheer value, this will immediately make Game Pass Ultimate run rings around Stadia Pro. A Stadia Pro subscription grants you one or two games per month, similar to Xbox Live Gold, along with some discounts on full-priced games, for $10/month. Game Pass Ultimate, by comparison, is $15/month and will grant you the ability to stream the Game Pass library–and it also gives you Gold for a few free games and associated discounts. Microsoft hasn’t said if the entire Game Pass library will be streaming on xCloud from day one, but even just a fraction would be more free games than Stadia offers, with the promise of scaling up from there. What’s more, the Game Pass library includes Microsoft’s first-party games, which ensures games from recognizable franchises like Halo, Forza, and Gears are represented.

This is even more impressive in light of Microsoft’s Xbox Series X event. The company opened its showcase by stating that every single game shown would be available through Xbox Game Pass. That means the streaming service xCloud will offer the likes of Halo Infinite, Fable, Hellblade 2, and many more.

But it’s not just pure pound-for-pound game libraries where Microsoft is challenging Google. Microsoft’s xCloud is compatible with any Android device running firmware 6.0 or greater, while Stadia is still relegated to a list of specified mobile devices. (Neither is compatible with Apple’s iOS yet, though Microsoft has begun testing.) And Microsoft already has a firm foothold in the video game industry, lending greater assurance to the future of xCloud as part of its existing ecosystem.

Within that ecosystem, xCloud fits comfortably as a part of Microsoft’s overall strategy. Assuming xCloud streaming comes to Microsoft’s own consoles as well, it provides an on-ramp for current-gen Xbox One users to sample games at Xbox Series X fidelity, with cross-saves and Smart Delivery easing the transition when they decide to make the jump to next-gen. Relying on streaming as an augmented part of your library access makes more sense for most gamers than locking themselves into Stadia alone. Microsoft could even drop the price of the All-Digital Edition, or come up with a similar digital-focused console, to compete directly with Stadia’s Chromecast package as a streaming-focused device.

To be clear, it’s possible that Microsoft could drop the ball somehow. In comparing a current service to the promise of a future one, it’s impossible to foresee all the possible pitfalls and shortcomings of the emergent technology. Microsoft’s service could end up being more limited than it has suggested, or the streaming performance itself could be severely worse. There are ways for all of this to go very wrong. Google could also directly respond to Microsoft by expanding its own service to compete.

Assuming none of that happens, though, Microsoft’s plans contribute to the feeling that its push into streaming is part of a larger vision for the future of the industry. The company is leveraging its decades of cache and experience into a streaming service that fits alongside the rest of its game offerings and offers a better overall value. Google will have a hard time keeping up with that.

While this year’s SDCC all took place virtually, repackaged as Comic-Con@Home, one of the great things about the event was that anyone can “get into” a panel. No more waiting in line, overnight, to make sure you got a seat in the notorious Hall H. Every panel can be watched on YouTube, over and over and over again.

Because of this, we now know which panels the masses are most interested in, as all of YouTube’s videos display the view count. So what do people care about the most? As of Thursday, July 23, it was obvious that people wanted news about the long-delayed New Mutants movie–which, don’t worry, is still aiming for August theatrical release.

Below, you’ll find the list of the most-viewed Comic-Con panels from this year. These panels and numbers will be updated throughout the weekend, so we won’t know what the most popular panel of Comic-Con 2020 is until the end of Sunday, July 26.

In the meantime, here’s what people were excited to learn more about on Day One of Comic-Con.

Numbers last updated: July 24, 12:50 PM ET

10. Conspiracy Theories and Propaganda Throughout Pop Culture (8.4k views)

J.D. Lombardi, Justin Montgomery, Guadalupe De La O, and G.L. Lambert talk about conspiracies in TV shows, movies, and comic books and how that correlates to our culture and current climate.

9. Amazon Prime Video: Truth Seekers (9.2k views)

Amazon’s latest original series reunites Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in a show that revolves around a ghost hunting show online. You can check out the trailer for the series and read GameSpot’s coverage here.

8. Solar Opposites (10k views)

Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan new animated series on Hulu was front and center for its panel on Thursday. During the event, we saw a clip from Season 2–and while it’s not completely animated, we got a good idea of what’s to come.

7. Cartoon Network Studios: The Art of Storyboarding (10.8k views)

Experts and industry professionals reveal how they got into the business for this panel, which includes The Amazing World of Gumball’s Mic Graves, Apple & Onion’s Chuck Klein, and Summer Camp Island’s Julia Pottand Alabaster Pizzo.

6. X-Men Fandom Surprise Party (12.2k views)

A panel that was originally going to be about X-Men fans talking about their love of the world of mutants. However, there were a few celebrity guests that surprised the panelists.

5. A Look Inside Marvel’s 616 on Disney+ (19.4k views)

While most of the MCU-related TV shows and movies have been delayed, there’s a new docuseries about the Marvel Universe coming to Disney+. Marvel 616 explores the vast history of the company’s comic book universe. To learn more, check out GameSpot’s coverage of the panel.

4. His Dark Materials Virtual Panel and Q&A Session (19.7k views)

Find out more about the HBO series in an expansive Q&A.

3. Amazon Prime Video: The Boys (30.3k views)

Ahead of Season 2, the Amazon original series panel features the cast talking about future episodes, and what we can expect. Also, there’s a new clip for Season 2 featuring a whale. Read more here.

2. Star Trek Universe Virtual Panel (40k views)

Star Trek has a super-sized panel to kick off the day. During the event, Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks–which got a new trailer–were all discussed. We also learned about a new animated Star Trek series coming to Nickelodeon.

1. The New Mutants (98.8k views)

The top panel of Thursday was none other than the long-delayed New Mutants movie. While it’s still planning an August 28 release, we saw some new footage of the film and got some new posters. Learn more here.

After being off the air for nearly a year, we now know when AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead will return. During the show’s Comic-Con@Home panel, it was announced that Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 will premiere on Sunday, October 11. Additionally, a trailer for the new season was revealed, which you can watch below.

In the minute-long clip, Morgan (Lennie James) can be heard asking for help as the show picks up following the Season 5 finale, which left him near death. Based on the trailer, he’s not dead yet but doesn’t seem far from it–especially now that it seems he’s being hunted.

“There is something going on with Morgan,” co-showrunner Andrew Goldberg teases of Morgan being seen with red eyes at the end of the trailer. Whether that means he’s a zombie or not remains to be seen. Whatever the case, it’s not business as usual for the character in the new season.

Fear the Walking Dead will return to AMC on October 11 with new episodes. Now the question is when the main show in this universe, The Walking Dead, will join it. You may remember the Season 10 finale of The Walking Dead was unable to be finished due to COVID-19. A new date has not been announced.

The end is near for Vikings. The cast made its final Comic-Con appearance through its virtual Comic-Con@Home panel Friday, setting the stage for the final batch of episodes that will bring about the series finale. The first half of Season 6 aired earlier this year, while the second half is completed and will be seen eventually. To tease what was to come, though, a shocking clip was shown.

In the clip, Ivar (Alex Hogh) and his army are preparing for war. What he doesn’t expect, though, is that his brother Bjorn (Alexander Ludwig) would be the opposition. You may remember in the finale of the first half of Season 6, Ivar seemingly killed Bjorn. However, as showrunner Michael Hirst revealed to GameSpot at the time, “He’s not dead yet. Honestly, Episode 11 will just knock your socks off. It’s so powerful. And it’s just brilliant for Alexander and in a way that’s what I wanted.”

While the clip makes it obvious that Bjorn is not long for this world, he’s clearly not going down without a fight.

As for what cans should expect from the final season, Hirst wouldn’t reveal much. However, he did have some parting words for the fans. “I think the conclusion of the saga is deeply satisfying and a proper and meaningful ending,” he said. “And I hope all of our fans will feel the same way. I tried to do justice to all of my characters and I hope I succeeded.”

Of course, it would be hard to have a final Vikings panel without a true Lothbrok family reunion. Travis Fimmel, who played Ragnar on the first four seasons of the show took part in the panel, reminiscing about his time on the series and some of Ragnar’s most notable scenes, including going to war against his own brother, Rollo (Clive Standen).

“For the character, even until that very moment, he was hoping that [Rollo] wouldn’t fight him back. He had a glimmer of hope that his brother wouldn’t betray him,” Fimmel said of the scene. “And as soon as that happens, I think it devastated his world and was really the beginning of the end of his drive. I think he really regretted his life, you know? He just wanted to be back with Lagertha.”

At this point, we still don’t know when to expect the final episodes of Vikings to premiere on History. When they do, though, it looks like it’s going to be a wild ride. You can check out the entire panel below.