Game of Thrones may not adhere to all of the usual fantasy storytelling tropes, but this series does love its prophecies. From the Azor Ahai to Melisandre’s final warning to Arya, prophecies are Game of Thrones’ bread and butter — even if those prophecies generally don’t work out as planned. That was very much the case with one of the (book) series’ most notable prophecies, the Valonqar, which involves a young Cersei Lannister being told how she would die.
Bethesda’s Rage 2 is out this week, and the long-awaited title’s release is just the beginning. Bethesda has released new details on the post-apocalyptic sequel’s content calendar for 2019, and there’s a lot of extra content coming.
As the graphic explains, all World Events are free, as is the Day 30 update, some weapon skins, cheat codes, Wasteland challenges, and the One Wheeler vehicle. The rest of the content is paid. The two biggest pieces of content seem to be Expansion 1: Rise of the Ghosts, and the untitled Expansion 2, which are set to launch in August and later in the Fall respectively. The two expansions add a variety of newness like new story content, more weapons, vehicles, and locations. You can check out the full content calendar below to see what’s coming.
You can get Rage 2 and all the extra DLC in the Rage 2: Deluxe Edition, which costs $80 USD £70 / $130 AUD.
Rage 2 is developed by Avalanche Studios in Sweden. Id Software, the developer of the original Rage, is also assisting in the game’s development. The game launches on May 14 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Rage 2 is set 30 years after the events of the first Rage, which was released in 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The Earth has started to recover after being ravaged by a global catastrophe, and plant and animal life have begun springing up around the planet, making it more colourful.
One of Microsoft’s newest internal development studios, The Initiative, continues to add to its already impressive lineup of talent. The company recently hired former Naughty Dog developer Robert Ryan as a senior systems designer for the studio’s new, unannounced game.
Ryan joins a team at The Initiative that is already stacked with talent. God of War veteran Brian Westergaard is the director of production, Drew Murray (Sunset Overdrive, Resistance 3) is a lead designer, William Archbell (343 Industries) is the technical director, and Blake Fischer (Xbox) is director of world and narrative. Daniel Neuburger, who worked on Rise of the Tomb Raider, is The Initiative’s game director. The Initiative also hired Rockstar Games veteran Tom Shepherd, while among the other high-profile hirings include Red Dead Redemption 1 writer/designer Christian Cantamessa.
The studio aims to stay “small,” but the company’s ambition is to “push boundaries,” “challenge convention,” and take risks as they make something “spectacular and unique.”
The Initiative is just one of seven studios that Microsoft either set up or acquired in the past year. At E3 2018, Microsoft announced that it acquired Playground Games (Forza Horizon), Compulsion Games (We Happy Few), Ninja Theory (Hellblade), and Undead Labs (State of Decay). At Microsoft’s X018 event in Mexico City, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Obsidian Entertainment (Fallout: New Vegas) and inXile Entertainment (Wasteland 3).
The latest box office report is in, and Pokemon and Avengers dominated. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu opened to a massive $58 million in the US and Canada this weekend, according to a box office report from Entertainment Weekly.
That is a tremendous result, and it’s the biggest opening for a Pokemon movie of all time not adjusted for inflation. It was enormously successful, but it wasn’t enough to take down Avengers: Endgame. The Marvel team-up pulled in $63 million in the US and Canada to stay at No. 1 for a third week running.
Endgame has now made $723.5 million domestically, which is only behind Avatar ($760.5 million) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936.6 million). Worldwide, Endgame has now made $2.485.5 billion, which brings it even closer to reaching Avatar’s all-time record of $2.78 billion.
The new movie about Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien also opened this weekend, and it landed at No. 9 with $2.2 million. As EW notes, the film did “modestly well” considering that it only screened at 1,495 locations in the US and Canada. Other new releases this weekend included the Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson comedy The Hustle (No. 3, $13.5 million), and the Diane Keaton movie Poms, which made $5.1 million to come in sixth place this weekend.
You can see the full box office report for May 10-12 below, as compiled by EW.
The world of Rage 2 is overrun with mutants and ruled by a group known as the Authority. As Walker, you can lay waste to both of these factions with guns and powerful Nanotrite abilities. You can also drive any vehicle you see in the open world, opening up plenty of roadkill opportunities.
More Coverage:
A Plague Tale: Innocence — May 14
Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC
A Plague Tale is set during the Black Death, and you’ll spend the game trying not to catch it. Siblings Amicia and Hugo have to avoid infected rats and evil knights, and that’s accomplished by solving puzzles and slinging stones. Luckily, Amicia can craft custom ammo for her sling.
More Coverage:
Darkwood — May 14 (PS4) / May 16 (Switch) / May 17 (Xbox One)
Available on: PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Making its console debut this week is Darkwood, a top-down survival horror game. During the day, you’ll spend your time gathering resources and crafting items. When night falls, you’ll have to use everything you collected to defend your base from monsters. You’ll get different endings depending on how you interact with NPCs too.
Paws on Fire takes is an endless runner spinoff of the Bubsy series, brought to you by the team behind the Bit.Trip Runner games. You can dash through the levels as Bubsy or three of his pals, each of which has their own distinct play style. No matter whom you choose, you’ll be gunning for a high score across the game’s goofy levels–you’ll just have to wait until summer for the Nintendo Switch version.
This is a non-spoiler review for all 10 episodes of The Society, which premieres Friday, May 10 on Netflix.
It’s hard to pinpoint which Netflix Originals are going to catch fire and become a one or two week buzz with the streaming crowd, but if you’re a fan of The CW’s The 100 or William Golding’s Lord of the Flies – or even if you just wished CBS’ Under the Dome was good – then The Society is the new “teenagers forced to make really dark and difficult choices” show for you.
Produced by Amazing Spider-Man’s Marc Webb and created by Party of Five’s Christopher Keyser, The Society is part Lost, part Kid Nation, and all disturbing. Admittedly, it has a clunky couple of intro episodes, and from time to time the stale small-town setting can create a feeling of monotony and bloat, but inside it all is a sinister look at what human beings will do when forced to create their own community from scratch.
Warning: full SPOILERS ahead for Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 5 “The Bells”!
Game of Thrones’ Battle of King’s Landing ended up being an entirely one-sided affair as Danerys Targaryen used Drogon to make quick work of the Iron Fleet and the city’s anti-dragon defenses before laying waste to the city and its people — citizen and soldier alike. As the chaos unfolded, several principal characters met their end.
Here’s who died in the episode.
Cersei Lannister
Cersei met her end in the arms of her brother Jamie. The pair tried to escape through Tyrion’s secret passageway, but the exits were all blocked thanks to rubble falling as a result of Danerys’ dragon siege. All of the horrible things Cersei has done have largely been done for her children, so in her final moments she could do nothing but hope for her unborn child to somehow survive. Many fans theorized it would be Arya who would assassinate Cersei when she face-changed her way into striking distance or that it would be Jamie who finally put an end to his sister based on the Valonqar Theory, but in the end it was the cave-in of King’s Landings’ lower levels that finally killed her along with her brother. Though the falling rocks technically killed Cersei, it was Danerys who caused it by savagely attacking King’s Landing in order to get revenge on Cersei both for betraying her and for beheading her best friend and trusted adviser Missandei.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 5.
Jaime Lannister spent his final moments holding and comforting Cersei, the woman that meant the most to him, and the scene was a major callback to a previous episode that foreshadowed the deaths of two characters who have been with us since the beginning.
Speaking on HBO’s Inside the Episode for episode 5 of the final season of Game of Thrones, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss discussed how Jaime’s ideal path always had an ending similar to this.
“You know, there’s a scene, several years ago, where Jaime and Bronn are talking about how they wanna go, and Jaime’s talking about dying in the arms of the woman he loves. And this is it.” Benioff explains.
Full SPOILERS ahead for Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 5, “The Bells”!
The Mother of Dragons, the daughter of the Mad King, finally went to the dark side on.the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones’ final season, “The Bells”.
Daenerys Targaryen destroyed King’s Landing, killing nearly every man, woman, and child, combatant or not, and unleashing her dragon-son Drogon to utterly level the city in wave after wave of fiery destruction.
Many fans will no doubt be torn by this decision to have a character who had been so beloved by so many at times — a protagonist that people in real life even named their own kids after — committing such atrocities. On HBO’s “Inside the Episode” aftershow, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss explained why Dany did what she did.
