Author: Trafficblast

An Xbox One X is great for anyone who wants to get the most out of their 4K TV. It’s the most powerful console on the market right now, capable of 4K gaming, video streaming, and playing 4K UHD movies. And right now, Amazon has a variety of Xbox One X bundles on sale for $349.99. That’s the lowest the console has ever gone, making now a great time to upgrade. Read on for details about the Xbox One X bundle deals.

Xbox One X Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Bundle is $349

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Buying this bundle gets you an Xbox One X, plus a digital copy of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Deluxe Edition. That includes the game itself (which we awarded a 9 in our review), plus some in-game skins for your droid and ship, plus a digital art book, plus behind-the-scenes videos. The game is a fantastic single-player adventure that’s like a mix between Uncharted, Dark Souls, and Metroid Prime. It’s one of the best games released last year, making this bundle a terrific buy.

Xbox One X Gears 5 Limited Edition Bundle is $349

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Also discounted to $349 right now is the gorgeous Gears 5 Limited Edition Xbox One X. Instead of the traditional black console and controller, this bundle features an Xbox One X with “dark translucent casing that makes the Crimson Omen appear submerged in snow and ice.” The wireless controller that comes with it is the Gears 5 Kait Diaz Limited Edition controller, with a white design based on the snow-weathered armor in the game. And speaking of games, this bundle also includes digital copies of all the mainline Gears games, including 5.

Xbox One X Gears 5 Bundle is $349

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For Gears fans who don’t necessarily want their game console decked out with a giant skull, this bundle fits the bill. It also comes with the entire Gears of War series, but the console and controller are the standard black color.

Xbox One X NBA 2K20 Bundle is $349

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The last bundle on the list comes with a digital copy of NBA 2K20 Xbox One X bundle. This one’s a no-brainer for basketball fans, but if you’re on the fence you can check out our NBA 2K20 review.

Xbox One X is $329

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What if none of those bundles appeal to you? In that case, you can pick up an un-bundled Xbox One X for $329. That’s $170 less than MSRP, making for a fantastic deal on a powerful machine.

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Chris Reed is IGN’s shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

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Ninja Theory, the developer behind Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Heavenly Sword, and DmC: Devil May Cry, has announced that it has begun development on a new game that it calls Project: Mara.

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“Project: Mara will be a real-world and grounded representation of mental terror,” said Ninja Theory in a press statement. “Based on real lived experience accounts and in-depth research, the goal is to recreate the horrors of the mind as accurately and realistically as possible. Project: Mara will be an experimental title and a showcase of what could become a new storytelling medium.”

It seems Project: Mara will draw upon similar influences to Hellblade, which was based on in-depth research into psychosis.

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In addition to Project: Mara, Ninja Theory is also working on Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 – another game that will likely explore mental trauma – as well as the multiplayer brawler Bleeding Edge. The developer is part of Xbox Game Studios, and so will release as first-party Xbox exclusives on Xbox consoles and PC.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

With Patrick Stewart making his big return as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Picard, it looks like the legendary Starfleet officer is mostly making it so with a bunch of new crewmates. And while classic characters like Riker and Troi appear to be showing up for what are likely cameo appearances, it seems one of the OG Next Generation crew is actually a cornerstone of the new series: Lt. Commander Data.

The thing is, Data is dead! Still, the golden android and Pinnochio surrogate had some robo-relatives who looked exactly like him. Yeah, there’s a whole family of Datas and Data off-shoots actually, like the evil Lore, or the not-all-there B-4. Let Brent Spiner himself explain…

“Well, Lore and B-4 are different characters, completely,” Spiner recently told IGN. “I mean, they look like Data, but they have different programming. So I just play what they write, basically. Fortunately, we have really good writers, and had really good writers who inform how the character is played.”

So the question is, could Lore or B-4 or some other Soong-type android figure into Picard? Hey, maybe that’s not even Data we’re seeing in the trailers. Oh, and what’s a Soong-type android anyway?!

Let’s explain all the different Datas!

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Regular Data

Regular Data is just that — the guy you think of as regular old Data. We followed his adventures for seven seasons of Next Generation and four movies, as he served as operations officer onboard the Enterprise. His greatest wish was to become more human, and he did his best to emulate human activities to that end, like playing poker with his friends, and practicing his painting, music, and acting. He dated, he got a cat, and he even learned small talk.

Eventually, he did get emotions, thanks to a computer chip — cough-Macguffin-cough — but unfortunately, he died in the last Next Gen movie, Nemesis, sacrificing himself to save Captain Picard. Or so we thought.

Dr. Noonian Soong (Human-ish Data)

O.K., he’s not an android, but Data’s creator, Dr. Noonian Soong, was also played by Brent Spiner, like most of the characters on this list. Also known as “Often Wrong” Soong because of his misadventures while attempting to perfect the positronic brain — the key to a successful android — the scientist eventually did just that, and Data was born. But only after some less successful prototypes were rolled out…

Lore (Bad Data)

In Season 1 of Next Gen, Data found out that he was not the only android out there when his “brother” Lore showed up. It turns out Dr. Soong had designed Lore before Data, but there was a bit of a problem with Lore’s ethical subroutines, which is a nice way of saying he was a son of a bitch. Also played by Spiner, Lore would go on to be a thorn in Data and the Enterprise crew’s side through most of the series’ run. He even teamed up with a group of Borg who had become disconnected from the Collective, with the android becoming a sort of cult-like leader to the lost creatures. In the seventh-season finale, Data was forced to gun down his brother during this encounter, and the last we heard was that Lore was to be deactivated. But come to think of it, the Borg are in Star Trek: Picard! Hmmmm…

B-4 (Barely Functioning Data)

Speaking of being deactivated, the Picard trailers show us that someone has been disassembled and chilling in a drawer at Starfleet for an unspecified amount of time now. Could that be Lore? Or is it B-4, the android who we learned in Star Trek: Nemesis had been created by Dr. Soong even before Lore? B-4 had a lower-end version of Soong’s positronic brain, and as such was fairly limited in his functionality. But when Data died at the end of that movie, the fact that he had copied his memories and uploaded them to B-4 left a glimmer of hope that our beloved android would be resurrected in his brother’s body… Which, really doesn’t seem all that fair to B-4 when you think about it, does it?

Other Androids (Not Brent Spiner)

But wait, there are even more members of the Soong family, both from one-off Next Gen episodes. Though Spiner didn’t play these two — obviously — Data also had a daughter and a mother, of sorts. Juliana Tainer had been Dr. Soong’s secret wife, but when she died, Soong built an android version of her because he couldn’t deal with the fact that she had died. Funny thing is, she didn’t know she was an android, and Data decided not to tell her as he realized she would be happier going on thinking she was human.

Lal, meanwhile, was built by Data. He considered her to be his daughter, and it seemed that with her, Data had succeeded in constructing a stable positronic brain like his own. Tragically though, when Lal exceeded her father’s programming and began to feel emotion, she suffered a cascade failure in her neural net and died. But notably, Data stored Lal’s memories in his own mind after her death. And as we know, Data’s memories were transferred to B-4… so maybe, just maybe, Data and Lal’s memories are still out there somewhere in the time period of Picard, just waiting to be given life again.

Dream Data (or Dreamy Data?)

We’ve seen Data appear to Picard in the trailers for the new Star Trek show, and it sure seems like this version of the android is a dream or illusion of some kind. We don’t know much about him yet, and even Spiner’s colleague Marina Sirtis, who plays Deanna Troi, seems to have questions.

“Is it Dream Data or Dreamy Data?” she asked when IGN interviewed her recently. You know, it’s a very good question!

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So what do you think? Which version of Data are we seeing in Picard? Could there be more than one of these guys lurking somewhere in the new show? Is he a dream or an illusion, or is there more to this than meets the eye? Let us know what you think in the comments, and for more on Star Trek: Picard, check out why Seven of Nine blames Picard, or ponder whether or not the Picard show’s real villains have been revealed…

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Talk to Executive Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottCollura, or listen to his Star Trek podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or do both!

A young woman named Maud converts to Roman Catholicism, suddenly finding herself in the employ of a strong-headed former dancer who is in her care as a nurse. Maud’s strange obsession with her new charge combined with her newfound religion and a dark past evolve into something terrifying. Sound good? Well, you’re probably the perfect audience for A24’s newest chilling horror acquisition and searing exploration of religious fanaticism, Saint Maud.

The debut film from British director Rose Glass follows a spate of critical horror hits from film distributor A24 over the last few years. From huge genre-defining moments like Robert Eggers’ The Witch and Ari Aster’s Hereditary, to smaller but still impactful flicks like Trey Edward Shults’ It Comes at Night and Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room, A24 has been delivering some of the best horror films going. Just this year they’ve delivered boundary-pushing follow-ups from Aster and Eggers in Midsommar and The Lighthouse, and they’ve also made a name for giving auteurs like Clair Denis, Yorgos Lanthimos and Peter Strickland a space to make unusual genre films like High Life, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and In Fabric.

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If you’ve seen even a couple of of the aforementioned modern masterpieces then you’ll have an inkling of what makes an A24 horror film stand out. Unusual stories, atmospheric direction, and incredible sound design have thrown the idea of just what horror can be into the spotlight. Saint Maud looks like it will fit into that mold whilst also offering up an examination of womanhood, religious expression, and mental health. The crossover between religion, spirituality, and horror has given us some of the most iconic genre films of all time like The Exorcist, The Wicker Man, and Rosemary’s Baby as well as inspiring new exercises in terror from Pascal Laugier’s French new extremity flick Martyrs to Ti West’s horrifying Jonestown riff, The Sacrament.

Glass is bringing an interesting eye to her entry into the religious horror canon as Saint Maud explores the deterioration of a young woman who is so desperate to believe that she begins to lose her grip on reality. Often spiritual horror films center on the lack of agency that women have over their bodies, whether in the sense of physically, sociologically, or as a person at the mercy of other more powerful people or beings. Here though we enter from a space of choice, as Maud chooses to commit her life to being devout, it is her decisions that lead us into horror and that is a truly exciting subversion of the tropes and trappings of this particular subgenre.

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It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that A24 has picked up a genre flick that turns our expectations of relationships and gender on its head. Robert Eggers The Witch and The Lighthouse both work as dissections on the patriarchy, family, gender, and masculinity. Ari Aster’s Midsommar is a dark meditation on toxic relationships, codependency, and what we’re willing to ignore to find somewhere that we might just be able to call home.

Saint Maud looks like it will offer an interesting twist on the complex genre offerings with a rare female eye behind the camera telling the story of a young woman torn between her faith, her past, and her own torment. We’re incredibly excited for this new addition to the ever-growing and massively impressive A24 horror canon, especially as the film has the potential to once again herald the arrival of another original and vibrant voice to the contemporary horror landscape.

Saint Maud opens in North America on March 27 and in the UK on May 1.

Niantic, the studio behind Pokemon Go, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and Ingress, has announced its lineup of 2020 live events. The company promises “immersive interactive experiences” themed after each game, with events scheduled for Liverpool, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

Pokemon Go events will include the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taichung, and Pokemon Go Safari Zone events in the three select cities listed above. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite will again host its annual fan festival, with details to be announced. Finally, Ingress has a ton of locations listed for events on three separate days. Check below for full dates and location information. You can also keep up on the official sites for Pokemon Go events, Harry Potter events, and Ingress events.

Niantic says that its 2019 events led to an estimated $249 million in tourism revenue across the three cities chosen to host events, Chicago, Montreal, and Dortmund. Altogether the company estimates almost 190,000 Pokemon fans attended those three events, and the Chicago event tripled its participation from 2018.

Pokémon GO 2020 Events

• Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taichung – February 6-9
• Pokémon GO Safari Zone St. Louis – March 27-29
  • Tickets will go live starting January 24 at 8:00 AM CT
• Pokémon GO Safari Zone Liverpool – April 17-19
  • Tickets will go on sale starting January 31 at 8:00 AM GMT
• Pokémon GO Safari Zone Philadelphia – May 8-10
  • More information about tickets will be announced soon

Ingress 2020 Events

• Perpetua Hexathlon – February 29
  • Asia-Pacific Region: Christchurch, New Zealand; Adelaide, Australia; Naha, Okinawa, Japan; Bengalaru, India; Chiang Mai, Thailand
  • Europe: Porto, Portugal; Milan, Italy; Lille, France; Bratislava, Slovakia; Ruse, Bulgaria
  • Americas: San Antonio, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; Miami, Florida; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Tijuana, Mexico
• Lexicon Hexathlon – April 25
  • Asia-Pacific Region: Colombo, Sri Lanka; Taichung City, Taiwan; Bogor, Indonesia; Baguio City, Philippines; Songpa District, Seoul, Korea
  • Europe: Moscow, Russia; Edinburgh, Scotland; Pilsen, Czechia; Budapest, Hungary; Valencia, Spain
  • Americas: San Francisco, California; Washington, D.C.; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Victoria, BC, Canada; Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
• Requiem Anomaly Munich – May 9

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker debuted one of the most visually distinctive Stormtrooper designs ever in the form of the Sith Trooper, and now you can bring the might of the Final Order home to your collection. We have an exclusive first look at Diamond Select Toys’ upcoming Sith Trooper mini-bust.

The Sith Trooper mini-bust is a 1:6 scale piece measuring six inches tall. It’s designed by Joe Allard and sculpted by Gentle Giant Studios. Gentle Giant has a long history of immortalizing the heroes and villains of the Star Wars universe in mini-bust form, but this will be their first Rise of Skywalker release in this format.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for a closer look at the Sith Trooper mini-bust:

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The Sith Trooper mini-bust carries an MSRP of $120 and will be released at some point in Fall 2020. Let us know in the comments below if you plan on adding this to your collection.

In other Star Wars toy news, the long wait continues for licensed Baby Yoda merchandise. We’ve seen what Funko has in store for 2020, and Hasbro has its own line of adorable Baby Yoda toys in the works. Unfortunately, Disney has begun cracking down on Etsy users selling unlicensed Baby Yoda products.

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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.

NetherRealm hasn’t announced its followup project to Mortal Kombat 11, but one piece of dialogue certainly seems to be a cheeky hint at Injustice 3. And fittingly enough, it’s delivered by the Joker, a DLC addition to MK11 who’s a mainstay in the DC Comics fighting series.

In a tweet, Mortal Kombat producer Ed Boon showed a snippet of dialogue from a Joker vs Joker mirror match. One of the Jokers scoffs, “Only two of us? That’s an injustice!” To which the other replies, “What we could do with a third!”

Boon’s tweet explicitly says this isn’t hinting at Injustice and the reference is a coincidence, but paired with the video that reads like a sly wink. Boon is known for having a history of teases and Easter eggs. As some comics fans have pointed out, this could also be a reference to a comics storyline affectionately called the Three Jokers arc. At the very least, though, the MK writers seemed to be having a little fun toying with fan expectations.

Joker is the second-to-last character included in the DLC Kombat Pack and will release on January 28. The last remaining character will be another dark comics character, Spawn. After that, the time will be about right for NetherRealm to announce whatever is coming next–Injustice or otherwise.

Horizon Zero Dawn developer Guerrilla is looking for a game programmer to work on an “epic open world game”, who would ideally have multiplayer experience.

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At current, Guerrilla has yet to announce what its current project is, but the open world descriptor in this new senior game programmer job listing (via GamesRadar) points towards a potential Horizon Zero Dawn sequel. The listing also notes that the game features “ranged and melee weapons, combat and traversal mechanics”, which are all characteristics applicable to Horizon, or at least a game with similar traits.

This all makes the ‘plus point’ of experience in multiplayer interesting, as the original Horizon was a purely single-player game. While it’s impossible to draw concrete conclusions from this posting, it does point to Guerrilla at least considering a multiplayer component for its next open world game. In short: if this is Horizon 2, then it may feature multiplayer.

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Plenty of other Guerrilla job listings have pointed towards a Horizon sequel in development, while other recent reports have pointed to the original Horizon Zero Dawn coming to PC. For a closer look at Sony’s development slate, take a look at every first-party PlayStation developer and what they’re working on.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter.