Warning! Full SPOILERS follow for the Season 1 premiere of HBO’s Euphoria.
HBO is known for pushing the envelope when it comes to sex and violence on TV. The premium network has even gone as far as hiring an intimacy coordinator to help oversee sex scenes in the recent Deadwood film, and upcoming Watchmen series. Most recently, HBO premiered Euphoria, a provocative new teen drama starring Spider-Man: Far From Home’s Zendaya.
Note: we published this last week during E3, and have updated with a video component.
We get excited about E3 every year because we get to see what’s coming next. While developers have always called their shots well in advance, announcing games years before release, much of the action at the show revolves around showing games set to launch sometime between July and next year’s E3.
After spending the last week weighing all the publisher press conferences and the deluge of pre-show trailer drops and leaks, I took a step back and noticed that the second half of 2019 feels… light. Many of the biggest games at the show — new and returning — are coming out in the first few months of 2020, or later. And while the cupboard is far from bare — I doubt many of us will have trouble finding games to buy or put on holiday wish lists come December– the dearth of high-profile releases is noticeable.
Our Xbox E3 recap continues! After discussing our lukewarm reactions to Marvel’s Avengers game, we analyze the rest of the Xbox E3 press conference that we didn’t cover last week. That includes The Outer Worlds, Bleeding Edge, Ori 2, Minecraft Dungeons, Gears 5, Blair Witch, Battletoads, the Series 2 Xbox Elite controller, and more!
In case you missed last week’s Part 1 recap, film and TV star Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley, The Big Sick, Men in Black: International, Stuber) joined our live-from-E3 episode to recap Microsoft’s biggest Xbox E3 announcements. Watch that video below:
Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, or grab an MP3 download of this week’s episode. For more awesome content, check out this month’s episode of IGN Unfiltered, featuring a career-spanning interview with Bethesda creative force Todd Howard, who discusses next-gen consoles, Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout games past and present, and his origins with a Terminator first-person shooter:
Microsoft, with its next-gen Xbox currently known as Project Scarlett, has every intention of having it support four generations of games – the original Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and, of course, each new game coming to the platform.
During Inside Xbox, Xbox head Phil Spencer confirmed Microsoft’s commitment to “respecting the purchases” of its customers and the team’s goal to bring every past game over to Project Scarlett, the next-gen Xbox, as well as accessories like the original Xbox Elite Controller and the new Series 2 Elite Controller.
Mortal Kombat 11 and Days Gone are the best-selling games of May 2019 in the United States – both titles were also the best-selling games of April 2019.
Per this month’s official NPD report, Mortal Kombat was not only May and April’s best-selling game, but is now the best-selling game of 2019 year-to-date, dethroning the long-running leader Kingdom Hearts 3. The NPD Group notes that the second month sales of Mortal Kombat 11 are nearly double that of any other game in the Mortal Kombat franchise.
Watch Dogs Legion, Ubisoft’s third game in its hacktivist open-word series, asks a lot of questions. Just how far are we willing to let authoritarianism and corporate greed dictate the course of society? What are the consequences of under-funded public services? What happens when ordinary people make a stand? Its most fascinating question, though, is what if every non-playable character was playable?
I recently visited Ubisoft Toronto to meet with the Watch Dogs Legion team and watch the game being played for 45 minutes. At first glance, Legion is what you would expect from the third game in the Watch Dogs series; there’s an open-world where you can drive cars, hack CCTV cameras, and play havoc with people’s lives and smartphones. But there’s much, much more to Watch Dogs Legion. Underpinning the entire game is an interconnected network of systems that allow for an astonishing set of possibilities.
We’re living in a post-Avengers: Endgame world and Spider-Man: Far From Home will officially mark the end of Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That leaves us to look forward to the future and what lies beyond the Infinity Saga in Phase 4. While Marvel Studios mastermind Kevin Feige hasn’t revealed any official details yet — though that will certainly change during Marvel’s Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2019! — we actually have a fairly clear idea of what the upcoming movie slate will look like thanks to various film industry reports regarding shooting, casting and such.
One of Nintendo’s biggest surprises at E3 2019 was the reveal of a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Now, series producer Eiji Aonuma has revealed some new insight into why Nintendo is making a Breath of the Wild sequel instead of something entirely new.
Speaking to Kotaku, Aonuma said the development team had “too many ideas” for new DLC for the original Breath of the Wild, so the studio elected to make a sequel.
“When we released the DLC for Breath of the Wild, we realized that this is a great way to add more elements to the same world. But when it comes down to technical things, DLC is pretty much data–you’re adding data to a preexisting title,” Aonuma added. “And so when we wanted to add bigger changes, DLC is not enough, and that’s why we thought maybe a sequel would be a good fit.
“Initially we were thinking of just DLC ideas, but then we had a lot of ideas and we said, ‘This is too many ideas, let’s just make one new game and start from scratch.'”
The full interview touches on a number of other interesting subjects, including how overtime and crunch is handled on the Zelda development team. Read the full interview at Kotaku.
Earlier, Aonuma spoke to Game Informer about why the team wanted to make Breath of the Wild 2.
“One of the reasons we wanted to create a continuation was because I wanted to revisit that Hyrule again and use that world again, while incorporating new gameplay and new story,” Aonuma said.
In addition to Aonuma, Breath of the Wild game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi will serve as the director on the Breath of the Wild sequel.
A lot of the details on the Breath of the Wild sequel are being kept under wraps for now, but the first teaser trailer gave us a lot to think about. Check out GameSpot’s breakdown of the Breath of the Wild sequel trailer breakdown here to learn more.
The release date for the upcoming Harry Potter Wizards Unite mobile game has been announced for June 21, 2019.
The announcement came from an exclusive event in Los Angeles, where CEO of Niantic, John Hanke, released details about the upcoming game, and was later confirmed on Harry Potter: Wizards Unite’s Twitter.
The worldwide launch of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite begins this Friday, June 21! Keep your eyes peeled and wand ready for more information as the game goes live in your region soon. #WizardsUnite pic.twitter.com/ckk4s4mi8a
People have a lot of things to say about Adam Sandler and his movies, but they are consistently very popular. His latest film, Murder Mystery on Netflix, was also a runaway success.
Netflix has announced that Murder Mystery, which also stars Jennifer Aniston, enjoyed the “biggest opening weekend ever” for a Netflix movie. According to Netflix, 30.87 million accounts watched the film in its first three days. This includes 13.4 million Netflix accounts in the US/Canada and 17.5 million Netflix accounts from other parts of the world. If a viewer watches at least 70 percent of a movie, that counts as a view, according to Netflix.
🚨ADAM SANDLER AND JENNIFER ANISTON BREAKING NEWS ALERT🚨
30,869,863 accounts watched Murder Mystery in its first 3 days – the biggest opening weekend ever for a Netflix Film. 13,374,914 accounts in the US and Canada, and 17,494,949 more worldwide.— Netflix Is A Joke (@NetflixIsAJoke) June 18, 2019
In March 2017, Netflix announced that it extended its deal with Sandler for four more movies, bringing his total output for the streaming service to eight films. Netflix content boss Ted Sarandos says Sander is “one of the leading comedians in the film world.”
Sandler’s first Netflix movie was 2015’s The Ridiculous 6, which was followed up by The Do-Over, Sandy Wexler, the Meyerowitz Stories, and The Week Of. His next movie for Netflix is Uncut Gems. His deal with Netflix spans at least eight movies, so even more are coming.
Murder Mystery stars Sander and his wife (Aniston) solving a murder on-board a billionaire’s yacht. Luke Evans, Gemma Arterton, and Terrence Stamp also star in the film that was directed by Kyle Newacheck.