Author: Trafficblast

Prior to the box office failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story, it had been rumored that the next standalone movie in the long-running franchise would be an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie starring Ewan McGregor. The commercial disappointment of Solo led to the cancellation of further standalone Star Wars films, but it has now been reported that McGregor could be set to reprise the role for a new TV show.

According to Deadline, the actor is in talks to play the Jedi Master in a series that will premiere on the upcoming streaming platform Disney+. McGregor played Obi-Wan in George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel trilogy, namely The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). He also made a brief voice cameo in 2015’s The Force Awakens.

There are no further details about the potential Obi-Wan show, and it is unknown if it will differ from the rumored movie. While the film was never officially announced by Lucasfilm, it had been reported that Billy Elliott director Stephen Daldry would helm it, and it would be set on Tatooine before the events of the original 1977 Star Wars movie.

If it happens, the Obi-Wan show will be the third live-action Star Wars heading to Disney+. The service launches in November with The Mandalorian, which stars Pedro Pascal and has Lion King director Jon Favreau as showrunner. A trailer is yet to be officially released online, but footage was shown at Star Wars Celebration in April. There’s also a show centered around the Rogue One character of Cassian Andor in the works. For more on Disney+, check out GameSpot’s guide to everything that will be available on day one.

In related news, the trailer for Star Wars: Resistance Season 2 was released this week. The second and final season of the animated Star Wars show returns to the Disney Channel on October 6.

Loot Crate, the subscription service that sends its subscribers curated boxes every month full of items relating to various pop culture franchises, has filed for bankruptcy and let go much of its work force. Although the website and store is still up, Loot Box is now on the market for acquisition. It is expected to finalise a sale within the next 45 days.

As Gizmodo reports, last month the company let go 150 of its warehouse workers, and dozens of other workers have been let go this week. Loot Crate has received a commitment from Money Chest LLC for more funding of up to $10 million, which will allow the company to keep operating for now. According to the press release the company put out about their situation, “employees and customers should not notice any difference in operations as a result of the filing or during the sale process except for the better.”

However, some customers have reported not receiving new boxes from Loot Crate for months – responses to the company’s tweet about their bankruptcy point towards customers who are as many as seven boxes behind on their subscriptions. Former senior community manager Shawnee Hale has tweeted out that those let go did not receive severance pay, either.

Whether Loot Crate will be able to continue operating into the future, and how it will fulfill its existing obligations to subscribers, remains unclear. According to the LA Times, they currently owe about $20 million worth of unshipped crates.

Henry Cavill is playing Geralt in The Witcher Netflix series, which we’re very much looking forward to. But if you really can’t wait for Cavill to step into Geralt’s huge boots, you can grab this mod for the PC version of The Witcher 3.

The mod, released by Adnan4444 on NexusMods, replaces Geralt’s usual face with one that resembles Cavill in the upcoming series. “This mod page will be a base for different Henry Cavill variations in future,” the page reads. “With scars, dirt, brown hair with blue eyes etc, but first of all, now I’m presenting a look closer to Geralt in Netflix show.” The screen below shows a Geralt that much closer to the British actor in appearance.

The Witcher 3 is also available on PS4 and Xbox One, and is coming to Nintendo Switch later this year. This mod, however, is only available for the PC version.

Shantae 5 is now officially named Shantae and the Seven Sirens. WayForward has revealed some new details about the next Shantae game, and dropped some screens to give fans a taste of the upcoming game’s gorgeous visuals. The fifth game in the long-running series was announced back in March, but little information has been available until now.

The game has been unveiled on Wayforward’s website. It will send Shantae and her friends to a tropical island, where they’ll meet several other half-genies. Of course, things won’t go smoothly, and the eponymous half-genie will find herself tussling with numerous enemies. Some first-look screenshots are below.

The game promises to feature all new dance abilities and Fusion Magic, as well as a nonlinear world to explore. There will also be a collectible card system, which will let players change Shantae’s abilities. The game will support 4K resolution on systems that can handle it, and will feature numerous minigames, hidden secrets, and “gorgeously animated TV-style cutscenes.”

Shantae and the Seven Sirens is coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Apple Arcade, and a release date has not been announced yet – it’s not clear whether it will release in 2019 or not. The last game in the series was 2016’s Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. In his 8/10 review, Jason D’Aprile called the game “a delightful experience”.

The new Solos mode in Apex Legends is a free-for-all, every-person-for-themselves affair, where there can be only one winner.

The new mode, which launched alongside the Iron Crown event, is a traditional battle royale set-up, where 60 players are dropped onto the map and only one ultimately survives. Everyone is in it for themselves in this mode — at least in theory. As it turns out, many people are teaming up before the match has started, making pacts to work together to make it to the final circle.

Posts on Reddit (like this one) point towards an issue with players teaming up, giving them a huge advantage over players who are legitimately playing solo. As Eurogamer discovered, queuing up at the same time as a friend so as to end up in the same Solos round is not difficult – they were able to do it four times out of five.

Solos mode is intended as a limited-time event, but the game is also in hot water with fans for some expensive weapons that have been introduced for the Iron Crown event – the Raven’s Crown axe will cost you the equivalent of $170, according to Kotaku. Because of this, a lot of Apex Legends fans are unhappy with the game this week.

Whether or not restrictions will be introduced for Solos, or matchmaking will be changed, remains to be seen. You can track the changes being made to Apex Legends through the game’s public Trello board.

SUPERHOT studio has announced ‘SUPERHOT Presents‘, a new fund aimed at helping independent developers make and release small, unusual games. According to the announcement, the team wanted to assist in the creation of other people’s games, and to start off with they’ve signed on to assist with two games that are nothing like their own output. The games in question are the Frog Detective series, developed by Grace Bruxner and her new studio Worm Club, and Knuckle Sandwich, developed by Andrew Brophy. Both games are being developed in Australia.

So far one game has been released in the Frog Detective series, ‘The Haunted Island’. SUPERHOT studio has this to say of the game: “It’s simple. It’s perfect. We love how wholesome and warm and funny it is, we enjoy the game, we like the team, so we offered to help.” The trailer, below, should give you some idea of the game’s tone. A sequel, Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard, is currently in the works.

Knuckle Sandwich is developer Andrew Brophy’s RPG “about a boy looking for work in a new city,” styled after old Game Boy Advance titles. It’s a weird, distinctive title, and it features both a missing persons mystery and a cult, according to its Steam page. The game is, according to Brophy, reaching the final stages of development, although a release date has not yet been set.

SUPERHOT is not becoming a publisher, but instead wants to help indie developers who “just need some finishing (or starting) funds,” along with some mentoring and advice. Assistance will be offered by the four “businessy types” SUPERHOT studio currently employs, alongside the funds offered.

SUPERHOT studios is more famous for the game that the studio was named after. In his 8/10 review of the game back in 2016, Peter Brown praised the game’s storytelling: “while the core gameplay didn’t evolve drastically, the story that drives it did, taking me along for a ride that I never saw coming.