Author: Trafficblast

J. R. R. Tolkien is one of the most important authors of the 20th century, and his overwhelming influence on the fantasy genre is still felt today across books, movies, TV, video games, and beyond. Capturing the author’s early years in the biopic Tolkien, which follows him from childhood through his time at the University of Oxford and into World War I, was no easy task for director Dome Karukoski.

There are plenty of challenges inherent in attempting to portray a person’s real life in a way that’s narratively compelling as well as true to who they really were. Tolkien’s life presented even more difficulties beyond the standard ones, but Karukoski told GameSpot he worked hard to capture the “emotional truth” of who Tolkien was.

“There has been this one rule that I have learned, which is: Always uphold emotional truths,” the director, who’s worked on several other biopics in the past, said. “I know a lot of people can be very nitpicky about factual events and factual years, but if you lean too much on factual years or factual events, and the emotional truth does not come out of the characters, then it is not emotional–it’s usually a worse film.”

Karukoski said he always starts with the facts, but is willing to “dramatize” events whenever it makes the story better. For example, in the movie, Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) marries his wife Edith Bratt (Lily Collins) after returning from the war, while in real life they married before he shipped off. “I think that the emotion is stronger in this version, but it is still the same emotion,” Karukoski explained.

Creative liberties like that may have something to do with the Tolkien estate’s recent, very public disavowment of the film. But the director has remained firm in his insistence that not working with the author’s estate was a creative blessing that allowed him to take more liberties, in turn making Tolkien a better movie.

“It is really difficult for people who do not write films to understand how the structure and the form work,” the director said. “Everything has to be done so it is the best possible film emotionally, so that people can enjoy and love the film, I hope. And it is done with respect toward [Tolkien], and emotionally, I want to be very true to him.”

Karukoski said the research into Tolkien’s life was expansive, from studying the author’s letters and illustrations to reading existing biographies and meeting with experts. Through that research, the director said he and the movie’s writers, David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford, began to picture Tolkien as two distinct characters–one before The Hobbit’s publication, and one after. That led to the decision to focus entirely on the former, since according to Karukoski, “Those times, as you saw, were the most surprising and cinematic.”

“The writers and I felt like that is the dividing moment of his life,” Karukoski said. “It is such a different life post-publishing The Hobbit, when he actually gets published and he becomes more like an author than the younger Tolkien.”

The director identified reflections between Tolkien’s early life and his own early life, when he first discovered The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books. “When I read about his younger times, maybe he is about the same age [as I was], he is also the outsider, he is also growing up without a father, he is also alone, and he also wants to find friends and communities and a place of belonging,” Karukoski said. “There was a feeling of destiny, of how instrumental he has been to me, and what is the era that should be told in his life.”

That all makes sense, but the decision to focus on Tolkien’s life before The Hobbit also created a unique problem: The movie includes very few explicit references to Lord of the Rings, which may leave some viewers scratching their heads, given the subject matter. One way Karukoski got around that is by crafting “visions” that he imagined Tolkien might have had at pivotal moments in his life.

Karukoski described how Tolkien’s journey from orphan to student to soldier might have changed these visions–things that may have sparked ideas or provided inspiration later, like a hallucination of evil creatures roaming a World War I battlefield. The director imagined these visions gradually transforming from light to dark throughout the course of Tolkien’s life. If the author first envisioned great heroes, how would those ideas become twisted by the horrors of war?

“When his mind gets corrupted [by] all the bloodshed during war, and that vision becomes like a dark fallen knight, then that becomes an internal battle between good and evil within him,” Karukoski said. “Then I can imagine that he later uses that idea, you know? If a person gets corrupted, does that not become a Ringwraith–kind of a corrupted fallen king?”

The fantastical and terrifying visions Tolkien sees in the film bring various elements of Lord of the Rings to mind without explicitly referencing them. It’s a clever way of imagining how iconic characters and creatures may have formed over time in the author’s imagination.

“A Nazgûl is not a Nazgûl yet [when Tolkien imagines it on the battlefield],” the director explained. “It is an image, a vision of something, he does not yet know what–but his mind is building.”

Clearly Tolkien’s writers and directors took plenty of creative liberties with the author’s story. If you want to know whether it paid off, check out our reviews round-up to find out what critics are saying.

Tolkien hits theaters May 10.

An Elder Scrolls tabletop RPG scenario has been pulled following accusations of plagiarism. The “Elsweyr” adventure, released as a promotion for The Elder Scrolls Online‘s upcoming expansion of the same name, shared striking similarities with a Dungeons & Dragons adventure titled “The Black Road.” That adventure was published in 2016, written by Paige Leitman and Ben Heisler.

Ars Technica reports that Bethesda posted the adventure citing work from Bethesda Netherlands. It was quickly criticized by the community, and even gained the attention of Leitman herself. She posted a Facebook thread (which has since been pulled) highlighting the similarities between the texts. Bethesda pulled the scenario in light of the accusations.

“We have pulled a previously shared ESO tabletop RPG adventure while we investigate the source,” a Bethesda rep told GameSpot. “Thank you to those who reached out with concerns.”

The two scenarios are changed slightly with synonyms or flavor changes, but are otherwise almost identical. For example, take this passage from D&D’s The Black Road:

“There’s nothing like the desert to make people feel small and insignificant. In every direction, huge dunes roll across the landscape, and an even bigger sky looms above. The oasis of Vuerthyl is a motley collection of sun-bleached tents in the vast Anauroch desert.”

Then compare it to the corresponding paragraph from Elseweyr:

“Nothing beats the desert to make people feel small and unimportant. In every direction enormous dunes roll across the landscape, and an even larger empty air skies above it. The oasis on the border between Cyrodiil and Elsweyr is a colorful collection of sun-drenched tents in the vast desert of Elsweyr.”

Bethesda has faced similar criticism before. In 2016, a Fallout New Vegas modder claimed Bethesda had lifted their content for a scenario in Fallout 4‘s Far Harbor DLC. The tabletop RPG scenario is to promote the Elseweyr expansion, which launches on June 4. That will kick off the Season of the Dragon, with four DLCs launching throughout 2019. True to its name, the reveal trailer showed dragons once again occupying the world of Tamriel.

At long last, we have finally gotten a look at HBO’s upcoming adaptation of the Watchmen comics. Though the series won’t debut until this fall, the first trailer has arrived for Watchmen, giving a peek into the world the series will be set in.

While the trailer is brief, it sets up a story that seems to be set after the events of the Watchmen graphic novel. Based on what little we see, a group clearly inspired by masked vigilante Rorschach are preparing to take up arms. “We are no one, we are everyone,” the leader of the masked clan says. “And we are invisible.”

It could certainly be the way the trailer is cut together, but it seems like this group the vigilantes are coming up against are the police. “We convinced ourselves they were gone,” a senior officer played by Don Johnson tells his fellow cops, in reference to the vigilantes. “But they were just hibernating.”

What remains to be seen is how the story will play out. It’s possible HBO’s take on Watchmen will largely tell the tale of vigilantes vs. police. However, the trailer also sees the character played by Regina King suiting up in a vigilante costume or her own, the centerpiece of which is a police badge.

The teaser also gives us the first look at Jeremy Irons as an older version of Ozymandias, the villainous figure central to the graphic novel. Additionally, yet another masked character is seen, though not identified.

Sadly, the official series description, released in conjunction with the trailer, doesn’t give any more hints as to what the series is about. It reads, “Set in an alternate history where ‘superheroes’ are treated as outlaws, this drama series from executive producer Damon Lindelof embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel of the same name while attempting to break new ground of its own.”

So you’re just going to have to wait for plot details. At the very least, though, we know who will appear in Watchmen. In addition to King, Johnson, and Irons, the series stars, Jean Smart, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Hong Chau, Andrew Howard, Tom Mison, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, and James Wolk.

Watchmen premieres in the fall on HBO.

Bandai Namco has announced Code Vein will have a network test prior to launch, which will allow people to try out the game. An exact timeframe for the test hasn’t been revealed yet, but sign-ups are already live on Bandai Namco’s website.

Code Vein is releasing on Xbox One, PS4, and PC, but the network test for the game is only going live on consoles. As it’s a network test, the multiplayer features will be live, allowing you to play with a friend. The test only covers Chapter 1 of the game, which is Code Vein’s character creator, tutorial, and first area. Chapter 1 ends with a boss fight, the reveal of Code Vein’s first major NPC buddy, and the introduction of the game’s hub area.

If you want to know exactly what Chapter 1 entails, we played through it at a preview event. Our battles through the game’s opening area and first boss can be seen in the video embedded above. A Souls-like game, Code Vein takes inspiration–both mechanically and thematically–from both Dark Souls and Bloodborne. However, the game does differentiate itself with its Blood Codes. These encourage you to regularly respec your character’s stats and adapt your playstyle on the fly. Unfortunately, the game seems predisposed towards melee-focused builds. That said, you can specialize your character in the use of blood magic or rifles.

In Code Vein, you can equip one of eight different Blood Codes to boost your stats in different ways. Each Blood Code also allows you to equip up to eight different Gifts as well, most of which allow you to pull off a supernatural, vampiric-like ability. Specific Gifts and weapons can only be equipped with certain Blood Codes, creating many unique playstyles. The Fighter Blood Code specializes in slow but powerful melee combat, for example, while Prometheus transforms you into a fast rogue-like character who utilizes dodges and parries. Not all Blood Codes are tied to combat either. The Mercury Blood Code, for instance, is ideal for exploring the world, as it gives you balanced stats for journeying through any type of environment and extra stamina so you can quickly run everywhere.

After delaying Code Vein, Bandai Namco did not reveal a new release date for the game. Currently, Code Vein is scheduled to launch sometime in 2019.

Rainbow Six Siege has long had a problem with team-killing, but developer Ubisoft has a new solution going live soon to help alleviate the issue. Reverse friendly fire, as it’s called, has been in testing for a while and arrives on public PS4, Xbox One, and PC servers on May 8.

Essentially, the system is designed to punish griefers by dealing the damage to them, rather than the poor teammate being hit. Offenders will get a brief grace period–accidents happen, after all–after which any further damage dealt will be reversed, meaning the innocent player receives no damage and the guilty party will be injured themselves.

The system applies to all primary and secondary weapons, as well as direct hits from most unique Operator gadgets. Some explosive items are exempt–some by design, and some because of a bug Ubisoft says it will fix in a future update.

The developer says the method as it stands “is not our final version of the system,” which will continue to be tweaked according to data and player feedback. It has already announced changes to the system coming during Siege’s Year 4, Season 2: “We will introduce situations where the system will activate for the whole squad,” the company said. “How gadgets will react and behave under Reverse Friendly Fire will also be fine-tuned.” Read the full patch notes for reverse friendly fire’s current iteration below, via Ubisoft.

Rainbow Six Siege Reverse Friendly Fire Update

When a player abuses the friendly fire mechanic to grief their teammates, this system is activated. We believe that this first version will be a positive step forward in our fight against team killing while maintaining the same intensity and high stakes gameplay that is core to the Rainbow Six Siege experience.

The Y4S1 release of RFF is not our final version of the system. Future iterations and improvements will continue based off data and player feedback.

Community feedback so far has been invaluable and allowed us to make early iterations to the system. For example, RFF can now activate based on total friendly damage. In these cases, there is no validation screen for the offending player’s teammates. We are also striving to make it clearer how operators and gadgets will react to this system. We have consolidated some guidelines below for your reference.

Effect Of Reverse Friendly Fire

On Weapons And Thrown Objects

Impacts:

• Primary/secondary weapons
• Direct hits from thrown unique gadgets
• Exothermic-S Torch (Maverick)
• SK 4-12 (Buck)
• Mounted LMG (Tachanka; regardless of who’s using the turret)
• M120 CREM (Ash) when the breaching round directly hits someone
• KS79 Lifeline (Zofia)
• Airjab Launcher (Nomad)
• Pest Launcher (Mozzie)

Before RFF activation:

• Can cause damage to teammates
• Will count towards activating RFF

After RFF activation:

• Teammates will not receive damage
• Will reverse damage dealt

On Explosives

Impacts:

• Generic gadgets (frag grenade, C4, breach charge) that results in an explosion*
• Gas Grenade (Smoke)
• TAC MKO asphyxiating bolts (Capitão)
• M120 CREM (Ash) when the breaching round explodes
• Cluster Charge (Fuze)

*Explosive gadgets that do not do damage (i.e. stun grenades, Ying’s Candela) will not be affected by RFF in any way

Before RFF activation:

• Can cause damage to teammates
• Will count towards activating RFF

After RFF activation:

• Can cause damage to teammates
• Does not reverse damage dealt*

*Explosives currently will continue to damage teammates even under RFF. This is not intended and will be fixed in Season 2.

Exceptions*:

• Claymore
• Entry Denial Device (Kapkan)
• X-Kairos pellets (Hibana)
• Exothermic Charge (Thermite)

*These explosives do not trigger RFF. While under RFF, these also do not reverse damage dealt and can continue to damage teammates. This can change in the future with feedback and further game design considerations.

On Drones And Operator Cameras

Impacts:

• Evil Eye (Maestro)
• Shock Drone (Twitch and Mozzie)

Before RFF activation:

• Can cause damage to teammates
• Will count towards activating RFF

After RFF activation:

• Teammates will not receive damage
• Will reverse damage dealt (onto the drone/camera)

More To Come

Further changes for Reverse Friendly Fire will come during Year 4 Season 2. We will introduce situations where the system will activate for the whole squad. How gadgets will react and behave under Reverse Friendly Fire will also be fine-tuned based on data and feedback. We look forward to sharing future developments with you.

We welcome any additional feedback on the Rainbow Six subreddit!

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds might be one of the world’s biggest games, but its parent company, Tencent, has decided to discontinue the game in China. Despite the country being a huge market–70 million Chinese customers played PUBG Mobile every day–Tencent has shut down the game and replaced it with a more patriotic alternative.

Tencent’s reasoning is the Chinese government’s refusal to allow in-app purchases in PUBG Mobile. In response, the replacement, Game for Peace, has been given a socialist makeover to meet the strict government regulations. According to Reuters, Tencent described Game for Peace as a tactical shooting game that “pays tribute to the blue sky warriors that guard our country’s airspace,” in reference to the Chinese air force.

Changes include the absence of gore and blood in Game for Peace, and characters sit up and wave goodbye when they’re killed. However, analyst Cui Chenyu said Game for Peace is otherwise “almost exactly the same” as PUBG. “The gameplay, the background, the graphic design, and the characters, they’re almost the same,” she said. In addition, players have reported their progress has carried over from PUBG to Game for Peace.

Tencent, on the other hand, says the two games belong to “very different genres.” The issue is complicated further because although Tencent owns a stake in PUBG’s publisher, Krafton (formerly known as Bluehole), and holds the exclusive license to publish PUBG in China, it does not own the PUBG brand outright. A spokesperson for Krafton told Reuters the publisher was looking into PUBG’s status in China and declined to comment further.

PUBG Mobile launched in the west in 2018, and it will soon be joined by another huge battle royale game: EA announced just recently that Apex Legends is coming to mobile.

The Xbox One has been around since 2013, which is, scarily, six years ago. With console cycles typically lasting between five and seven years, that means we should be due a new Xbox pretty soon. However, there’s the complicating factor that this generation included mid-cycle upgrades, the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X.

Regardless, we know Microsoft is working on the next Xbox console, and there’ve been a fair few reports surrounding what to expect. Without further ado, let’s dig into everything we know about the next Xbox.

What is the new Xbox?

Microsoft might not have unveiled its new Xbox just yet, but it is definitely working on it. The company confirmed as such during E3 last year. In fact, it could even be multiple consoles on the way. Xbox boss Phil Spencer said in June 2018 that Microsoft is “deep into architecting the next Xbox consoles where we will once again deliver on our commitment to set the benchmark for console gaming.”

Of course, the pluralizing of ‘console’ could mean Spencer was referring in part to the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, which was announced just recently. However, the latter half of his quote–about setting the benchmark for console gaming–surely refers to a new generation, where it sounds as if Microsoft wants to come out swinging with the most powerful console available, just as it did with the Xbox One X.

Reports from Thurrott suggest the new Xbox consoles are being developed under the umbrella codename Scarlett. Two consoles are in the works, say the reports: one is a high-power machine codenamed Anaconda that will be approximately the same price as the PS5, while the other is a budget-orientated machine known as Lockhart. The latter is potentially a streaming-centric device that does not boast much processing power itself; rather, it will ostensibly utilize Microsoft’s nascent xCloud technology to play games via the cloud.

When is the new Xbox’s release date likely to be?

Microsoft hasn’t spoken about its timeline for the new Xbox consoles’ release date(s). However, the consoles are not expected to launch until Fall 2020. For comparison’s sake, we don’t precisely know when the PS5 will launch either, but in May 2018 the then-head of PlayStation, John Kodera, said that the PS5 was “three years” away. However, plans change, and it’s also possible Kodera was merely trying to keep a lid on the rumors that were flying around at the time which were saying the PS5 would be released as soon as 2019.

What about E3 2019?

Of course, E3 2019 is just around the corner, so can we expect to hear more about the new Xbox consoles at the convention? The answer, according to a report from Jeux Video, is yes. The site states Microsoft plans to reveal its new Xbox consoles during its E3 2019 press conference. Of course, this is all conjecture for now, but Xbox boss Phil Spencer has stated the company intends to be “as big at E3” as it’s ever been.

Do we know the new Xbox console specs and price?

Unlike Sony, Microsoft has so far kept quiet about the internal specifications of its new consoles. However, all the reports point to both Anaconda and Lockhart ditching hard drives in favor of the quicker solid state storage option–a move the PS5 is also making. Of course, if those reports are proven accurate and Lockhart is essentially a streaming box, it’s likely the console will eschew a disc drive and state-of-the-art specs, relying instead on Microsoft’s xCloud streaming service for its playing power. Jeux Video has reported the following specs for the two Scarlett consoles:

	Xbox Lockhart	Xbox Anaconda
CPU	Custom eight core	Custom eight core
GPU	Custom NAVI 4+ teraflops	Custom NAVI 12+ teraflops
RAM	12 GB, GDDR6	16 GB, GDDR6
Storage	1 TB SSD, 1 + GB / s	1 TB SSD, 1 + GB / s

The site also reports the Anaconda price will be around $500, which is the same price the Xbox One X launched with in 2017. Unverified rumors from Reddit place Lockhart, meanwhile, at around $250, which would put it at the same price point as the newly-launched Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, which also forgoes a disc drive. These are yet to be substantiated by any reputable source, however.

Sony has announced another State of Play livestream event this week, with a few announcements planned. The brief presentation will only last about 10 minutes, and that time will give more details on the PS4 remake of MediEvil and an unannounced new game. You can watch it right here as it happens.

This is the second State of Play, and Sony’s approach to these announcement streams has been very similar to Nintendo Direct presentations. The first State of Play in March was a good deal longer, and included announcements or new glimpses of eight games. That included several PSVR reveals, including the announcement of Iron Man VR and No Man Sky‘s upcoming VR update.

Sony State of Play Stream Start Times

• 3 PM PT
• 6 PM ET
• 11 PM BST
• 8 AM (Friday, May 10) AEST

In giving word about this presentation, Sony also took a moment to announce something that won’t be shown. It won’t house any new information about the next PlayStation–presumably to be named the PlayStation 5.

These individual State of Play streams may be where we hear most of Sony’s announcements this year, as the company has dropped out of E3. SIE Worldwide Studios head Shawn Layden explained that the company feels the event hasn’t necessarily kept up with the changing needs of the industry.

Though it won’t be at E3, though, it has already started sharing its plans for the next generation, making it the first company to the starting gate. Those plans include backwards compatibility with PS4 games and a re-commitment to support PSVR. Read up on everything we know about PS5.