Author: Trafficblast

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Ubisoft appears to be preparing for a big Ghost Recon reveal, with a world premiere event being streamed on Thursday, May 9. If you want to see what’s next, you can watch it all go down right here.

The event teaser was light on details, but it doesn’t appear to be tied to Ghost Recon Wildlands. That game launched in 2017, and it has been supported with a steady stream of downloadable content and live events ever since. In fact, Wildlands just received another dose of content last week. The distinction from Wildlands suggests the event will focus on something new for the Ghost Recon series, possibly a full sequel.

The timing of this event is conspicuously close to E3, where Ubisoft has a press conference scheduled for Monday, June 10. Scheduling a reveal event now could either set the stage for a more in-depth look at E3, or just give the company more time to focus on other parts of its lineup.

Wildlands received a mixed reception at launch but has fostered a devoted following through continued support. Ubisoft has shifted toward long-term support for many of its games, including multiplayer titles like Rainbow Six Siege and For Honor along with single-player games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

“As only the second open world game in the Clancyverse, Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a middlingly safe tactical shooter and a slightly wasted opportunity given the ambitious scope of its seemingly boundless map,” Miguel Concepcion wrote in GameSpot’s review. “While its main strength is its mission diversity, it doesn’t take long to lose the motivation after reaching El Sueno’s doorstep. Even with a foursome of highly trained friends, Wildlands eventually reveals its diminishing returns. The feeling of positive immediacy and dopamine hits begin to wane sooner than you expected from a game with such a large and diverse world.”

Ghost Recon World Premiere Start Times

• 11:30 AM PT
• 2:30 PM ET
• 7:30 PM BST
• 4:30 AM (Friday May 10) AET

There’s something about playing a real-life killer that is a magnet for actors when they want to be taken seriously. Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Aileen Wuornos in the 2002 movie Monster elevated her to the ranks of Hollywood’s most in-demand stars, while Steve Carell went from lovable comedian to intense character actor when he took on the role of sociop John du Pont in Foxcatcher. Now, Zac Efron is the latest star to attempt to shed his former teen idol image, by playing Ted Bundy, one of America’s most notorious serial killers.

While Theron famously underwent a physical transformation to play Wuornos, Efron was cast for his looks. Bundy was known for being a smart, handsome, charismatic mass murderer whose trials were attended by college girls eager to get close to him, and Efron’s casting makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, his compelling performance is stranded in a movie that makes some serious missteps in its attempts to present a new spin on the serial killer film.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile takes its title from the description leveled at Bundy by the judge in his 1979 sentencing. It’s a provocative title and suggests a dark plunge into the depraved mind of a relentless kidnapper, rapist, necrophile, and killer who admitted to murdering 30 women between 1974 and 1978, but whose victim count could potentially be far higher. Director Joe Berlinger wanted to do something different, though. His movie focuses less on the crimes itself, and more on the cult of personality around Bundy, and most specifically his relationship with two women in his life–long-time girlfriend Elizabeth Kendall (Lily Collins), and Carole Ann Boone (Kaya Scodelario), the woman he married while awaiting trial.

The film has a flashback structure, starting with Kendall visiting him on death row, and then moving back to the start of their relationship. Bundy was first arrested in 1974 from an anonymous tip-off, and the bulk of the film sees him either on bail or in jail, awaiting trial. Throughout this time Kendall stands by him, refusing to believe the terrible crimes that Bundy has been accused of and that he consistently denies, despite the evidence and trail of victims strewn across several states. As their relationship slowly breaks down, old flame Boone re-enters his life.

It would be a mistake to think that a serial killer movie has to wallow in violent imagery to be effective. The decision to not show any of Bundy’s murders–with the exception of one brief moment toward the end–was a very deliberate one, and it could be argued that, like Kendall and Boone, as an audience we are removed from the true horror of his crimes. The difference is that we know what Bundy did, but Efron’s easy charm and the movie’s insistence on almost never portraying him in a negative light ultimately cheapens the subject matter and lessens the dramatic impact.

Much of the film is spent with Bundy proclaiming his innocence while getting moved from state to state, jailhouse to courthouse, and occasionally planning an escape. It simply doesn’t make for very interesting viewing, and little effort is spent to get inside Bundy’s head. The movie is not a thriller, as the outcome is well known, but neither is it a horror movie or effective psychological drama; instead we’re left with a recreation of already well-documented events (Bundy’s trial was the first televised in the US) and a very shallow portrayal of real-life characters. No time is spent on the victims of his crimes either, and after a while it’s easy to forget that this is a movie about a serial killer at all.

In their attempts to desensationalize the material, Berlinger and screenwriter Michael Werwie omit some of the more interesting aspects of Bundy’s life. Bundy made two separate escapes–once from a courthouse, after which he nearly died after spending six days in the mountains of Colorado, the other from jail in a meticulously planned escape–but both are dealt with very quickly before he’s back in prison. The other curious aspect is that Bundy–a law student before his arrest–represented himself in court. But again, while we see Bundy doing this, it bears no resemblance to the manic figure he actually was while appearing in court, and little time is spent on the insane media circus that built up around his appearances. Any of these aspects could’ve made for a more interesting movie than the one we’re ultimately presented with.

Despite the often underwritten characters, the performances are good. Even though she is sidelined in the movie’s last third, Collins evokes sympathy as Kendall, who utterly falls under Bundy’s manipulative spell, while Scodelario cuts a tragic figure as Boone, who marries him as he awaits sentencing. Even the smaller roles are filled with famous faces–John Malkovich, Haley Joel Osment, and Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons all appear at various stages (as does Metallica’s James Hetfield in a fleeting cameo).

Berlinger is best known for his documentary work, including the brilliant, devastating Paradise Lost movies. He had already tackled Bundy in the Netflix true crime series The Bundy Tapes, and while this series is not his best work, it does offer more insight than the movie version. In a way, Bundy is a hard subject to understand–he only confessed to his killings at the end of his life, and much of what is known about him has already been documented various times over the years. But given Berlinger’s familiarity with the subject, it’s disappointing that Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile avoids exploring the true horror of his crimes, while offering little else in its place.

Originally scheduled for September 2018, Bandai Namco delayed Code Vein to “ensure that the final product delivers on the expectations set amongst media and fans.” After playing through a gameplay demo at a preview event, we asked Code Vein producer Keita Iizuka what Bandai Namco has spent the past few months changing to deliver on these expectations ahead of the game’s new scheduled release in 2019.

“After the dev team really came together and discussed–we felt that the appeal of Code Vein and what was really good about Code Vein was just not there, not enough,” Iizuka said. “So we really wanted to brush up those elements so that the users can really get immersed and really feel what’s so good and unique about the aspects of Code Vein a lot deeper, a lot stronger. So that’s why we took some extra time to deliver.”

In Code Vein, you play as a Revenant, a chosen undead born into a world defined by blood. Revenants defend themselves from the Lost, the husk-like remnants of Revenants who lost sight of who they were and succumbed to their bloodlust. In order to survive, you arm yourself with powerful weapons and supernatural Gifts–the latter of which allows you to harness the blood you take from enemies to perform spell-like attacks. Combat is entirely stamina-focused, limiting how often you can attack, defend, parry, and dodge.

Code Vein is–both thematically and mechanically–very similar to From Software’s Soulsborne games. Where Code Vein aims to differentiate itself is in its Blood Codes and buddy system.

Blood Codes are items that change the stats of your character, allowing you to more easily wield specific weapons and equip certain Gifts. The melee-focused Fighter Blood Code, for example, raises your strength and dexterity stats–allowing you to more easily wield massive two-handed swords and axes. As a Fighter, you’re able to equip Gifts that unlock slow, but devastating close-range attacks, and also buff your overall damage output. If brute force isn’t working, you can switch to the spell casting-focused Caster Blood Code, parry-focused Prometheus Blood Code, or long-range Hunter Blood Code before jumping back into the fray. There are eight Blood Codes in total in Code Vein, and each allows you to equip up to eight Gifts at once for a variety of playstyles.

“This aspect of being able to freely create your playstyle and the flexibility of playstyles–this is something that was already in the works since the initial stages, but we wanted to focus on that aspect–to enhance it and brush it up a lot–so that the player can have more freedom and flexibility in how they play the game,” Iizuka said.

“We really wanted to expand the Gift variations and how you develop [your Revenant],” he continued. “[For example], there’s a Gift called Phantom Assault where you can vanish and instantly appear right where the enemy is and dish out your attack. So that’s one aspect of it, and we have other Gifts that you can sort of build around that as well. And so, I think that’s one of the ways we sort of added to the game to make it more [complete].”

Being able to completely respec your character into a brand-new class within seconds–as opposed to travelling to a certain location and paying an NPC to do it like in Dark Souls–is an intriguing concept, but it was difficult to discern how such a strategy works in practice based on Code Vein’s opening hour. We started out with three Blood Codes (Fighter, Ranger, and Caster) and a few of their respective Gifts unlocked, but there weren’t enough different enemy types to fight or weapons to find to take full advantage of what makes each Code unique. The opening area hides mostly swords and axes–implying melee builds are the way to go–so there doesn’t seem to be any point in investing in the Ranger and Caster Blood Codes early on. Perhaps later areas offer more reason to switch to bayonet rifles and blood magic, though it remains to be seen.

Code Vein’s other major feature, its buddy system, hasn’t seen much change since the game’s delay. In Code Vein, you meet other Revenants who each have their own questlines and stories. You can choose who joins you in combat, and they’ll help you fight and revive you if you happen to fall in the midst of a challenging battle. Bandai Namco designed the buddy system in order to make Code Vein’s difficult Souls-like combat more accessible for players new to these types of games.

“So the core concept of [Code Vein] is all about dying and trying again, kind of like [Dark Souls] and [Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice],” Iizuka said. “With that sort of difficulty level set, you have that sense of achievement, that sense of accomplishment when you finally beat that stage or beat that level. So that’s something we do value in this game, and that’s why we set the difficulty at where it is. However, the development staff really focused on how to motivate the player once they’ve failed, whether on a boss or stage. So, maybe you die once, and then we want the player to think ‘Maybe if I did this again, I could do it better next time around.’ So that’s where we put the most effort and focus in development, and one of the ways that we motivate the player to [immediately] retry a stage is the buddy system.”

One other player can join you and your NPC partner as well, though Code Vein is an entirely supportive experience. There are no PvP aspects “at this time,” Iizuka said.

Code Vein’s buddy system certainly makes things easier, but never to the point where the game felt actually easy. The game’s opening area is comprised of large open rooms connected by winding hallways and staircases, most of which have blind corners. So it was nice to have someone walk with you who points out hidden items you missed, warns of potential ambushes, and can take some of the heat off you when you need to heal. Being able to sacrifice your own health for each other is also a fun risk vs. reward mechanic, especially when you both can choose to lose almost all your health to bring the other one back to life. It’s easier to explore and try out new weapons knowing that one of you dying doesn’t necessarily mean the end and getting kicked back to the last checkpoint. Through the buddy system, death changes from a punishment into a learning experience.

In terms of a new release date, Code Vein’s fate is still a bit up in the air. However, the game remains scheduled for this year. “We are focusing on development for PS4, Steam, and Xbox One,” Iizuka said. “But as far as the possibility of porting to Switch or [the Epic Games Store], there might be a possibility down the line. We can’t really say for sure at this point.”

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