Author: Trafficblast

Nintendo and Camelot continue to roll out updates for Switch’s first Mario sports game, Mario Tennis Aces. The title’s 3.0 update is now live, and it’s a fairly significant one, introducing a new mode, kicking off a new Co-Op Challenge, and making another round of balance adjustments to a handful of characters.

First, Ring Shot has been added to the game’s main menu. The mode supports up to four players locally on one Switch console and comes in three varieties: Singles, Doubles, and Yoshi’s Ring Shot. The object of each is to rally the ball back and forth through rings that appear on the court, racking up as high of a score as you can within the time limit.

Yoshi’s Ring Shot also returns as the game’s latest online Co-Op Challenge. The event runs until June 1 and will give players the chance to unlock three more alternate Yoshi colors: pink, orange, and light blue. The rules are the same as standard Ring Shot, but this time, you’ll rack up more points if you shoot the ball through a ring that’s the same color as your Yoshi.

In addition to those modes, Camelot has added a new opening cinematic for Adventure Mode. If you’ve already have an Adventure save file in progress, you’ll be able to watch the movie from the Bonus option in the Adventure Mode menu. A new rank, Ace, has also been added to the online Tournament mode, and several characters have received small buffs. You can read the full patch notes here on Nintendo’s website.

Following the addition of Pauline last month, the newest character to join the Mario Tennis Aces roster is Magikoopa. Everyone who competes in one online Tournament match in April will unlock the character immediately, while all other players will get him after May 1. Another classic Mario villain, Dry Bones, will be added as a playable character next month.

At Star Wars Celebration, Respawn revealed a look at its upcoming game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The game launches on November 15 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC and follows protagonist named Cal Kestis, a padawan who survived Palpatine’s Order 66 in Revenge of the Sith. Years later, the force-sensitive hero finds himself in the crosshairs of the rising Empire.

While the panel for the reveal was a bit tight-lipped on specifics on the game, since we’re still seven months from release, GameSpot spoke to Stig Asmussen, the game director at Respawn Entertainment on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Steve Blank, the director of franchise content and strategy in the Lucasfilm’s story group, about the upcoming game.

GameSpot: We live very much in a realm of multiplayer online-only gaming. Why the decision to go single-player with this?

Stig Asmussen: A lot of it just happened because of my joining Respawn. I joined, and Vince and I talked about, “Hey, what kind of game do we want to build?” Like, start a new team with. And my experience was all single-player action-adventure, and that’s the kind of game that [Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella] wanted to make because he had been making multiplayer games for so long. So, it was a really good fit there. And then quickly afterwards, we started recruiting people; some people that I’ve worked with before, some people from other places where that was all their experience and their passion, and it never was a discussion to make anything more than that.

When creating this game, did you feel it was very constrictive to work within the Star Wars universe or was there a lot of wiggle room?

Asmussen: I didn’t think it was constrictive at all. We came in very early, and I think the first time that we had a meeting between Respawn and EA, it’s like, “This is the kind of game that we think we could make that’s really good.” But it was in terms of from a gaming standpoint and our kind of much more shallow knowledge of Star Wars than the Lucasfilm guys, and that just started the conversation.

Steve Blank: As Stig was saying, they came in and after having their conversations and knowing and having a strong point of view for the type of game that they wanted to make, the mechanics that they wanted to lean into, the style of gameplay, the single-player story-driven game, action-adventure style, they came to us and said, “Hey, given everything you guys have going on, where do we set this? What does this become? How do we shape this and craft this together?” And, of course, yes, there are other things in development. There are other projects going on to be aware of. There are guardrails when it comes to that, but once we find that slot, once we select what the core of this story is going to be and where it’s going to be set, we also put up guardrails for this game with other content. And so, once we knew where this was going to be set, then they could really craft what this specific story was. So there is freedom once we set those markers in the ground to develop within those markers.

And this taking place after Revenge of the Sith but before A New Hope, kind of that Rebels era. Pre-Rebels?

Blank: It’s in that range.

What about this time period within the Star Wars universe appeals to you?

Blank: The Dark Times [era] is a place where there are very few Jedi, so somebody needs to be in hiding or constantly on the run, and that adds a whole other feeling to whatever content it is that you’re creating because when you think of prequel-era Jedi, right, they’re heroic, they’re part of the Republic, they’re out there as these peacekeepers, and they’re known. When you move into the Dark Times, the ones who have remained, have to be something completely different. And it is that air of something a little bit darker, a little bit more mysterious, a little bit more threatening that was interesting to develop against for this type of game.

Asmussen: They’re enemies of the state, and we need things to fight against. [laughs] So it’s basically looked at as being knights in shining armor or something like that. We had to put ourselves in a situation or a time period where the hero had to fight back, and because you can’t just have a Force user going out there willy-nilly cutting through people because then they become a murderer. But if they’re constantly under pressure, if they’re constantly being attacked, it gives a really good reason to fight back.

Is this developed on the Frostbite engine?

Asmussen: No, we’re doing it on Unreal 4.

Are there any plans for Fallen Order to come to Nintendo Switch?

Asmussen: Right now, we’re just sticking with PS4, Xbox, and PC, but I love the Nintendo Switch and the game makes a lot of sense on there but we don’t have any plans for that

How did your time working on God of War help shape the Jedi Fallen Order?

Asmussen: First of all, let me just say it’s not just my time. There are a lot of people from the God of War team that have come over and joined us as well as other teams as well from other great games. I think what I learned there is it really takes the team to be involved to make something that’s great and not to [bite] off more than you can really pull off. In terms of just mechanically, we have a really good sense of making a character that just feels good, and that’s just based off of experience of working on God of War and some of the other action-adventure games members of our team have worked on, like Batman, Uncharted. Those types of games. So it’s always a conversation. It’s not ever mandating anything but all of us will point out where things don’t feel right, and then we try to hone them in. And that’s something we did since God of War.

Have you always been a Star Wars fan growing up?

Asmussen: Of course. I wouldn’t call myself like Steve, like a super nerd. You can quiz me right now, I’d probably flunk. It was one of the most influential series of my life, and it really comes up in conversations making games all the time, moments from Star Wars. In God of War III, we had the Tauntaun moment, which is when you split open the centaur’s guts, and that was totally inspired by Star Wars, and I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it was awesome in God of War.

You debuted the new Stormtrooper [Purge Trooper] that will appear in Fallen Order this morning. You brought him out in full costume. How did this character come together?

Asmussen: It kind of came in two different places at once. We didn’t know this, but the story team was working with Marvel on coming up with a new Stormtrooper class that filled a gap in the comic book, I guess. And at the same time, we had, and I don’t know if this inspired you guys at all, but remember we had that dagger–what we called the Dagger Trooper in the game for a while which was essentially gen one of what would eventually become the Purge Trooper. But it was just a much more skilled Stormtrooper that had tools to fight back against a Jedi. I think you guys were pretty uncomfortable with that, but it’s really because we didn’t take it through the process and we didn’t know the process was already happening a little bit at Marvel but at some point you guys must’ve been like, “Hey, Respawn’s trying to fill the gap where they needed a more challenging Trooper.”

Blank: Once we understood the core of what they were trying to solve from a gameplay perspective and why there had been that character design, right, like what the need was there, we could take that back and iterate on that and say, “Okay, within the Star Wars Universe, what can we craft? What can we develop? What already exists? What pieces can we marry together to create a version that is appropriate for this game?

As Stig was alluding to, we were having conversations with Marvel and one of their writers, Charles Soule, who was interested. He was working on [the Darth Vader comic series] telling some stories about the Inquisitors and interested in doing something similar to having the support for the Inquisitors with these Troopers. And so we combined those two ideas, we talked to everybody about that, and Respawn was like, “We’ll take the lead on designing this. This is going to be a major element in our game” and we’re like, “That sounds awesome.” Their team designed the actual Trooper, and built it out, went through that iteration, put it on ahead of their earlier schedule to help support Marvel’s timeline first of that of what would appear in the comic. Ultimately, that final design was shared and had appeared in some comics and will appear in HD in the game as a credible threat to Cal. And then, like you said, we saw it in person today which was pretty awesome.

Asmussen: Just for us as partners, it was a galvanizing moment because it was the first time we actually got something… Everything we make has to get approved by Lucasfilm and were trying to navigate those waters and how we worked together on that and that actually gave us a timeline. It’s like, “Look, this is going to be in the comic book by a certain date” and it makes us all be honest at that point. We kind of held our feet to the fire. We worked through the iterations pretty quickly and got it done. It was the first thing we got approved. From then, we just had a better relationship.

Pokemon Go players who missed their first chance to catch Latios now have another opportunity to add the Legendary monster to their collection. The Eon Pokemon has returned to Raid Battles around the world as part of a special week-long Raid event, and this time around, you may even find its Shiny form.

Latios will appear in Gyms as a Raid Boss from now until 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET on April 22. Just as before, you’ll first need to team up with other players in-person and battle the Legendary Pokemon before you can earn a chance to capture it. Like its twin Latias, Latios is a dual Dragon/Psychic Pokemon, making it weak to Ghost- and Dark-types like Gengar and Tyranitar, as well as other Dragon Pokemon like Giratina and Salamence.

The Latios Raid isn’t the only event Niantic is holding in Pokemon Go this week; the developer is also bringing back the annual Egg-themed Eggstravaganza event from April 16-23. During that week, you’ll be able to hatch baby Pokemon like Pichu, Smoochum, and Magby from 2 km Eggs. Additionally, Incubators will be twice as effective as normal during the event, and you’ll receive two times the usual amount of Candy for every Egg you hatch.

On top of those bonuses, Niantic will be distributing special Field Research tasks revolving around Eggs during the Eggstravaganza. The bunny Pokemon Buneary will also appear in the wild more frequently than usual throughout the event, and you’ll have your first opportunity to catch a Shiny Buneary. More details about the event can be found on the Pokemon Go website.

Beyond those events, you still have some time to catch Origin Forme Giratina in Pokemon Go. The Legendary Renegade Pokemon will appear in Raid Battles until April 29. Niantic also recently rolled out a new Lucky Friends feature. Each day, you’ll a chance to become Lucky Friends with a player you’re Best Friends with, guaranteeing you both receive a Lucky Pokemon in one trade.

We got a lot of long-awaited reunions in the Season 8 premiere of Game of Thrones. Characters who haven’t seen each other in years, or at least a few seasons, met back up again. Sometimes those reunions were happy ones, while others were decidedly less so (Jaime locking eyes with Bran was a bit chilling). Arya and Gendry seeing each other in the premiere for the first time since Season 2 fell into the first category.

The meeting between the two friends finds both having changed significantly. Arya is now a consummate fighter and assassin with the power of the Faceless Men, while Gendry is also pretty decent with that big hammer of his. When they meet again, though, what Arya is interested in his Gendry’s capabilities as a blacksmith–which we’ve seen are pretty significant.

When Arya finds Gendry at Winterfell, she slips him a piece of paper, requesting he make something for her. The diagram is hard to parse, since it’s not especially detailed, but we can tell that Arya is asking Gendry to forge her a special dragonglass weapon, separate from the many swords and arrowheads he’s been making in preparation for the battle with the White Walkers. It looks like something special, and could hint at the fact that Arya will be a big part of the battle for Winterfell we know is coming this season.

The diagram itself doesn’t look like any specific weapon we’ve seen before, nor is it seemingly a callback to some other major weapon from the show’s history. But it looks specific to Arya’s skills, and her comment to Jon Snow about his sword Longclaw likely suggests why she’d want it–a full-size sword (or battle axe, like the Hound requested) is too heavy for Arya. Her skill comes from her speed with weapons like her sword Needle, and for fighting White Walkers, she’ll need something similarly appropriate.

The weapon itself seems to resemble a spear that comes apart in the middle, with at least one dragonglass blade at the end. It’s tough to see what the other end of the weapon actually is, whether another spear tip, a grip, or something else. But if we go into Arya’s history, we can make some educated guesses about how she’ll be using it.

Arya’s first combat training, other than what she might have learned from Jon Snow and Robb Stark at Winterfell, was from Syrio Forel in King’s Landing. The First Sword of Braavos emphasized fast, one-handed sword combat–Water Dancing, as he called it. We saw Arya use that style most recently when she sparred with Brienne of Tarth at Winterfell in Season 7, and she was able to stand up to one of the best broadsword fighters in Westeros during that fight.

The other combat talent Arya has is what she learned in Braavos at the House of Black and White. There she trained with the Waif, who repeatedly walloped Arya with a wooden staff. Even blind, Arya eventually learned enough to stand against the Waif, as well.

So a dragonglass-tipped staff that can also function as a pair of one-handed swords sounds right up Arya’s alley, allowing her to shift styles depending on the situation.

It’s possible Arya’s weapon is something else–the tease for Episode 2 showed Arya firing a bow, something we know she was also skilled at even as a child. It’s possible she’s requested special arrows (or even a spear) that could detach its head, but the idea of taking a spear apart and fastening on a new spearhead seems unnecessary. Every time we’ve seen White Walkers or wights killed with dragonglass or Valyrian steel, their death has been instantaneous. The White Walker Jon killed with Longclaw literally shattered. So it doesn’t seem that a spearhead is going to get stuck in an enemy, requiring Arya to detach and replace it.

Thomas Dunne, the show’s weapons master, hinted to Vanity Fair that Arya’s new weapon is “a showstopper.” It seems we’ll be waiting to see Arya bring that weapon to bear against the army of the dead before we know exactly what it is, though.

14. Next Time We Meet

Ned Stark (remember him?) and Jon Snow parted ways early in Season 1 of Game of Thrones. At the time, Ned had never spoken to Jon about his mother–for reasons that are understandable in retrospect. But Ned promised Jon that he’d reveal all the next time they met. At the time, that probably seemed like a smart move to Ned–he’d tell Jon about his Targaryen heritage after Jon swore the Night’s Watch oath, forfeiting any claim he might have had to to Iron Throne–which at the time was occupied by Ned’s bff Robert Baratheon. If Ned had seen the future in the flames, he might have handled this differently, but unlike Bran, he can’t change the past.

Fast forward to the Season 8 premiere, and where did Jon receive the news of his true identity? Down in the crypts, directly in front of Ned’s tomb–and with the statue of his mother, Lyanna Stark, framed in the background. Well done, Game of Thrones.

It took a while, but DC Universe is finally going to be available on gaming consoles. The DC Entertainment streaming service is launching on Xbox One–PlayStation 4 has yet to be announced–and the timing couldn’t be better. The first season of Doom Patrol is wrapping up, and the live-action Swamp Thing series is coming in May.

In a press release, DC Digital Services senior vice president and general manager said, “Since we launched DC Universe last fall we’ve been on a mission to expand our reach on new platforms. Fans asked for access to the ultimate DC membership on their Xbox One consoles and we are excited to deliver DC Universe to them starting next week.”

As it stands, there’s already a bunch of content on the service for die-hard DC fans to watch, including original programming–the aforementioned Doom Patrol, Titans, and Young Justice: Outsiders. There’s also a selection of live-action and animated movies, certain DC TV shows–like the first season of Krypton–and the original Wonder Woman TV show.

Of course, there are also some things on the service that aren’t as great. If you’ve never seen the pilot for the failed Aquaman TV show starring Justin Hartley (This Is Us), it really is something to behold.

Truthfully, though, what’s most likely to draw any DC Comics fan to the service is what’s still to come. The Swamp Thing adaptation will be a horror series, while the upcoming live-action Stargirl show, based on what little we’ve seen, will have a very different tone. When combined with the ultra-violent Titans and the super weird Doom Patrol, it’s clear DC Entertainment is trying a little bit of everything.

You can get a free seven day trial of DC Universe through its website. After that, the service costs $7.99 each month. And for those comic book fans that need to watch everything, Disney is also launching its own streaming service, complete with Marvel Studios programming. You can check out our detailed breakdown of Disney+ for the details.

A new Forza spin-off is now available for free on PC, with mobile versions to follow soon. Forza Street was leaked in March and now it’s been officially announced and simultaneously released on PC. Though the trailer is branded with the Xbox logo, it doesn’t appear the game is planned for release on Xbox consoles, reinforcing Microsoft’s recent moves to expand the brand towards its overall gaming offerings.

The trailer shows some Forza-like racing, mostly through city streets at night time. The concept appears to be based on urban street racing. The trailer does briefly show car and upgrade menus with what appear to be familiar F2P hooks, like an energy meter and two different currencies.

This announcement doesn’t mention a developer or release date for the mobile versions, but the prior leak said that Miami Street developer Electric Square was behind the game. At the time it was unclear if Microsoft had put the developer on a Forza game, or if the leak was due to an outdated error.

Microsoft has produced a new Forza game every year since 2011, usually alternating between the simulation-based Motorsport series and the more open-world and “arcade” styled Horizon series. The most recent release before Forza Street was Horizon 4, which takes place in the UK and features a seasonal weather-changing mechanic.