Author: Trafficblast

Cyberpunk 2077 features The Matrix actor Keanu Reeves in a major role. The character he plays, Johnny Silverhand, was in a rock band called Samurai. But will Reeves sing in the game? He wants to, but the game’s developer, CD Projekt Red, apparently has other ideas.

“No, they don’t want me to sing,” Reeves told IGN.

CD Projekt Red recruited an unnamed rock band to do the music, Reeves said, “so they’re going to be doing that.” Still, Reeves says he may be able to have some influence on the music.

“We have a bit of time, so maybe we’ll see what happens,” he said. “Maybe the lead singer of the band will let me have some kind of influence in there. We’ll see.”

It’s a bit of a bummer that Reeves apparently won’t sing in Cyberpunk 2077. He’s got the chops to pull it off, after all, so maybe something will happen down the line.

Silverhand appears as a hologram in your character’s head. He’s a key character who is second only to the player character, V, in terms of spoken dialogue. “He’s the No. 2 character in terms of lines of spoken text across the entire game,” CD Projekt Red founder Marcin Iwinski said.

“You will see a lot of Keanu and hear even more of Keanu,” Iwinski said.

Cyberpunk 2077 now has a release date: April 16, 2020, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Look out for more Cyberpunk news as E3 goes on, including how the team got Keanu Reeves involved in the first place, and our preview of the new gameplay CD Projekt Red demoed at the show, as well as a look at its story.

Dr. Mario World, which is Nintendo’s next mobile game, will release on July 10. Nintendo announced the release date today and also shared the first screenshots and gameplay.

In the match-three puzzle game, game you’ll use capsules to eliminate various viruses. The video below shows the first gameplay and explains how it works. Also in the video Nintendo talks about Dr. Mario World’s mictotransactions, which come in the form of Diamonds that you can buy through the in-game shop. They’re available in various allotments, starting with a pack of 20 for $2 USD and running up to 1,050 Diamonds for the price of $70 USD. The Diamonds can be used to continue gameplay, obtain items, and restore stamina. Check out the video below to learn more.

Dr. Mario isn’t the only star of the game. You can also purchase other doctors, including Dr. Peach, Dr. Yoshi, and Dr. Toad, from the in-game shop (though it’s not clear if these extra doctors are sold for real money). Each doctor has a unique skill that is exclusive to them, which encourages players to get them all.

Dr. Mario World was announced by Nintendo back in February, at which time the company only confirmed the existence of the game but not any details about it.

Nintendo’s next mobile game after Dr. Mario World is Mario Kart Tour, which is already in beta-testing in various parts of the world.

For a long time, Nintendo refused to bring its mega-popular franchises to mobile devices. However, this changed in 2015 when Nintendo announced it would develop games for smartphones and tablets. The first of these was Miitomo, which was later followed up by Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, and others.

Just before the release of Rockstar’s open-world action game Red Dead Redemption 2, reports emerged about the working conditions at the studios that developed the game. This naturally led to a discussion about unions, which are largely non-existent in the video game world. Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two, has now weighed in on the subject of unions. He told GI.biz that it’s “hard to imagine” why his developers would want to unionize, but if they do, management would work on a collective bargaining agreement with them.

Before making his point about unions in the games industry specifically, Zelnick offered a higher-level view of why he believes unions exist in the first place.

“Unions tend to develop when labor relations are not typically non-existent,” Zelnick said. “And typically unions have been most beneficial when there were more workers than there were jobs. And where the jobs were low-paying jobs. We have fewer workers than we have jobs, and they’re high-paying jobs.”

“Right now, Take-Two has 500 open positions. There are 220,000 or so people employed in the US video game business. They make about $100,000 on average, maybe more. It’s hard to imagine what would motivate that crew to unionize,” Zelnick added. “But we’re a compliant company and will serve the law. If our colleagues want to engage in collective bargaining, then we will.”

Unions are common in other popular media industries such as TV and film, but the video game business is largely unionized. Unionization efforts in the video game industry appear to be ramping up of late, with groups like Game Workers Unite appearing at recent industry events like E3 and the Game Developers Conference to spread the message.

The practice of “crunch,” or working overly long hours to finish a development milestone in gaming, is often connected to unionization efforts and measures to improve the work-life balance of developers. Recently, GameSpot spoke with the developers of Ubisoft’s The Division 2, and they told us what is being done to minimize crunch and promote a healthy work-life balance.

The latest Nintendo Switch firmware update has arrived, but don’t get too excited. Version 8.1.0 is out now, and it doesn’t do much. The official patch notes are one line long.

“General system stability improvements to enhance the user’s experience,” it states.

Your Switch will most likely download the update automatically if you have it connected to the internet. To verify you have the latest version installed, head to the System Settings menu and look for Version 8.1.0. You can also manually trigger the update on the System Settings menu.

In other Switch news, it was recently reported that production on the rumored new Switch models has begun, and that Nintendo moved production out of China due to the threat of Trump’s tariffs. One of the consoles reportedly has beefier specs, while the other is reportedly a lower-cost alternative that may feature a different form factor.

Nintendo made no hardware announcements at E3, but the company still had a lot to share. Perhaps Nintendo’s biggest news from Nintendo at E3 was the announcement of a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Additionally, Banjo is coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Cyberpunk 2077 had an impressive showing on Microsoft’s stage during E3 2019, where we learned lots of information–like the role Keanu Reeves plays–and saw lots of exciting gameplay. That gameplay may have been restricted to a behind-closed-doors event on the show floor, but Polish developers CD Projekt Red announced that we’ll all get to see it this August.

In replying to a tweet from Wushu Studios’ community manager, CD Projekt Red’s global community lead Marcin Momot said Cyberpunk 2077’s extended gameplay demo will be public during this year’s PAX West, which takes place in the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle between August 29 and September 2. Momot said, “It’s going to happen exactly during PAX West.”

In other Cyberpunk news, we’ve learned that the sci-fi, first-person shooter will have multiple endings. In an interview with YongYea during this year’s E3, quest director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz simply confirmed that, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt before it, Cyberpunk 2077 will have more than one ending. How many remains to be seen, as Tomaszkiewicz didn’t quantify “multiple.” However, Tomaszkiewicz also said that all other augmentations–aside from the two assigned during the Prologue–are completely optional and that there is currently no level cap set for the game.

We’re getting ever closer to the release of Cyberpunk 2077, as CD Projekt Red founder Marcin Iwinski confirmed that the game has entered the polishing stage of development. Cyberpunk 2077 launches on April 16, 2020 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

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