Over the few past years, Mike Flanagan has become one of the most prolific and successful directors in horror. The Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House was one of 2018’s best shows, and his adaptation of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep is set to arrive in November. Flanagan has a Hill House sequel show on the way next year, and it’s now been reported that he’ll also produce a new horror series for Netflix titled Midnight Mass.
According to Variety, Midnight Mass will be a seven-part show that focuses on an isolated island community that experiences strange and scary events when a mysterious priest arrives among them. Flanagan will direct the show and executively produce alongside his producing partner Trevor Macy. It does not currently have a release date, and no cast has been announced yet.
Midnight Mass is part of a deal that Flanagan and Macy signed with Netflix in February. Flanagan is also making a follow-up to Hill House, titled The Haunting of Bly Manor, which is scheduled for a 2020 release. It will be based on Henry James’ classic novella The Turn of the Screw–check out the first teaser here.
Doctor Sleep will be Flanagan’s second Stephen King adaptation, after 2017’s Gerard’s Game. It’s a sequel to King’s classic The Shining, and stars Ewan McGregor as the adult version of that novel’s Danny Torrance. It hits theaters on November 9 and the first trailer was released last month.
Apex Legends is preparing the launch of Season 2. Respawn has been vocal about learning lessons from its first season, and has already outlined a wide array of changes to expect from the second season. Those include a new character, a revised challenge system, ranked leagues, and more.
Apex Legends Season 2 Start Time And Patch
Apex Legends Season 2 will launch on Tuesday, July 2 at or around 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET / 6 PM BST / 3 AM AEST (Wednesday). Though this time isn’t exact, Respawn has said it will update the community if it changes significantly.
The patch for Season 2 will be larger than usual. On PC it will be more than 18GB, and on Xbox One and PS4 it will be more than 20GB. Respawn says this is to add extra content, but also to add a fresh build of the game that removes outdated parts and replaces it with more efficient code. Respawn says this will not be the norm, but occasionally players may need to download large file sizes.
New Character: Wattson
Just like the last season, Season 2 will introduce an entirely new Legend to play as. This time it’s Natalie Paquette, aka Wattson. The young science genius and daughter of the man who built King’s Canyon grew up around the Arena. She’s important to the lore of the game, and more significantly, she represents a large difference in play style from other characters.
Wattson uses her scientific wizardry to construct defensive electrical barriers and pylons to control the battlefield. You can read more about her playstyle to learn all about the latest addition to the roster.
The update will revise how challenges work, with a new series of daily and weekly objectives aimed at keeping players engaged while reducing the grind for rewards. Completing daily or weekly challenges will count toward your Battle Pass, and over half of the challenges will grant a full Battle Pass level. Other challenges will grant Stars which will count as progress towards a Battle Pass levels.
Daily challenges will be groups of three tasks assigned randomly from a pool of 200, such as dealing damage in a particular area or playing as a specific character. Those award 3,000 Stars apiece. Weekly challenges will be doled out insets of seven. These will be much longer and are intended to last multiple play sessions. Four of the seven will reward 6,000 Stars while the remaining three will grant an entire Battle Pass level. An additional three special challenges will also be available and reset on a weekly basis, giving Battle Pass levels and Stars. Read more details about Apex Legends’ Season 2 Challenges.
Ranked Leagues
Season 2 will introduce another new feature, Ranked Leagues. The revised ranking aims to help with matchmaking with a new score system across six competitive tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Apex Predator. Each tier has four divisions, except for Apex Predator. Each ranked match will cost a number of Ranked Points (RP) that increases based on your tier. You earn RP during the match from kills and your overall placement in a match. The maximum you can score in a match is 17 RP.
All players will start in Bronze, and you’ll earn rewards. Respawn has said it is still determining what the rewards will be, but for now it knows it will be giving out special badges based on your highest rank achieved.
The free PlayStation Plus offerings for July have gotten a last-minute substitution. Sony announced that instead of Pro Evolution Soccer 2019, as previously announced, members will instead get Detroit: Become Human. This is the Digital Deluxe edition, which means it also includes another Quantic Dream game: Heavy Rain. The statement announcing the change didn’t give much insight as to the reason for the swap, but the news comes just hours before the free games are set to arrive on PSN.
“We are making a swap to the PS Plus games lineup for July,” the announcement states. “This month, we are adding Detroit: Become Human Digital Deluxe Edition, which also includes Heavy Rain, to the July games lineup instead of Pro Evolution Soccer 2019. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
The two-for-one Quantic Dream offering will be joined by Horizon Turbo Chase. Quantic Dream’s games have become known for moody, atmospheric cinematic qualities and photorealistic characters, often matching their real-life actors. Detroit: Become Human is the studio’s latest, taking place in a not-too-distant future where androids begin to rise up against their subservient roles.
“I played with my best intentions. Things didn’t always go the way I wanted, but that was a burden I chose to bear, and the story benefitted from my commitment, flowcharts be damned,” Peter Brown wrote in GameSpot’s review. “After completing the game, I tried to go back and fight my instincts to see what would happen if I chose a darker path. It never felt justified nor worthwhile. Detroit is well worth playing, but it struggles to strike the right balance between giving you freedom of choice and reminding you that it’s all a game in the end. Cage and Quantic Dream are getting closer to nailing this style of game, but it’s obvious that there’s still room to grow.”
Ys Net, developer of Shenmue III, has detailed how the PC version of the game will be delivered and addressed the controversial switch to Epic Games Store exclusivity. In a post on the game’s Kickstarter page the developer said although it had originally planned to distribute Shenmue III for PC through Valve’s Steam service, Ys Net and publisher Deep Silver agreed to a partnership with Epic Games.
Although the statement doesn’t provide clarity on the reasoning behind this decision, it does say that Deep Silver “contributed not only to sales and marketing, but to scaling up the game so there is more Shenmue III to begin with,” while Epic Games has offered its support throughout the development process.
This is unlikely to be much of a comfort to people that supported Ys Net’s crowdfunding campaign with the understanding that they’d eventually be able to play the game on Steam. However, playing on Steam won’t be possible on launch day.
“In response to backers who have requested Steam keys for their rewards, we discussed offering the keys on the day of release,” Ys Net said. “However, coordination with the sales policies of the involved companies was untenable, and as a result, we are not able to make a day one distribution option for Steam keys available.
“That we are not able to offer Steam keys for Kickstarter rewards at the time of the game’s release is a great [disappointment] and inconvenience for those backers who were expecting to receive them. We deeply apologize for the unrest caused by the announcement.”
At launch, the available options for Kickstarter backers include a PC physical package, a digital key, a PS4 disc, or a PSN voucher code. However, the disk in the PC physical version of the game does not contain the game data and instead just includes the Epic Games Store installer. If you previously selected PC as the preferred platform, you have the option to switch to PS4–or vice verse if you so choose. Those that opt for the PC versions have “an option to also receive a Steam key one year later,” though you’ll need to manually select this option in the survey.
Backers can choose to refund their contribution and Ys Net, Deep Silver, and Epic Games have agreed to honor these requests. Details regarding the refund request process will be announced in the future, but one thing Ys Net notes is that rewards attached to certain backer tiers that have resulted in content being produced and added to the game may not be refundable.
The Kickstarter update also states that some stretch goals that were reached during the crowdfunding campaign could not be implemented–despite reaching the funding milestone set out for their inclusion. However, some features attached to stretch goals that were not successfully funded have been added to the game.
“Development began in line with the stretch goal content, but with the addition of sales partners during production, we were able to increase our development budget,” Ys Net explained. “In order to maximize game quality under the adjusted budget, game planning was fundamentally altered and ultimately allowed us to incorporate a number of different elements beyond our original expectations.”
An overview of the key changes to the stretch goals can be seen in the list below, but you can head over to the Kickstarter page for a more detailed breakdown:
Character Perspective System: Funded but not implemented as it could not be achieved in this game.
Skill Tree System: Funded but changed to a Skill Book System to better fit the battling style
Baisha Area changed: Funded but changed to Fortified Castle area. Mini-games, infiltration event, battle event, investigation, and battle event have been implemented in the Fortified Castle area.
Choubu Area: Not funded but the area has been expanded with four mini-games, four betting games, kung-fu mastery, part-time job added.
Bailu Village: Not funded but the area has been expanded with four mini-games, betting games, and kung-fu mastery.
Non-Stretch Goal Additions: Story improvements, scaled up free-roaming environments, powered up battle systems, game cycle improvements.
One of the most exciting parts of each new Madden release is the announcement of player ratings, and that began this week.
While you’ll have to wait a bit longer to see the ratings for Madden 20‘s best players, EA Sports has now published ratings for rookies.
DT Quinnen Williams of the New York Jets is the highest-rated rookie overall, with a rating of 80 OVR. Rounding out the top five are Buffalo Bills DT Ed Oliver Jr (79 OVR), San Francisco Giants RE Nick Bosa (78 OVR), Jacksonville Jaguars LE Josh Allen (77 OVR) and Baltimore Ravens WR Marquise Brown (77 OVR). You can see the full list of rookie ratings here on EA’s website, while a silly video below shows some of the rookies reacting to their ratings.
As usual, these are the “launch” ratings for Madden NFL 20’s rookies. Ratings change throughout the season depending on how players perform on the field.
In other ratings news, the highest-rated Madden NFL 20 rookie QB is Kyler Murray of the Arizona Cardinals with a 73 OVR. The highest rated WR rookie is Brown of the Ravens (77 OVR), while Josh Jacobs of the Oakland Raiders is the highest-rated HB rookie at 74 OVR.
The rest of Madden 20’s ratings will be revealed throughout July leading up to the game’s release at the end of the month. Keep checkin back with GameSpot for more.
The Great Gatsby director Baz Luhrmann is making an Elvis Presley biopic, and given the Oscar nominated director being attached and the enduring popularity of Elvis, it is a highly sought-after role. The names of the actors who have tested for the role have now been revealed.
According to The Hollywood Reporter and other sources, Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass), and Miles Teller (Whiplash) have all tested already.
In addition, singer Harry Styles of One Direction and Austin Butler (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). It’s not clear if any other actors have tested so far or if studio WarnerBros. is favoring any actor in particular at this juncture. Whatever the case, THR says WarnerBros. is looking to cast its Elvis in the “coming weeks.”
What is already confirmed is that Tom Hanks will play Colonel Tom Parker, who was Elvis’ manager. The film will reportedly cover Elvis’ life, and specifically his relationship with Parker.
While Styles might be considered the most notable singer of the reported contenders, all of the Elvis candidates mentioned in the reports can sing.
Luhrmann earned the Best Picture Oscar nomination for 2001’s Moulin Rouge. He also directed the movies Romeo + Juliet, Australia, and The Great Gatsby, all of which were critically acclaimed.
Netflix’s The Witcher TV show will have a major presence at San Diego Comic-Con later this month. The streaming network has announced (via Deadline) it will host a panel at the convention center’s biggest hall–Hall H–on Friday, July 19, where it will discuss more about the much-anticipated show.
The panel runs from 2:15 PM to 3 PM PT, though it’s unclear at this stage if it’ll be streamed. Also unclear is who from the show may be on the panel. The three main stars as Henry Cavill, Anya Chalotra, and Frey Allan, who play Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri respectively. They could show up, while another likely candidate is showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich (The West Wing, Daredevil, The Umbrella Academy).
Actress Yvette Nicole Brown (Drake & Josh, Avengers: Endgame) will moderate the panel. The 10-episode first season is scheduled to premiere in 2019, and a start-date could be among the announcements at Comic-Con. No footage from the show has been released yet, either, so a first trailer might also be on tap, but nothing is confirmed.
The Witcher TV show is set on “The Continent,” which is a place where humans, elves, gnomes, witchers, and monsters live in disharmony. According to Netflix, the line between good and evil is “not easily identified.” You can check out the first images of Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri in the embed above.
The Witcher TV show is based on the books by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski not the video game series from CD Projekt Red. That’s why Geralt only has one sword, not two, in the key art. Hissrich wondered aloud if there will be a “rumble” between those who enjoy the books and those who like the games.
She also posted character descriptions for each of the three main characters; she described Geralt as “stoic, circumspect, balance, and fierce,” while Ciri is “resilient, relentless, brazen, and growing.” Yennefer is “fiery, proud, shrewd, and contradictory.”
Will there be a rumble between book-lovers and gamers by the end of the day? #Swordgate2019
Where we started it all. ❤️⚔️🐺 @witchernetflix GERALT IS: Stoic. Circumspect. Balanced. Fierce. Soft-and-squishy-in-a-tiny-place-in-his-heart-that-he’ll-never-reveal-until-maybe-the-end-and-even-then-it-will-just-be-a-hint-AND-yes-he-only-carries-one-sword-until-wait-for-it… pic.twitter.com/KKYRPBfE4a
Back to where we started! @witchernetflix YENNEFER IS: Fiery. Proud. Shrewd. Contradictory. Seeking-to-fill-a-family-sized-hole-in-her-heart-even-though-she-resents-it-&-swears-she’s-just-fine-on-her-own-but-she-is-not-and-we-love-her-for-being-both-independent-and-vulnerable. pic.twitter.com/YAOVMHgIGX
Not everyone wants to fuss with setting up surround sound speakers. A much easier way to add some excellent audio to your home theater is with one of our picks for the best soundbar.
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