Bloober Team, the studio behind horror titles such as Layers of Fear and Blair Witch, has teased a new cyberpunk horror game. The Polish developer has a history with the genre, of course, with 2017’s Observer–starring the late great Rutger Hauer–taking place in a cyberpunk dystopia.
This new tease is certainly hinting at a new game set in Observer’s universe. Bloober Team’s tweet mentions “>sig: ch120n 1nc02p02473d_.” Chiron Incorporated is an organization in the world of Observer, so a sequel seems likely. A keen-eyed Twitter user also translated some of the binary that appears in the video teaser, discovering that someone called Daniel is mentioned. Rutger Hauer played a character called Daniel Lazarski in the original game, and Bloober Team responded to the tweet with “Good hacks! :D.”
David Rayfield scored Observer 9/10 in GameSpot’s review, praising its storytelling, writing, and Rutger Hauer’s performance, with the only negative being some brief but frustrating instant-fail sequences. “Cyberpunk is a reflection of where we’re headed as a society, an oddly alluring reality where we’ve allowed impressive technology into our lives at the cost of our humanity. This is a niche genre that needs new revisions and new pioneers so it can keep evolving as we inch closer to seeing its fictional warnings play out in real life, and Observer adds to the familiar parables in fascinating and unexpected ways. In that respect, and on so many other levels, Observer is a haunting and remarkable achievement.”
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The Pokemon-like MMO Temtem has been suffering some launch difficulties this week, but developer Crema says it expects they should be resolved now. The studio, which has been notably transparent throughout the rocky launch, said that as of Thursday morning the game had remained stable over the course of a few hours.
In a tweet, the studio said it had remained stable with 27,000 players. It isn’t declaring the problem as solved just yet, though, saying it will “see how today goes.” This follows issues like a stability issue with a hotfix, and one error that appeared to remove players’ Tems. Crema assured players that their Tems were safely stored, even if they weren’t displaying at the moment.
Tamers, During this past night our resident coding guru has been doing their magic and optimizing our server. We’ve been monitoring it during a few hours and it’s been super stable with 27k+ users so things are looking super good. Let’s see how today goes 🙂
Some launch issues are to be expected from a relatively small studio, especially seeing as the game is only in early access. Players who jump on early will save a little money, though, as the price is planned to slowly increase as Crema adds more features before it leaves early access.
Temtem is inspired by Pokemon, with several dozen creatures to collect and train and more due as development continues. It got off to a big start, rising to the top-selling spot on Steam just a few days after it entered early access. It’s still holding the top spot, with a peak concurrent player count of around 30,000 users.
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Baby Yoda plushies won’t be available before Valentine’s Day, but that doesn’t mean you can’t surprise your special someone with a gift that celebrates The Mandalorian‘s breakout star. Greeting card company Lovepop creates handcrafted pop-up card, and its latest design features an adorable Baby Yoda pop-up.
Lovepop’s Baby Yoda pop-up card
The outside of the blue card includes a picture of Baby Yoda in his floating bassinet with the simple greeting “For You.” When the card is opened, a wonderfully designed Baby Yoda pops up. The backdrop of the scene on Arvala-7–the planet where Mando found Baby Yoda–depicts the Razor Crest ship. You can also see a frog, who obviously doesn’t know it’s about to get eaten, hopping toward Baby Yoda. The pop-up card costs $15 and is available to purchase at Amazon.
Lovepop uses ship-building software to create its designs, and the pop-up models are created with kirigami, an offshoot of origami that involves both folds and cuts.
While I think the 3D model of Baby Yoda shows your partner how deeply you care for them already, the card comes with a blank note to write your Valentine’s Day message on.
If for some odd reason your partner doesn’t like Baby Yoda, Lovepop has a ton of designs to choose from, including a traditional bouquet, Mickey and Minnie, and Baby Yoda’s arch-nemesis for the cuteness crown, Baby Groot. If you’re looking for a gift to go with the card, we put together a list Valentine’s Day gift ideas for gamers.
It took the sci-fi sequel Blade Runner 2049 many years to reach the screen, but there’s little denying that director Denis Villeneuve did an incredible job of capturing the visuals and atmosphere of Ridley Scott’s original 1982 movie. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a financial success, and Villeneuve has since moved onto another huge sci-fi project–a new adaptation of the classic novel Dune, However, the director has now revealed he wants to return to the world of Blade Runner.
In a new interview with Empire, Villeneuve explained that he wasn’t looking to do another Blade Runner sequel, but a different story set in the same universe. “It’s such an inspiring place, the Blade Runner world,” he said. “The problem is have is the word ‘sequel.’ I think cinema needs original stories. But if you ask me if I’d like to revisit this universe in a different way, I can say yes. It would need to be a project on its own. Something disconnected from both other movies. A detective noir story set in the future… I wake up sometimes in the night dreaming about it.”
Blade Runner 2049 was released in October 2017. It only made $260 million at the worldwide box office, and it was reported that it could have lost up to $80 million. Scott himself, who was a producer on the film, subsequently described the movie as “slow [and] too long.” Nevertheless, it received strong reviews–in his review for GameSpot, Michael Rougeau said it was “as close to a perfect sequel as has ever existed.”
As for Dune, that’s set to hit theaters on December 18, 2020. Villeneuve has assembled an amazing cast for the movie, including Timothy Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Stellan Skarsgård, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and Dave Bautista. There’s also a Dune TV spin-off in the works, titled Dune: The Sisterhood, but Villeneuve isn’t involved with this.
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At the Daystrom Institute in Star Trek: Picard, we see the disassembled form of an android that looks like Data: B-4. The android was discovered in Star Trek: Nemesis, making him the third of the androids we’ve seen that were built by Data’s creator, Noonien Soong, in his own image. B-4 was the oldest, a less-sophisticated version built by Soong; he was followed by Lore, who was much more human but unstable; and finally by Data. In Nemesis, Data tried to download his memories into B-4, but B-4’s positronic brain couldn’t handle the information. B-4 is still around, but has been decommissioned, especially in the wake of the synth revolt on Mars.
Star Trek: Picard jumps ahead in the timeline of Star Trek further than any story we’ve seen so far–barring time travel jaunts into the distant future we’ve seen at times, like in Star Trek: Enterprise. It picks up the story of Captain Jean-Luc Picard years after he’s retired from Starfleet and his role as an admiral, with a number of Star Trek characters returning from series including Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager.
But Star Trek: Picard isn’t just drawing on the stories told in contemporary series as it expands on the life and career of Picard. It also takes a cue from a somewhat less-likely source: the 2009 Star Trek film directed by J.J. Abrams. Though that movie and its sequels, Star Trek: Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond, take place in an alternate timeline to tell new stories about the iconic Captain Kirk and the crew of his Enterprise, the story still has some influence on the main Star Trek timeline–and on the events of Star Trek: Picard.
The influence comes from the setup of Star Trek 2009, which established a big change in the Star Trek universe: In the backstory for Abrams’ movie, a supernova destroys Romulus, the homeworld of the Romulan Star Empire. Star Trek fans know that the Romulans have been one of the United Federation of Planets’ longest enemies. During the events of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which first introduced Picard and his crew, the Federation and the Romulans were in the middle of a tenuous cease-fire, with the territory between them known as the Neutral Zone. Though the Federation and the Romulans sometimes were at odds during the series, for the most part, they left each other alone.
The Romulans were still a threat even well after the end of TNG, however. In Star Trek: Nemesis, the last of the Star Trek movies to feature the TNG crew, some Romulan military leaders planned a massive, devastating attack on the Federation. Picard and the Enterprise crew managed to circumvent that attack and prevent a war, with the help of Romulan commanders who weren’t so keen on restarting hostilities.
Cut to Star Trek 2009, which starts its story in the original Star Trek timeline, known as the Prime timeline. In that story, a supernova destroys the Romulan homeworld, and with it, millions (or billions) of Romulan lives. In the movie, Spock (at this point an ambassador) attempts to stop the supernova and save Romulus utilizing a strange substance known as Red Matter, which can be used to create black holes. Spock’s plan is to use a black hole to basically suck up the supernova and save the planet–but the star explodes before he can execute his plan, and Romulus is destroyed.
That event leads the commander of a Romulan mining ship, Nero, to chase down and attempt to kill Spock in order to take revenge on him. Instead, however, both Nero and Spock’s ships are drawn into the black hole Spock creates, which catapults them back in time. Nero’s presence in the past alters some formative events in the life of Captain Kirk, fundamentally altering history–and creating a new alternate timeline for those movies, known as the Kelvin timeline.
But the destruction of Romulus is an event that still occurred back in the Prime timeline, before time travel became a thing (in this context), and Star Trek: Picard picks up after that event. In the premiere episode of the CBS All Access series, we learn that it wasn’t just Spock who tried to prevent disaster on Romulus. In response to the planet’s impending doom, the Romulans asked the Federation for help in saving its citizens. Some in the Federation were reluctant, but Jean-Luc Picard managed to convince Starfleet to mount a massive rescue effort, and to create an armada of ships to get it done. That was 14 years before the events of the first episode of Picard.
Unfortunately, tragedy struck before the rescue effort got underway. A group of rogue synthetics–essentially, non-sentient androids–attacked Mars and the Federation’s Utopia Planitia shipyard, where the rescue armada was utterly destroyed. After that, the Federation refused to help the Romulans despite Picard’s instance, and the planet was annihilated, just like in Abrams’ movie.
Though Star Trek: Picard doesn’t mention the Spock connection, the destruction of Romulus looms large in the new series. It’s clear in the first episode that the Federation’s relationship with the surviving Romulans is going to be a major part of the show–but we’ll have to wait and see how that relationship develops.
Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company.
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From the first few moments of the premiere episode of Star Trek: Picard, it’s clear that the story isn’t just about famed Captain Jean-Luc Picard–it’s also about Data, one of his closest friends. Data was an android who served on the U.S.S. Enterprise under Picard throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation and its subsequent four films, and Data’s influence is still being felt by Picard and the universe at large even decades later.
Part of the reason Data is such a big deal in the new streaming series is that he remains basically one-of-a-kind in the universe. He was a sentient android created by the cyberneticist Noonien Soong and spent his life endeavoring to be more human. Other than the two androids Soong built before Data, B-4 and Lore, there are apparently no other artificial lifeforms who are quite like him. That’s not for lack of trying, though; as we learn in the first episode of Star Trek: Picard, the Federation created a number of “synthetics,” or robots who look a bit similar to Data, but who apparently weren’t sentient (although there are those who said the same of Data himself, as TNG fans know).
Data’s relationship with Picard, and the Federation in general, was built up over the course of Star Trek: The Next Generation and its films. But you don’t have to watch the entire series and four movies to understand the important facts about Data that come up in Star Trek: Picard. All the relevant Data backstory referenced in Picard’s premiere comes from just four TNG episodes–episodes we’ll summarize here to save you a few hours. And if these sound intriguing, check out our list of the 10 essential Data episodes and you can learn even more about the unique being.
Measure of a Man (Season 2, Episode 9)
One of the best early Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes has a big bearing on what’s going on in Star Trek: Picard. In “Measure of a Man,” a cybernetics researcher, Bruce Maddox, wants to disassemble and study Data in hopes of creating more androids like him. Data isn’t into it–he doesn’t think Maddox has the skills necessary to do the procedure without Data potentially losing the essence of who he is. Maddox argues that Data doesn’t have a choice; as a machine, Data isn’t a person, but rather the property of Starfleet. Therefore, Data has no right to refuse to take part in Maddox’s experiments.
The argument eventually goes to court, with Picard serving as Data’s advocate in arguing that the android is alive and therefore has rights, and Picard’s first officer, Commander Will Riker, forced to argue against Picard as Maddox’s advocate. Picard eventually prevails after he suggests that creating more androids like Data in a world where they have no rights would be tantamount to creating a slave caste. Picard always shows a profound respect for life throughout TNG, and in “Measure of a Man,” he gains even more respect for Data and artificial life in general–a feeling that’s obviously still a major part of him in Star Trek: Picard. And the events in the trial cause Maddox to gain a new respect for Data as well. The pair continued corresponding over the years (Data narrates a lengthy letter to Maddox about his typical day in Season 4, Episode 11, “Data’s Day”). That’s the same Maddox who Picard hears has disappeared when he visits the Daystrom Institute in the first episode of Star Trek: Picard.
The Offspring (Season 3, Episode 16)
After attending a cybernetics conference, Data discovers a way to replicate his positronic net–essentially, his brain–to create another android. He uses that knowledge to create Lal, who he considers his offspring. Lal selects her own gender and appearance, choosing to present herself as a human woman, and thus becomes Data’s daughter.
Data tries to raise Lal and teach her how to fit in aboard the Enterprise, an experience he finds incredibly rewarding. Of course, Starfleet again wants to study the androids, and attempts to separate Lal from Data to take her back to the Daystrom Institute. Before that can happen, however, Lal’s positronic net starts to break down. She eventually dies, although Data downloads her memories into himself so he can keep a part of Lal with him.
Like “Measure of a Man,” “The Offspring” further establishes the idea of synthetic life based on Data’s design and Picard’s respect for it. It also builds on the idea of Data as a form of life and his ability to produce offspring, both of which are a big part of Star Trek: Picard’s first episode.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Data spends most of Star Trek: First Contact as a captive of the Borg Queen after she and her drones manage to board and take control of part of the Enterprise. The movie establishes some changes to Borg lore by adding the Queen, and suggests that she wants more than to just assimilate more drones–she wants a true equal. To that end, she grafts real skin onto Data to help him become more human, trying to convince him to join her. Picard eventually rescues Data and together they defeat the Queen and the Borg on the Enterprise, while Riker and the rest of the crew stop the Borg’s attempts to disrupt humanity’s first contact with alien life (it’s a time travel movie, just go with it).
First Contact does a lot of heavy lifting in reestablishing Picard’s lingering trauma over being assimilated by the Borg, and builds on his close relationship with Data–though he’s planning to destroy the Enterprise to defeat the Borg, he goes back to rescue Data rather than leaving him behind. Data played a major role in saving Picard from the Borg when he was assimilated in TNG, and the captain felt he couldn’t leave his friend behind, even though there was a good likelihood Picard and Data would both have been killed in the attempt
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
The final of the TNG movies brings Picard’s relationship with Data to an end. After the Romulan Star Empire makes overtures toward peace with the Federation following the installment of a new leader, Shinzon, Picard and the Enterprise head to Romulus for negotiations. They discover that Shinzon is actually a clone of Picard the Romulans created in hopes of installing a spy in Starfleet, a plan they eventually abandoned. Shinzon eventually gained power as a wartime commander, and means to destroy the Federation with a weapon that uses a powerful kind of radiation.
The movie is mostly about Picard worrying about what kind of man he could have become under different circumstances, but the part that matters is that Picard heads over to Shinzon’s ship to destroy it–with the belief that he’s going to die in the process. At the last moment, Data arrives with an emergency transporter, a little gizmo that can automatically beam a single person back to the Enterprise with the press of a button. Data slaps the emergency transporter on Picard and then destroys Shinzon’s ship himself, dying in the process.
Nemesis also introduces B-4, a prototypical brother of Data that Shinzon discovered. Though Data attempted to download his own memories into the prototype, B-4’s appearance in Star Trek: Picard suggests the transfer didn’t take. So as of Star Trek: Picard’s first episode, Data is gone, and Picard is still feeling his loss even years later. Data still resonates with the people who were close with him, and with the scientific community in the Federation that studied him. He might be gone, but Data’s influence is a huge part of Star Trek: Picard, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be waning anytime soon after Episode 1.
Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company.
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Nioh 2 for PS4 is one of the few big spring releases that has managed not to get delayed in the last few weeks, and a new story trailer helps set the stage for the action. In it we see a mixture of historical drama and mystical elements as feudal Japanese warriors do battle with spirit stones.
You play as a hired mercenary abandoned by your parents, who were human and Yokai. Your parentage means you can transform into a supernatural Yokai form, which thrusts you into the middle of a raging war.
The first Nioh was a critical success, including in GameSpot’s review which gave it a 9/10. The mixture of a feudal Japanese setting and tough-as-nails Dark Souls combat earned its fans, and it’s among our most anticipated games of 2020.
Nioh 2 is coming to PS4 on March 13, and multiple special editions are offering different bonuses. For more details check out our pre-order guide.
While Disney has found great success over the decades making animated and live-action versions of classic fairytales, the source material for these stories is often much darker than what gets to the screen. Hansel and Gretel is one of the most famous fairytales of all time, but it has never had the full Disney movie treatment–perhaps because it involves lost children and a witch who wants to cook and eat them. Frankly, it sounds more like the plot of a horror movie, and that’s clearly what the makers of the upcoming scary adaptation Gretel & Hansel thought too. A new clip from the movie has now been released.
The clip shows the two siblings of the title encountering a house deep in a wood. This is a time of famine and plague, so naturally the possibility of finding some food inside lures Hansel instead–but there’s also someone very scary in there too. Check it out below.
Gretel and Hansel are played by Sophia Lillis, who starred as the younger Beverly Marsh in two recent It movies, and newcomer Sammy Leakey, with Alice Krige (Star Trek: First Contact) as the witch. It’s directed by Oz Perkins, who previously made the acclaimed indie horrors The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. Perkins is also the son of the late Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s classic Psycho. Gretel & Hansel hits theaters on January 31, and you can also watch the trailer here.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Perkins spoke about what to expect from this new version of the classic story. “In the title, the names are reversed, which obviously caught my attention,” he said. “It’s awfully faithful to the original story, it’s got really only three principal characters: Hansel, Gretel, and the Witch. We tried to find a way to make it more of a coming-of-age story. I wanted Gretel to be somewhat older than Hansel, so it didn’t feel like two 12-year-olds–rather, a 16-year-old and an 8-year-old.
“There was more of a feeling like Gretel having to take Hansel around everywhere she goes, and how that can impede one’s own evolution, how our attachments and the things that we love can sometimes get in the way of our growth. Sophia Lillis is really fantastic. She has one of those faces that the camera immediately understands, which is something that rarely happens. For my style and for my taste, which tends to be minimalist and a little bit more mannered, she’s really a dream.”
HBO’s adaptation of Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli’s comic series, DMZ, is shaping up to be a big deal, with a major star cast in the lead for the pilot. Rosario Dawson has been cast as Alma, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The character, a medic who is looking for her lost son, is actually an original creation for the TV show who did not appear in the book.
DMZ is set after a second civil war has ripped up much of America, and is focused on a version of Manhattan that has been declared a demilitarized zone. The comic ran for 72 issues between 2005 and 2012.
The pilot will be directed by Ava DuVernay, who is best known for directing Selma and A Wrinkle in Time, and who also directed 2019’s magnificent Netflix series When They See Us. She is also directing DC’s The New Gods, which she also co-wrote. Roberto Patino, the co-executive producer of Westworld season 2, is showrunner.
Dawson recently starred in Zombieland: Double Tap, and played Jane Ramos in 18 episodes of Jane the Virgin (she’s not the titular character, just for the record). She also played Claire Temple across several Netflix Marvel shows.
It’s not yet known when DMZ will premiere on HBO, and filming has not yet begun.
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