Here’s some good news for fans of open-world shooters: a new Far Cry game is in the works. And while the setting might not be a surprise to anyone who finished Far Cry 5, the release date and price might be unexpected. Far Cry: New Dawn is a post-apocalyptic shooter that’s set to launch February 15 for $40.
The canonical ending of Far Cry 5 saw nukes dropping from the sky, wiping out nearly all life in Hope County, Montana. New Dawn jumps forward 17 years, when human and animal life has returned. That said, this is still a Far Cry game, so you know any peace and tranquility will be short-lived.
New Dawn takes place in a colorful post-apocalyptic version of Far Cry 5’s map and puts you up against a pair of power-hungry twins. You’ll find a lot more details in our Far Cry: New Dawn preview, and you’ll also be pleased to know that New Dawn fixes Far Cry 5’s greatest flaw.
If you’re ready to lock in New Dawn your pre-order, you’ll probably want to know what comes in the various editions, where you can buy it, and how much each version costs. Read on for the goods.
Far Cry: New Dawn Pre-Order Bonus
Pre-order either version of Far Cry: New Dawn, and you’ll get the colorful (and deadly) Unicorn Trike vehicle.
Far Cry: New Dawn Standard Edition
This version simply comes with the game itself and the pre-order bonus.
PlayStation 4
Xbox One
PC
Far Cry: New Dawn Digital Deluxe Edition
The digital deluxe edition of Far Cry: New Dawn comes with additional sets of in-game items, including the Knight Pack (SVD Claymore and Sidecar Motorbike), Hurk Legacy Pack (Wrath M249, Legacy Offroader, and Hurkling Outfits), M133M Shotgun, and RAT4 Rocket Launcher.
After months of build-up and speculation, the title of next year’s follow-up to Avengers: Infinity War has been revealed. The movie is titled Avengers: Endgame and the first trailer is with us. Now the first poster has also been released.
The poster is simple yet highly effective–it’s simply a giant ‘A’, with the words ‘Endgame’ set inside. The big addition is that the logo is slowly disappearing in exactly the same way that the many victims of Thanos’ snap did at the end of Infinity War. Check it out below:
This latest poster follows a similar design as the posters for the previous Avengers movies, which also include The Avengers (2012) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). We’re certain to get a poster featuring the characters from the film nearer to release date, but this one is a striking way to set the tone for the movie.
Avengers: Endgame releases on April 26, 2019, and is directed once more by Joe and Anthony Russo. Virtually all the major actors from the MCU are set to return, so that means Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, Elizabeth Olsen, Sebastian Stan, Scarlett Johansson, and so on. It had been rumored that this might be the last Marvel movie for some of the MCU’s longest-running stars–in particular Evans–but nothing has been confirmed about their future in the franchise.
In related news, the second trailer for Captain Marvel was also released this week. This is the first MCU movie to arrive in 2019, and it releases on March 8. It stars Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jude Law, and is the first Marvel movie with a female superhero as the central character.
You know how, when playing any of the 3D Fallout games, the camera will sometimes kick out during combat for a slow-motion cinematic view of a killshot? Count that as one of the many reasons why Obsidian’s new game, The Outer Worlds, looks a lot like Bethesda’s now contentious post-apocalyptic series. It’s a sporadic and superficial detail, but if you’re familiar with Fallout it’s an unmistakable flourish that will immediately catch your eye and cause memories of exploring irradiated wastelands to come rushing back–especially when you catch a glimpse of the attacker’s deadpan expression.
This example is merely scratching the surface. Fallout was in the air during a recent visit to Obsidian Entertainment before the announcement at The Game Awards; many of the people we met had worked on the early games in the series, and the gameplay we saw of The Outer Worlds led from one familiar moment to the next. Obsidian isn’t making a game that lives under the Fallout banner, but if you look at branding as a formality, you could say Obsidian is making the most informal Fallout game to date.
At the front of the room presenting the game, Fallout co-creators Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky were poised, seemingly confident in what they were about to show the group. This was their first game together since their studio, Troika Games (Arcanum, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines), shut down in 2005. Leonard had gone on to Blizzard to work on Diablo III; Cain spent some time at Carbine Studios before landing at Obsidian in 2011 as senior programmer on Pillars of Eternity. The duo were instrumental to the creation of the first two Fallout games before the ailing Interplay Entertainment licensed the rights for Fallout 3 to Bethesda. At the time Cain had already formulated a piece of what he wanted the next sequel to be, and he’s quoted in 2002 as saying: “My idea is to explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post-nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun.” Is this the chance he’s been waiting for?
The Outer Worlds is set in a distant solar system where corporations are king, so much so that people practically define themselves by the brand they represent–it’s just a fact of life for them. Because it’s second nature, the overall tone is more casual than sinister, which is the perfect canvas for Obsidian’s brand of subtle humor to seep through.
Neither Cain nor Boyarsky would say why the colonists in The Outer Worlds left Earth, but with their previous games in mind it’s not difficult to imagine a plausible scenario. Regardless, the jumping off point was suspiciously familiar. At the start of the game, you are woken up from a multi-year slumber in a human-sized capsule–your own personal vault, if you will. The crazed scientist who jolted you out of hypersleep has a mission for you, but we were told you could freely ignore his wishes and embark on a questline of your choosing.
The Outer Worlds is being designed around freedom of choice, which often manifests during verbal exchanges. You have free agency to lie, play dumb, betray allies, or align with would-be enemies. These concepts aren’t limited to Fallout games, but it’s–again–hard to deny the similarities at play when even the amount of camera zoom during dialogue brings Fallout 3 to mind.
Whether The Outer Worlds is intentionally built to remind us of Fallout is a question we’ll likely never get answered by Obsidian, but odds are it’s not a coincidence. Obsidian’s work on Fallout: New Vegas is cited by many fans to be the best thing to happen to the series in recent years. You could argue that any similarities between The Outer Worlds and Fallout are due to the fact that there are so many ex-Fallout devs working on the game, but there are elements that go beyond mere creative tendencies.
You dictate your characters’ growth by investing in a stat system with categories dictated by a six-letter acronym, not unlike Fallout’s S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system. Despite these and the many other similarities, The Outer Worlds isn’t devoid of originality. Cain smirked before saying that he couldn’t tell us what the stat acronym in The Outer Worlds is, but he was amped to share the other side of character customization, which sounds like it will usher in a brand-new form of player choice.
The Outer Worlds, we’re told, keeps track of your interactions, mistakes, and tendencies. When the background computations identify that you’ve experienced a specific event repeatedly, it will give you a chance to incorporate that experience into your character’s mental state. If, for example, you are attacked five times by a specific type of wild animal, the game will ask you if you’d like to accept a phobia of said creature. This opportunity is two-fold: accepting the phobia will result in a debuff of specific stats when you come near that species in the future, but by accepting it, you will get the chance to pick up an extra advantage too.
“If people have liked our previous RPGs they’re going to like this one in terms of how we make reactive worlds and especially our style of humor.”
– Tim Cain
In the example we saw, signing up for a fear of Raptidons afforded you an extra perk. While it was confirmed that you will be able to respec your character at any time, flaws are permanent. You could decide to take on a fear of the dark, fear of ledges, and a fear of fire, and wind up in an unexpectedly sticky situation further down the road. It’s the sort of thing you want to think twice about before making a call, but the potential for personal playthroughs feeds into the role-playing experience and may be difficult to ignore.
Thankfully, your companions are able to support you when the going gets tough. It looks as though you’ll have half a dozen companions to choose from during your adventures, but you are only allowed to explore and fight with two by your side at any time. Party members relieved of duty will reside on your spaceship, which acts like more of a small base of operations, rather than a vehicle you can actually control–it moves on fixed paths when you pick your next destination. Also on board is Ada, the ship’s AI represented by a female avatar on a monitor in the control room. Ada is supposed to grow and change depending on your actions, though we didn’t get a look at this firsthand.
Back on terra firma, your companions will fight according to their AI and the class you’ve assigned to them. Each character in your party can carry a small selection of both melee and ranged weaponry, of which we’re told there’s a great variety to discover during your adventures. If there’s one aspect of The Outer Worlds that looks a bit underwhelming, it’s combat. Enemies and allies alike lack energy, exhibiting basic and straightforward animations. I got the sense that victory has more to do with how you craft your party rather than how you handle them during a fight.
While Fallout’s V.A.T.S. system isn’t replicated in an immediate and obvious fashion like other aspects of The Outer Worlds, there is a time-dilation mechanic that serves a similar purpose. Triggering this ability slows down time and lets you target specific body parts. Whether to maintain a stealthy run or slow down a hectic fight in order to gain an advantage, this system still feels like it serves a similar purpose to V.A.T.S. in the long run–just without the damage and success percentages guiding your aim.
Cain told us that he writes a post-mortem on every Fallout game, including those he had no part in. He also posited that “If people have liked our previous RPGs they’re going to like this one in terms of how we make reactive worlds and especially our style of humor.” After watching nearly 45 minutes of The Outer Worlds play out in front of me, I recognized both the ideals of Cain and Boyarsky and the habits of Obsidian on screen.
Regardless of what The Outer Worlds is called, the pedigree behind it and the apparent results of the team’s vision feels like it’s aimed squarely at the Fallout fanbase. Obsidian never could have predicted Fallout 76 nor the reaction to it, but for this game to arrive at this time feels like serendipity. Cain and Boyarsky never got their chance to make their version of Fallout 3, but more than a decade after they left their most famous work behind, they have reunited for their “dream project.” For the disenchanted fans of older Fallout games, they may finally get the game they’ve been asking for all along.
Editor’s note: GameSpot was flown to Obsidian Entertainment at Private Division’s expense.
The end of Avengers: Infinity was brutal. With just a click of his fingers, Thanos wiped out half the population of the universe. Characters we loved, that we have emotionally invested in for years, just turned to ash in front of our very eyes. Peter Parker, gone! Bucky Barnes, gone! T’Challa, gone! But they were just a few of the casualties, millions and millions of lives across all of existence were extinguished. The implications are, to this day, difficult to come to terms with.
And yet, it gets worse. Today, the trailer for the next part in the story, Avengers: Endgame, was released, and it reveals that the extent of Thanos’s heinous crimes go much further than we could have ever imagined. As the saying goes, “You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” and today we learned that we’ve lost something truly special: Steve Rogers’ beard.
At the end of Captain America: Civil War, Captain America was deemed a fugitive, having defied superiors to help his childhood friend Bucky Barnes. Life on the run was no doubt rough for Steve, but he fought. When he re-emerged in Infinity War to save Vision and Scarlet Witch, he was Nomad, a slicker, stealthier, more stern version of Steve and Cap. He’s always had the power to rally people to his cause, but now he was different, there was a more compelling kind of gravitas to him, a more driven air about him. He wasn’t just the purehearted patriot doing the government’s bidding anymore, he was choosing his own path, fighting for who he wanted to fight for.
And this new Steve commanded respect in a whole new way. That beard … that perfectly even, meticulously groomed, golden face helmet was awe-inspiring. When Steve appears in Scotland during the events of Infinity War, he emerges from the shadows, forcing Proxima Midnight to stop her assault, and in that moment, it’s clearly visible in her eyes that she knows things are about to go south for her. In that same fashion, the camera zooms into Vision and Scarlet Witch, and if you look at their eyes… they’re looking at Steve’s beard. It commands attention, and demands respect. Such is its power.
But now, it’s gone. In the trailer for Endgame, Steve Rogers’ face is smoother than an egg. The beard is no more, and we can only assume it was a casualty of the Thanos snap. In one short clip during the trailer, Steve is shown mourning, a single tear trickling down his cheek. While the voiceover talks about the loss of friends and family, we all know what Steve cries for: the beard that would have caught that tear for him.
So once again, we mourn. Rest in peace, Steve’s beard, you will be missed.
The first trailer for the fourth Avengers movie is here. The sequel to this year’s hugely successful Avengers: Infinity War has been shrouded in secrecy–the movie’s title hadn’t even been revealed until now. But we now know the movie is titled Avengers: Endgame and this first teaser gives us a hint of what to expect when it hits theaters in April next year.
The trailer opens with a voiceover from Tony Stark, who is stranded in space with oxygen about to run out. Back on Earth, we see various desolate shots of the Avengers building, while Steve, Natasha, Bruce, and Thor mourn the loss of their friends after Thanos snapped his fingers. But it seems that Steve has a plan. There’s also the return of two big characters who were absent from Infinity War–check it about above, and then head over to our Endgame trailer breakdown.
Avengers: Endgame releases on April 26, 2019 and is directed once more by Joe and Anthony Russo. Unsurprisingly, virtually all the major actors from the MCU are set to return, so that means Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, Elizabeth Olsen, Sebastian Stan, Scarlett Johansson, and so on. It had been rumored that this might be the last Marvel movie for some of the MCU’s longest-running stars–in particular Evans–but nothing has been confirmed about their future in the franchise.
In related news, the second trailer for Captain Marvel was also released this week. This is the first MCU movie to arrive in 2019, and it releases on March 8. It stars Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jude Law, and is the first Marvel movie with a female superhero as the central character.
Kevin Hart will not host the 91st Academy Awards. The comedian and actor confirmed in a statement that he has withdrawn from hosting duties following the discovery of his old tweets where he used homophobic slurs and other loaded language.
The confirmation of his departure from the show comes after he posted a video on Instagram earlier today in which he said he says the Academy gave him an ultimatum: apologize for the tweets or step down. He refused to apologize, and now he’s out.
In an earlier Instagram post today, Hart addressed the controversy and said, “I’m almost 40 years old and I’m in love with the man that I am becoming. You live and you learn and you grow and you mature.” He added: “I live to love … please take your negative energy and put it into something constructive.”
The 91st Academy Awards take place in February, so the Academy will have to move quickly to find a replacement host. Keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest.
I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year’s Oscar’s….this is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists. I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.
I’m sorry that I hurt people.. I am evolving and want to continue to do so. My goal is to bring people together not tear us apart. Much love & appreciation to the Academy. I hope we can meet again.
This is just the latest round of controversy for the Oscars. In 2011, Oscars producer Brett Ratner stepped down after making controversial, homophobic comments, while that year’s host, Eddie Murphy, decided to step back as well.
The 91st Academy Awards take place on February 24, 2019. The show was originally set to add a “Popular Film” category, but the Academy decided to scrap it in the wake of some amount of public backlash.
The 2018 Awards ceremony saw the viewership lowest in history, with only 26.5 million people tuning in. That’s almost a 20 percent decline from the 32.9 million who tuned in to 2017’s show.
Telling a story of the cyclical nature of light and dark and possessing both stamina-focused combat and larger-than-life bosses, Ashen is easy to compare to From Software’s Dark Souls. However, Ashen establishes its own identity by delivering an experience that focuses on creating a sense of community and trust with those you meet. The weapon system can occasionally take away from some of the more strategic elements of the game’s combat when playing solo, but Ashen still delivers an incredible adventure, regardless if you play by yourself or with others.
In Ashen, you start as a nameless nobody listening to the origin of your world, its three races, and how everything became blanketed in darkness after the disappearance of the Ashen–a god-like figure of immense power. When a sudden explosion briefly brings light back to the land, allowing everyone to see clearly for the first time in years, it sparks a search for the Ashen in hopes its return will push the last vestiges of darkness away. Leading the charge, you take over a bandit camp and transform it into an outpost called Vagrant’s Rest. From there, you set out into the world in search of people to join your new home, as well as a means of finding the Ashen.
Your journey takes you from one fast travel point to the next within an interconnected series of open environments, and you’ll find a diverse assortment of enemies along the way. Caverns and dilapidated castles entice you to explore off the beaten path and enjoy lengthy expeditions for hidden weapons, armor, and treasure. You’ll need to sprint and jump your way through most of it at the start, but Ashen’s controls are fairly tight and ledge grabs ensure you safely recover most of the time. It never feels like you’re unfairly leaping to your death over and over again, and unlocking a fun new navigational ability halfway through the game will see you returning to old locales to search for secrets you couldn’t leap to before.
There are very few options for long-range combat in Ashen so for the most part, you’re in the thick of things with your opponents and trying to out maneuver each other. Attacking, defending, and dodging all use different amounts of stamina, and carefully managing how much you have left is key to survival. If you’ve played a good Souls-like game before, Ashen works exactly as you would expect. The controls produce a methodical approach to combat that’s enjoyable to just lose yourself in.
On your travels, you’ll recruit characters and send them back to Vagrant’s Rest to set up shop, where you can interact with them again for side quests and special items. Most will even join you on your adventure whenever you exit camp, aiding you in combat and reviving you if you happen to fall. They can also help with exploration, too, as dungeon doors require two people to open and some ledges can only be reached if a team boosts each other up. As more people join Vagrant’s Rest and you complete more quests for them, your settlement will grow. Roads are paved, structures are built, and the community becomes a thriving town. You can’t manage how Vagrant’s Rest grows, unfortunately, but there are fun little nods to the quests you undergo. Vorsa wears an outfit composed of the pelts from the animals you hunted for her, for example, and Eila constructs a dock so you can ride down the nearby river in a barrel–an activity she speaks of when you first meet her. In a game where enemies are constantly respawning, it’s incredibly fulfilling to see your hard work actually having a permanent impact on your corner of the world.
You can forge relationships with other players, too. If you play Ashen online, you enter a shared world where you can encounter people. Other players will appear as the NPCs you’ve recruited to Vagrant’s Rest, and whether or not you choose to interact with them is up to you. With no voice chat, actions define a person’s character, and this can form powerful bonds that last for the entire game. For example, seeing a player-controlled Jokell silently step in front of my character and take a spear to the chest when I had a sliver of health has, for me, left a long-standing positive impression for the pipe-smoking explorer. I brought a computer-controlled Jokell along with me every chance I had after that, cheering for him when he did something incredible and dropping everything to revive him when he fell. It’s a rather simple example of transference at work when all is said and done, but it’s remarkably effective at creating trust (and I imagine distrust in some cases) with the characters you meet.
If working with others isn’t really your thing, you can play offline with NPCs or use an early game item that allows you to play completely solo. It certainly ups Ashen’s difficulty to play without others and it creates a more traditional Souls-like experience. However, the greater challenge of playing completely by yourself isn’t worth losing out on the misadventures you find yourself in when traveling with another character. Even if you play offline with computer-controlled characters, you’ll still form bonds with a one or two of them, and that improves Ashen’s entire experience. If you really want that greater challenge, there’s a mode that lowers your max health and stamina, which is a much better way of making the game harder.
There is one unfortunate wrinkle that becomes apparent when playing with computer-controlled characters, however, and it has to do with Ashen’s weapons. Weapons can be one of three types–axe, club/hammer, or spear–but tools from the same class can attack very differently. Some axes use a leaping vertical slam animation that allow you to get the jump on your enemy before they react, while others have a horizontal slash that can more easily hit multiple targets, for example. This adds additional levels of battle strategy other than simply picking whatever in your inventory is strongest. Problems arise when you’re playing with NPCs though, as you’re unable to choose which weapon a computer-controlled character brings into battle. Pretty much every enemy in Ashen can be tackled with whatever weapon you want, but there are a few locations and one boss battle where a weapon’s animation speed has a pretty substantial effect on you and your partner’s chances of survival. Not having the choice to pick your partner’s weapon introduces an unfortunate element of luck into some battles that should be entirely based on skill. It rarely happens, but it’s noticeable when it does.
Despite how you play, boss battles are where most of your deaths are probably going to come from, as each are five- to 15-minute affairs that push you to constantly adapt on the fly. No two bosses behave the same way, and many have a gimmick that can transform the fight. For example, one of the mid-game bosses is a staff-wielding giant woman who uses her magical lantern to deliver devastatingly powerful area-of-effect attacks and buff her health. If you put some distance between the two of you, you can bait her into throwing her lantern at you in frustration and then destroy it. Doing so allows you to carve out larger chunks of her health, but she goes into a violent frenzy and starts attacking you differently once her precious lantern is destroyed. It’s up to you whether or not you destroy the lantern, and when you’ll do it if you decide to do so.
In some cases, like this example, finding a boss’ gimmick makes the battle much easier, but it can also just change how it plays out–which is a wonderful thing for any fight you’re struggling with. Instead of feeling like you need to implement the same strategy over and over against every boss and just do it better, you’re occasionally rewarded for experimenting and trying something new. It helps dull any frustration that might arise from repeatedly losing to the same foe, too.
Ashen does more than enough to differentiate it from other Souls-like games. Although its combat utilizes the same stamina-focused mechanics, the inclusion of features that promote a sense of community with the game’s characters makes for a wholly different experience. It’s frustrating to spawn and see that your computer-controlled partner has a weapon that doesn’t complement the one you’re using. However, even when playing with NPCs, your allies’ efforts to assist you in battle cause you to care about the fates of the colorful cast of people you meet on your journey. The relationships you forge define your adventure through Ashen, and helping your new friends is a powerful motivator that drives you forward through the game’s beautiful world.
