Author: Trafficblast

This episode of New Releases is bringing the gore with Mortal Kombat 11 and PS4 exclusive Days Gone. Nintendo Switch has some cheerier exclusives of its own to balance those out, with BoxBoy + Box Girl and SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech. Switch also gets its own port of Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen this week.

Mortal Kombat 11 — April 23

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch

Mortal Kombat needs no introduction, but the latest entry in the series does have some new tricks up its sleeve. Fatal Blows are like powerful X-ray attacks you can use once per match, Krushing Blows are flashier versions of special moves, and Flawless Blocks will leave your opponents open to attack if you time your defenses perfectly. Taking cues from Injustice 2, MK 11 also lets you customize your characters with costumes and movesets.

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Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen — April 23

Available on: Switch

Dark Arisen is the definitive version of the action-RPG Dragon’s Dogma, and it’s finding a new home on Nintendo Switch. As you complete quests and slay monsters, you can recruit new followers called Pawns. These can help you out in battle and be shared with other players online.

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SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech — April 15

Available on: Switch

The SteamWorld series has tried something different with each new game, and Hand of Gilgamech is delving into card-based RPGs. There are over 100 unique cards to collect and build into your custom deck, opening up tons of strategy. There are plenty of quests to complete here too.

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Days Gone — April 26

Available on: PS4

The long-anticipated exclusive is finally launching this month. Protagonist Deacon St. John rides his motorcycle across a post-apocalyptic open world, battling zombies known as Freakers. You can approach the undead horde with stealth, by laying traps, or going in guns blazing–just don’t get caught around the zombies at night.

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BoxBoy + BoxGirl — April 26

Available on: Switch

As the name implies, this is a cooperative take on the BoxBoy series, starring both Qbby and Qucy. You can play through the adventure with a friend by sharing a pair of Joy-Cons or swap between the duo to complete every puzzle yourself. There’s also a dedicated single-player mode focused solely on Qbby.

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New Releases is leaving April behind, and May has its own set of video games to prepare for. Next week, we’ll take a look at what the new month will bring, from Rage 2 to a handful of Resident Evil titles headed to Nintendo Switch, including Resident Evil 4.

As the forces of the living spent one final night drinking, loving, and reminiscing at Winterfell in Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 2, the lovable Podrick Payne sent us out with a song. Unlike “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” or “The Rains of Castamere,” it was one that we haven’t heard before in the show. And for book readers, it came as a pretty big surprise. Here’s why it mattered.

“Jenny’s Song” isn’t one of the most important songs in Westeros (to be fair, neither is “The Bear”), but it does come with a sad story attached, not to mention some interesting context from the books.

The song concerns Jenny of Oldstones, whose story isn’t so sad in and of itself. Long before the events of the series, a Targaryen prince broke off his betrothal with a daughter of House Baratheon to marry Jenny, a common girl, instead. Jenny’s Song is just one of the songs allegedly written about her, and it’s referenced several times throughout the books, particularly in book 3, A Storm of Swords.

It’s said Jenny was friends with a woods witch–like the one Cersei visited in her Season 5 flashback–who she brought to court with her. The witch allegedly prophesied that the Prince that was Promised, a hero of legend, would be born from the line of Prince Aerys Targaryen and Princess Rhaella Targaryen, who were brother and sister. After hearing the prophecy, their father, King Jaehaerys II Targaryen, had his two children (Aerys, who would become the Mad King, and Rhaella) married to one another. From that union came the characters we know: Prince Rhaegar and his siblings Viserys and Daenerys. So the prophecy may yet be fulfilled.

Book readers learned about the song in book 3 while Arya was still hanging out with the Brotherhood Without Banners. The Brotherhood occasionally visit an unnamed woods witch known as the Ghost of High Heart, and she always requests that their minstrel, Tom of Sevenstreams, sings her Jenny’s Song in exchange for information. She weeps as she hears it, leading to speculation that the Ghost is the very same woods witch Jenny brought to court with her so many years earlier.

King Robb Stark and his mother Catelyn also discuss Jenny’s Song during an emotional scene in the same book, mere chapters before the Red Wedding takes place. As both characters hurtle unknowingly toward their violent murders, they linger at the ruins of Oldstones and discuss the nature of life and death. “There’s a song,” Robb remembers. “Jenny of Oldstones, with the flowers in her hair.” Catelyn replies, “We’re all just songs in the end. If we are lucky.”

That line can easily be read as a succinct summary of the overarching theme for the entire series, especially when you consider the books’ overall title, A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s been speculated as well that after all is said and done, Samwell Tarly will go full Bilbo, retiring at the Citadel to write his own account of the series’ events, which he’ll call A Song of Ice and Fire.

As a side not, there were some lines in this episode that seem like foreshadowing in that direction, when Sam spoke during the war council where Bran explained that the Night King wants to “erase this world.” “That’s what death is, isn’t it? Forgetting–being forgotten,” Sam said. “If we forget where we’ve been and what we’ve done, we’re not men anymore–just animals.”

In the after-episode featurette this week, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss said they wanted to feature a new song that hadn’t been heard outside the books before. As the books have only ever revealed snatches of the lyrics, they had to make a bunch of them up. Here’s the full song, though keep in mind, these lyrics aren’t canon to the books:

High in the halls of the kings who are gone

Jenny would dance with her ghosts.

The ones she had lost and the ones she had found

And the ones who had loved her the most.

The ones who’d been gone for so very long,

She couldn’t remember their names

They spun her around on the damp cold stone

Spun away all her sorrow and pain

And she never wanted to leave

They danced through the day and into the night

Through the snow that swept through the halls

From winter to summer then winter again

‘Til the walls did crumble and fall

And she never wanted to leave.

And here’s a weird “lyric video” featuring the credits version of the song, sung by the band Florence and the Machine:

It’s notable as well that fans have speculated that Rhaegar Targaryen himself wrote Jenny’s Song, although nobody in the books seems to know for sure. Rhaegar rather famously was a skilled composer and minstrel in addition to being a formidable warrior and apparently quite a hunk. Dany even notes as much–in this very episode, and in fact, right after Pod’s rendition of Jenny’s Song ends. That may be a coincidence, but who knows? It may not be.

As Game of Thrones barrels toward its ultimate conclusion, it was nice to take a quick break from all the build-up and foreshadowing to enjoy a reference to the books on which the series was once based. Whatever happens in the final four episodes, we’ll always have Jenny’s Song.

Photo: HBO/Helen Sloan

In the fifth-to-last Game of Thrones episode ever, Season 8 Episode 2, the Starks and Targaryens and everyone loyal to them prepared for war. That now includes Jaime Lannister, a character who, somewhat ironically, now officially rivals Bran for most pronounced character arc. Few others have changed as much as Jaime Lannister, and this episode highlighted that at every opportunity, from his long-coming apology to Bran, to his historic knighting of Ser Brienne (how weird is that to read?).

But as satisfying as it was to watch the former Golden Lion mull around Winterfell with his tail between his legs, Season 8’s second episode was yet another filled with build-up and anticipation, the promise of something monumental waiting just over the horizon. That something is now one week away, but it’s not just the Battle of Winterfell we have to look forward to: Dany and Jon didn’t get to finish their conversation in the crypt, and that’s arguably even more important. It’s the story behind the story, and it’s always been the series’ real heart.

When you think about it, the conflict between Jon and Dany–the one caused by her increasingly alarming lust for the Iron Throne–should be easy to resolve. Where their conversation ended, I can hear what should have been the next line in my head: “But I don’t want the Iron Throne.” For Jon to respond in any other way would be untrue to his character; he’s always been reluctant to accept power, and quick to give it up once he gets it. That Jon wants the crown least despite having the best claim would probably make him a decent ruler, but the Jon we know was likely about to tell Dany she can have it before they were interrupted.

Leaving that resolution as an open question throughout the upcoming battle was a fantastic narrative choice. It will add even more tension to what will surely be a fraught episode, one in which we’re rightfully expecting many (or maybe all) of our favorite characters to die impaled on White Walker spears. But it also leaves room for something to change; Dany has been acting increasingly unhinged, lashing out at Tyrion and exhibiting an alarming unwillingness to consider any alternative to her absolute rule. More than one character has expressed concern that Dany is more like her father than her supporters would prefer to admit, and if she goes full Mad King or does something extreme in the coming battles, Jon might begin to view it as his duty to claim his birthright.

Whatever happens there, this episode provided plenty of other wish fulfillment for longtime Game of Thrones fans. Let’s start with the obvious ones: Arya actually getting together with Gendry is huge, while Jaime knighting Brienne fulfilled their relationship as well, although in a very different way. Both of these pairings are longtime fan ships, and it wasn’t long ago that it seemed unlikely either of these relationships would ever lead anywhere. It was a little bit jarring to see Arya Stark in this new light, but what better sign that we’re nearing the end of this story? And although I don’t really expect anything romantic to happen between Brienne and Jaime at this point, in retrospect this was perfect. We should have seen it coming.

There were some less obvious bangers as well, huge among them Pod’s little performance. When Pod started singing, book readers may have gasped as they recognized his opening words from a song referenced several times in the third Song of Ice and Fire book, A Storm of Swords. It’s described as a sad song, always sung softly, and Arya only catches snatches of the lyrics. It’s not necessarily important to anything, really, but it’s something those of us who read the books before the show ever premiered never thought we’d actually get to hear.

The song brings to mind all kinds of thematic context from that book, from a terribly sad old woman weeping as she recalls the days of her youth, to weighty conversations between the doomed King Robb and Catelyn Stark in the chapters leading up to the Red Wedding. Hearing Pod’s surprisingly dulcet tones (yet another of his secret talents apparently) belting out that morose tune was somehow one of the most emotional moments yet in Season 8.

This episode also revealed something of the Night King’s motivation, which has been a question since the very first scene of the show’s first episode. According to Bran, the White Walkers are heading south so the Night King can kill him. “He wants to erase this world, and I am its memory,” the weirdo formerly known as Brandon Stark claims. That still doesn’t tell us why, but it’s something.

As we head into the final battle of Winterfell, a plan has taken shape: The non-combatants will cower in the crypts (which might not be so wise if the theory about the Night King resurrecting all the corpses stored down there turns out to be right) while the army of the living holds off the dead long enough for Bran to lure the Night King to the Godswood. What happens next is anyone’s guess–although what happens after that will likely be where Game of Thrones’ real climax takes place.

Photo: Helen Sloan/HBO