Author: Trafficblast

Since its release in early February, Apex Legends has already exploded in popularity with player counts in the millions, and the free-to-play battle royale game from Respawn is about to hit its next milestone: the release of its first season and optional battle pass. Season 1: Wild Frontier will release March 19 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET, and you’ll be able to pick up its battle pass immediately. Everyone who plays during the first season will also be able to unlock the Wild Frontier skin, five Apex packs, and 18 Wild Frontier stat trackers for free.

The standard battle pass will cost you 950 Apex Coins. There’s also a battle pass bundle available for 2,800 Apex coins, which instantly unlocks your next 25 levels of rewards. However, if the regular battle pass is enough for you, there’s a way to get it for way cheaper: by signing up for one month of EA Access (Xbox One) or Origin Basic Access (PC), which each cost only $5 per month. There’s currently no equivalent option for PS4.

These gaming subscription services give you unlimited access to growing collections of games, discounts on purchases, and early trial access to upcoming games. And if you’re a member who plays Apex Legends between now and June 30, you’ll also receive a few extra perks: an exclusive Flatline Epic weapon skin, a special Banner Badge, and 1,000 Apex coins (roughly $10). You can probably see where we’re going with this: A one-month membership to either service essentially gets you 1,000 Apex Coins for the price of $5, which is a 50% discount. Once you sign up for the one-month membership (which normally costs around $10), you’ll automatically have enough Apex Coins to purchase the standard battle pass (with 50 coins to spare).

At that point, you can decide whether or not you want to continue with the service, but you’ll be able to dive into Apex Legends’ new season and start earning rewards with your battle pass immediately.

Respawn’s year 1 roadmap revealed Apex Legends will have four seasons this year, and in addition to a few free rewards, each season’s battle pass includes new weapons, exclusive loot (like weapon skins), and at least one new playable character. The battle passes work the same way as Fortnite’s: Every time you level up, you’ll unlock more rewards, which you’ll permanently keep even after the season is over. Each battle pass has roughly 100 rewards as well as 1,000 Apex Coins you can earn in total. And yes, that in-game currency can be used to buy Season 2’s battle pass when it releases this summer.

Nintendo is giving Switch owners a chance to try out one of the console’s best games free for a limited time. In an uncharacteristic move, the company is offering a special week-long demo of Splatoon 2, which lets prospective players dive into the colorful shooter and its suite of online modes at no charge.

The Splatoon 2 Special Demo will be available on the Switch Eshop later today, March 18. Much like the full game, you’ll need an internet connection and a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to play the demo. If you don’t already have the latter, you’ll receive a code for a free seven-day trial for the service via email after downloading the demo, even if you’ve already tried the previous free NSO trial.

The Special Demo will run from March 19-25. During that time, players will be able to try out Splatoon 2’s signature Turf War mode, which pits two teams of four against each other in a contest to cover the most terrain with your color ink, as well as the game’s various Ranked Battles and the cooperative Salmon Run mode.

If you’re interested in purchasing Splatoon 2 after your time with it, Nintendo of America is offering 20% off of the game in the Eshop until March 28, bringing its price down to $48. Players in Europe will get an even bigger savings; the base game will be 33% off, while the Splatoon 2 and Octo Expansion DLC bundle will be discounted by 25%. You’ll also be able to carry any progress you’ve made during the free trial period over to the full version.

Nintendo Switch Online subscriptions run for US $4 / £3.49 / AU $6 for one month, US $8 / £7 / AU $12 for three months, and US $20 / £18 / AU $30 for one year. Along with online play, the subscription offers a handful of other benefits, including cloud saves for most games and access to a catalog of classic NES titles, including Kid Icarus and StarTropics, which were added to the library earlier this month.

It’s a busy month for deals in the PlayStation Store: The Great Indoors Sale recently launched, offering major discounts on hundreds of games and a huge price cut for PS Plus subscriptions. But there’s another PSN sale that might just have flown under your radar: an EA sale on over 60 PS4 and PS3 games, add-ons, and bundles from some of the publisher’s best series. The sale ends Tuesday, March 26 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET, the same time the PS Plus subscription sale ends.

All three games in EA’s epic RPG series Dragon Age are on sale for the next week, including the Game of the Year edition for Dragon Age: Inquisition, which is just $10. Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II are each $4 to download and play on PS3. With the fourth Dragon Age game in development, there’s no better time to get acquainted with this excellent series.

Another notable deal is Titanfall 2‘s Ultimate edition, which is selling for only $7.49 and includes a huge amount of bonus content. First-person shooter Battlefield V, which released late last year, is marked down to just $30 and features not only several new multiplayer modes but also an episodic single-player campaign. Speaking of multiplayer: break out of prison and journey with your fellow escaped convict in A Way Out, which is discounted at $18. Unravel 2, another local or online co-op experience where you play as adorable yarn creatures, is only $5.

Many of EA’s sports titles are marked down well over 50% this week, including Madden NFL 19, which is only $15; EA Sports UFC 3, which is just over $13; and FIFA 19, which is just under $20. The ultimate editions of Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 are also on sale for just $6 each on PS3.

Shop EA’s publisher sale in the PlayStation Store »

Plus, see some of our picks from the sale below!

PS4:

PS3:

In Lovecraftian lore, horrors exist that the mind simply cannot comprehend. While the facade of our world usually keeps us safe from it all, on occasion, supernatural beings pierce through the veil. These Old Gods are creatures humankind was never meant to bear witness to; a reminder of our insignificance in a universe we don’t have the capacity to fully understand.

Those who gaze upon the Old Gods are left broken. They are driven insane as they struggle to reconcile their understanding of how the world should be with the eldritch truths suddenly thrust upon them. In 2018, at a secluded location in England, I felt this same madness creeping into my own mind. I stood before otherworldly creatures that were deeply familiar to me, and yet also entirely alien. I locked eyes with them and my psyche began to fracture; my reality began to distort.

Just then a nice Japanese man handed me a Pokemon goodie bag and thanked me for coming to the set of the Detective Pikachu movie. I politely smiled and nodded while still transfixed on a small furry Pikachu standing a few feet away. I wasn’t ready to see that. As I wrestled with the ramifications of it, a guy with his arm up a Charizard’s neck appeared and began aggressively waving its head around while making faint roaring sounds. Behind him was a shirtless dude jumping up and down shouting “attack.”

I don’t think I’ve been the same since.

For as long as I remember, Pokemon has been a part of my life. I’ve captured hundreds of them, battled dozens of Gym Leaders, and been crowned a Champion numerous times. But my immersion into the Pokemon universe has always been abstracted through the screens of video game handhelds and TVs. On that day, however, I stood at the center of it. More specifically, I was standing in an underground battle arena where some sort of Pokemon fight club was being held. Large WWE-esque displays teased the match-up, while teenagers dressed like trainers from the games–vibrant-colored shorts, baseball caps, backpacks and all–ambled around. Real-word representations of in-game monsters were also scattered around the location. It was weird, but once I managed to reclaim some sense of my grip on reality, it was also exciting.

Detective Pikachu is The Pokemon Company and Legendary Pictures’ first stab at a live-action movie based on the incredibly popular Nintendo franchise. Although much of what audiences will see on screen will be CGI, those involved in its production have leaned heavily on the real world to both inspire the movie and execute on the vision for it, which is why there are so many Pokemon model stand-ins hanging around.

Over the course of the day, I got to immerse myself in a small slice of Detective Pikachu’s world and speak with people key to bringing it to life. Whether the movie lives up to the high bar fans expect it to reach remains to be seen, but I can at the very least say that there was an overwhelming excitement about the whole thing–an enthusiasm for the production and an awareness of how much Pokemon means to millions around the world.

To Be A Master

“We’re all very passionate about Pokemon at Legendary, and I think we’ve been talking about it for five years now, so it’s been in our minds for a long time,” said Ali Mendes, co-producer on the flick. “Detective Pikachu was this new idea from The Pokemon Company, and we were really excited about it because we felt this was a way to celebrate everything inside of Pokemon’s legacy: 20 years of battling and these characters that people have fallen in love with, to sort of celebrate that but also do something a little unexpected, a little bit new, and kind of add a genre twist to it.

“The biggest thing was of course seeing Pikachu in live action, figuring out how these characters are going to come into our world–‘What does a live Pokemon, a realistic, 3D Pokemon look like?’ That was a really exciting challenge for us.”

CGI versions of originally 2D animated characters in live-action movies have become prevalent with films like Alvin and the Chipmunks, Smurfs, and Garfield. And while these films were certainly considerations when Legendary began making Detective Pikachu, Mendes said its goal was to deliver something closer to Fantastic Beasts, a spin-off from the Harry Potter universe. In many ways, the Pokemon and Harry Potter universes are quite similar, both having massive worlds rich with history and character, but also driven by memorable stories. Successfully representing both of these aspects, according to Mendes, is the key to doing justice to Pokemon in the movie.

“These creatures are as photo-real as they can possibly be. We’re working with the best visual effects team in the world. We thought about Fantastic Beasts a lot just in terms of the quality of that animation and how life-like [the creatures] were. But it was interesting; we worked very closely with The Pokemon Company. They’ve been wonderful collaborators through this, and we’ve really let them guide us, because they know their brand better than we ever will, and we want to make sure that we’re giving fans exactly what they want, and they know that better than anyone.

“But when it comes to making a feature film, you really want to be led by story; you need to care about your characters, and you need to care about your story, and Detective Pikachu at its heart had this great story that we felt like, ‘OK, this is a way to connect beyond just what the brand is.’ This is a father-son story. There’s something inside of these characters that we feel is really going to resonate and connect with a large audience, so it was actually the creativity of it that really drove us and made us feel like this could be something really special.”

Following the release of the first two trailers for Detective Pikachu, the internet has buzzed with discussion about how the Pokemon are depicted. Twitter has exploded with GIFs of Mr. Mime getting involved in an imaginary traffic collision, clips of a bartending Ludicolo screaming abruptly, and pictures of Lickitung’s unfurled tongue that are, quite frankly, unnerving. While Legendary has stuck close to the source material when it comes to the design of Pokemon–guided by the The Pokemon Company to ensure they remain faithful–it has had more freedom in depicting the world the movie is set within.

Like the video game it’s loosely based on, Detective Pikachu takes place in Ryme City, where protagonist Tim Goodman (Justice Smith), a former Pokemon trainer and son of detective Harry Goodman, investigates the disappearance of his father. Joining him is an amnesiac Pikachu voiced by Ryan Reynolds. Tim happens to be the only human who can speak to the Pikachu, who is also caught up in the mystery of Harry Goodman’s disappearance, as well as strange goings-on with other Pokemon in the metropolis.

It’s in Ryme City that the meeting of the real and surreal is at its most striking. Nigel Phelps, production designer on Detective Pikachu, also called Fantastic Beasts to mind when discussing taking the familiar and giving it a strange, otherworldly twist.

“It’s all very focused on being believable, that’s a very important characteristic to the film,” he explained. “So for the most part, we’ll be shooting in and around London … the streets and the exterior stuff is in and around the city of London and Shoreditch. It has to be familiar to everybody. So some amalgam of Vancouver, in terms of the landscape, Manhattan, in terms of the scale of the architecture. So really, if you mash Manhattan with London and Tokyo, that’s kind of the world that we are setting this in.

“We’ve kind of shied away from [using landmarks and architecture from the games]. There are little clues with the street names, and stuff like that, there’s references to the Pokemon universe, without being specific to it. So we’ve shied away from the animation [because] the cartoons and stuff felt much too cartoon-y and unreal, and it was important to everyone making the film that this was a realistic universe.”

Naturally, taking strange creatures and attempting to put them in realistic environments throws up numerous challenges, and this is something that has shaped the construction of sets that Pokemon appear in. Take the aforementioned screaming Ludicolo, for example, who is four feet wide, but still needs to fit behind a bar.

“Everything has to get moved down,” Phelps said. “You know, you have to be familiar with, obviously, with the creatures in the scene, because they’re not all six foot tall, eighteen inches wide, they’re all sorts of shapes and sizes.

“We stopped including Pokemon into the [set production visuals] very early on because [they] became distracting. [We were] drawing this great-looking sets, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, but, no, this Pokemon’s ears are too big,’ and no one’s looking at the environments. It became all about what the Pokemon are doing … That became what the illustrations were all about, and not the scenery. We’d still be doing [sets] now otherwise. So that’s gonna be a post-production layer.”

I Choose You

The responsibility of bringing Pokemon to life in a realistic way and integrating them into Ryme City fell upon VFX producer Greg Baxter and his team. And the challenges in doing so were apparent from the very outset, as Baxter found that, although there was an abundance of Pokemon material to look to for inspiration, the stylistic difference of Detective Pikachu meant they couldn’t entirely rely on other Pokemon projects..

“The Pokemon world that has existed before, whether it’s in the games or the traditional anime, has been a very different style of performance,” Baxter said. “And so, even just getting a first image of what it might be has been a long process. To get so many cooks, if you will, to try to weigh in on what it would look like and then performing as a three-dimensional character, walking and flying, and there’s so many of them so the movements are just vast.

“And then, coming out here onto a film set or out into the city and trying to figure out how to film all of that movement when it doesn’t actually exist in front of a camera and when it’s so different–I mean, you’ve got, one-foot- to 20-foot-tall Pokemon and some fly and some slither, some are fast, some are slow, and shot to shot, you may have 12 of those. And you have to accommodate for all of them.

“We’ve done movies before where you have one or two ways to film that, ways to get space for the Pokemon or light for the Pokemon or for the character. [But] in this one, when you have so many in one shot, you have to make sure that the camera is not just capturing the faces in front of them, but also all of the creatures that will be added after the fact. It’s been a circus, but it’s a lot of fun.”

According to Baxter, the decision to render Pokemon as realistically as possible suited the vision director Rob Letterman had for the movie, which, like every other aspect of production, reinforced the theme of having the fantastical amidst the familiar.

“Rob Letterman’s vision for the movie is to ground it in reality, even though Ryme City is kind of a made-up city. It’s supposed to feel present-day and feel like all these creatures that you’ve seen mostly in very bright colors and anime style are sitting in the room with you. And so Pokemon to Pokemon, they have different textures–some are furry, some are kind of leathery or snakey or whatever. But for every creature, we took real-world animals and drew from that. You take the skin of a snake, the eyes of a different kind of character, we put all these pieces together to form what that Pokemon would look like.

“We would send that back and forth to The Pokemon Company, so that they would understand where we’re going with it and it wouldn’t be a big shock when it landed. But really, that’s how all of them have come together. Each one, even though they’re a creature that doesn’t exist in our world, all of the elements of what makes them up in this movie are drawn from animals that do exist in our world.”

My first exposure to Detective Pikachu’s vision of Pokemon in the real word wasn’t being eased into it through brief glimpses of concept art, or even the short trailers that first debuted long after my visit to set. Instead I was thrown into the midst of it all, shown pieces of a bigger picture, and left to let my imagination try and figure out how it all fits together. Having watched the trailers, the sight of realistic Pokemon is no less strange today. However, being able to take a step back and get a wider view of the world in which they exist certainly makes it less jarring. Like many other fans, I have been charmed by the Pokemon featured in the trailer and warmed to the idea of a live-action movie. If the rest of the film is able to sustain the sense of wonder those trailers inspire, this could be an entirely new Pokemon universe to get obsessed with.

Licktung is still too weird for me, though.