All six of MCU Clint Barton’s fans can rest easy today, having seen their favorite archer finally return to the big screen in the Avengers: Endgame trailer–but it seems like his time away from the spotlight has left him a changed man. Gone are the days of the bow and arrow and the purple(-ish) costume. Hawkeye is gone. Meet Ronin.
We’ve known Clint was going to get a codename change up for a while now, thanks to some leaked set photos featuring Jeremy Renner in a new costume, but the trailer provided all the confirmation we could hope for: a dramatic scene in the rain on the streets of Tokyo, Clint wielding a katana, not an arrow to be found. It’s all pretty on the nose, and something the MCU is lifting directly from the source material.
Clint’s transition from Hawkeye to Ronin over in the comics actually happened following Clint’s death and resurrection around the House of M and Civil War events in the early 2000s. It’s all a little messy (and involves Scarlet Witch literally deleting Clint from existence more than once–don’t worry too much about it) but the end result of his brushes with morality and non existence were, unsurprisingly, a bit of an existential crisis. Rather than jumping back into the fray as if nothing had changed, Clint took on a new identity and went off on his own for a while, adopting the name and costume Ronin from the original Ronin, a woman named Maya Lopez, who had since started going by Echo.
Clint operated as Ronin with the New Avengers, keeping his identity secret from most everyone for a not insignificant amount of time, before he eventually came clean, unmasked himself, and allowed Kate Bishop to take over as the new Hawkeye officially–think of it as a sort of codename musical chairs game, if that helps. He stuck with the Ronin identity through the Dark Reign and Siege events, before finally returning to his old archery-themed self during The Heroic Age, circa 2010.
So what does that mean for the MCU? Well, possibly a couple major things.
Clint’s Ronin-shift in the comics is pretty contingent on issues involving death, rebirth, and memory. Having no real idea what, exactly, Clint’s been up to since Captain America: Civil War, it’s hard to say how those big concepts could come into play, but given Clint’s history–and connection to the Infinity Stones (remember Loki used the Mind Stone to control him back in The Avengers) it’s not totally out of line to say that Thanos’s snap could have affected him differently than the other heroes in the mix. He may not have literally died and came back, and he may not literally be suffering from amnesia, but there’s the potential for some problems there, any of which could have lead him to question his own role and identity.
Of course, it’s probably worth noting that there is a pointed bit of voice over in the trailer about losing “parts of ourselves” when Clint is revealed so there’s also the chance that Clint literally is just suffering some sort of Stone-related mental breakdown and doesn’t actually recognize Nat after she tracks him down. That would certainly explain why he’s off fighting thugs on the streets of Tokyo on his own rather than working with the survivors.
Though, with Captain Marvel about to introduce the shape shifting alien Skrulls into the mix, it’s probably worth mentioning that we could be well on our way to an even more shocking reveal. After all, who can really say that the real Clint Barton hasn’t been Ronin this entire time? The person we’ve known as Hawkeye since 2012 could, honestly, have been an imposter all along.
It’s definitely best not to count anything out just yet–and to keep your eyes peeled for more Ronin/Hawkeye clues in the future. There’s definitely more to this story, but the puzzle pieces have yet to be totally revealed. For more, check out our Avengers: Endgame trailer breakdown.
The first trailer for Avengers: Endgame is with us. It has left fans with lots of questions and inevitably there will be much speculation about certain moments. But it also seems to confirm a couple of things too. We know that Hawkeye survived the devastating end of Infinity War, and that tragically Steve Rogers’ beard did not. But the trailer also suggests that fan-favorite Shuri was one of Thanos’s victims.
During the montage of the surviving Avengers looking very sad about the death of their friends, we see Bruce Banner looking at a series of holographic screens of the missing heroes. Among them is Shuri. She was last seen towards the end of Infinity War, trying to extract the Mind Stone from Vision’s head. Shortly after this, the action switched to the forest where the rest of the Wakanda sequence plays out, and we never return to her.
Given 50% of every living creature in the universe is now gone, there was always a good chance that Shuri might be one of the victims. But with her brother T’Challa having also disappeared at the end of Infinity War, fans were hoping that the same fate didn’t await her. Of course, Scott Lang is also on the missing list, and we now know he survived, so maybe there is still hope.
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.
For more, check out the first Endgame poster, and read GameSpot’s full breakdown of everything we learned about the movie from the trailer.
It’s been a wild couple weeks of everyone asking, “When is the Avengers 4 trailer going to drop?” Well, the answer was early morning on December 7, which felt like it came out of nowhere. Regardless, the Avengers: Endgame trailer here, and of course, it looks awesome. And it has Scott Lang in it, trying to get past a gate, so I’m all in.
The ending of Avengers: Infinity War left everyone stunned. Spoilers ahead, but if you haven’t seen the biggest movie of 2018 by now, I’m assuming you hate movies or you’ve been trapped in the Quantum Realm. Anyway, Thanos collected all the Infinity Stones and used the power within them to eliminate half the life in the universe. That means most of our favorite superheroes were turned to dust at the end of the movie. With so many people dead, who is going to undo what Thanos did?
In the latest trailer, we do find out there are a few people still alive in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that can help out–although there was so sign of Captain Marvel, and that was a bummer. However, there are still a few heroes left alive to take down Thanos, and here’s who we saw in the trailer.
Avengers: Endgame comes to theaters on April 26, 2019.
Tony’s adrift in space, ready to die–and, apparently, alone.
Our first look at Avengers: Endgame is appropriately bleak, featuring a look at Tony Stark living out his very own sci-horror fantasy of being adrift in space with no food, no water, and oxygen that’s about to run out entirely. He’s recording a heartbreaking message to Pepper on the remains of his Iron Man helmet, which looks like its also on its last legs. If you remember from Infinity War, Tony’s suit is now made up of nanobots, which means he’s likely been using parts of his suit to form/reform necessary components of the ship or systems within it, meaning he’s probably only got enough left to build that much of his armor. You know, if you needed this to be even more tragic.
Perhaps more pertinent, however, is the fact that Tony seems to be completely on his own. When Thanos snapped, he and Nebula were the only two people on Titan who didn’t crumble into dust. We see a moment later in the trailer that makes it look like Nebula was on board the ship as well, which makes Tony’s apparent isolation even stranger–is she still around? And if not, where did she go?
The trailer for Avengers 4–now dubbed Avengers: Endgame–has finally released, and with it Marvel announced a new US release date for the upcoming film. It’s now due in April, not May, seemingly to match the European release dates.
According to a Marvel Studios tweet, the movie is coming on April 26, 2019. It had previously been set for May 3 in the United States, and for April in France, Germany, and the UK. This appears to bring all the territories in-line.
We had received word that this could happen over the summer, when IMAX released its schedule of upcoming films for 2019. That showed Avengers in the April spot, alongside other films showing their US release date. IMAX said at the time that it was simply showing the first available showing across all territories.
This isn’t unprecedented. When Marvel was preparing to release Avengers: Infinity War, it staged a social media stunt to announce the changed release date. This announcement is a bit less flashy, but likely made for the same reason. Avengers: Endgame will be the culmination of a story arc ten years in the making, and a simultaneous worldwide release means Americans don’t need to worry about having important plot points spoiled from across the pond before they even have a chance to see it.
This puts it just under two months after the release of Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019. That film will likely lead neatly into Endgame, since a post-credits sequence in Infinity War implied that the Captain Marvel character is being called into action. While you count the days until then, check out our in-depth trailer breakdown.
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.
