Author: Trafficblast

Activision Blizzard, the gaming giant behind franchises like Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and Diablo, has lost one of its senior executives. The California-based publisher announced that chief financial officer Spencer Neumann was notified on December 31 that his contract with Activision Blizzard was terminated.

The company decided to terminate Neumann’s contract “for cause unrelated to the Company’s financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures,” Activision Blizzard said in US Securities & Exchange Commission filing.

Neumann is now on paid leave, and he’s been given the opportunity to “demonstrate why cause does not exist to terminate his employment or why termination of his employment is not otherwise justified.”

Activision Blizzard chief corporate officer Dennis Durkin is taking over for Neumann as CFO in the interim. Should Neumann end up leaving Activision Blizzard, Durkin will officially step into the role of CFO, the company said.

A source told Reuters that Neumann is leaving Activision Blizzard to join video streaming giant Netflix. Netflix’s former CFO, David Wells, announced last August that he was leaving the company after 14 years. The source told Reuters that Netflix wanted its next CFO to be based in Los Angeles, which Neumann is.

According to Reuters, Neumann is expected to start at Netflix in early 2019, so an official announcement might be coming soon.

Neumann had been Activision Blizzard’s CFO since May 2017. Before joining the company, he rose through the ranks at Disney, eventually becoming the CFO of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

Aquaman, the latest DC superhero movie, has been and continues to be a juggernaut at the box office. After another weekend at No. 1, the movie has now made $751.8 million worldwide. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Jason Momoa-starring film is now on track to make $900 million during its theatrical run. If it does, it’ll end up becoming the biggest DC movie since 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises ($1.09 billion).

After just a few weeks, Aquaman has already exceeded the lifetime gross figures for DC movies Man of Steel ($668 million), Justice League ($657.9 million), and Suicide Squad ($746.8 million). Aquaman is expected to soon pass Wonder Woman ($821.8 million) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($873.6 million).

Aquaman is doing much better from international markets. It’s made $562.4 million from international markets, including a whopping $260 million from China alone. The film has pulled in $189.4 million from the United States.

Aquaman stars Jason Momoa as Aquaman, with a cast that also includes Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, and Nicole Kidman.

For more on Aquaman, you can check out GameSpot’s review and related feature content linked below.

Destiny 2‘s weekly reset brings another Ascendant Challenge to complete, this one ending the Dreaming City’s six-week rotation. You can see what this entails in the video above, and check out our guide for full details.

After grabbing the Ascendant Challenge bounty from Petra in the Dreaming City (she’s conveniently located near the landing zone this week), you’ll need to head to the Starlight Chamber Lost Sector in Rheasilvia–but be sure you have a Tincture of Queensfoil on-hand. Progress all the way through the Lost Sector and use the Tincture to gain the Ascendance buff. You’ll find the portal behind the Lost Sector reward chest. Inside, you’ll have to deal with enemies and some platforming to make your way to a knight enemy that has to be killed to complete the challenge and bounty–netting you some Powerful gear.

The Dawning, Destiny 2’s holiday event, is over this week as well, and you’ll need to wait until the January 8 reset for new content. That’s when the final of the four Forges, the new activities in The Black Armory expansion, is released. In the meantime, here’s everything you need to know to unlock the Izanami Forge.

With the new year comes Destiny 2‘s weekly reset, and while the game’s holiday event, The Dawning, might have ended, there are still lots of ways to chase Powerful gear to get up to the new Power level cap of 650. Most notable is the rotating Ascendant Challenge, which takes you into the strange recesses of the Dreaming City. This is the end of the six-week cycle of challenges, and it’s one of the most spookiest and most involved. Here’s where to find the Taken portal and what to do once you’re inside.

As always, the first step is to pick up the Ascendant Challenge from Petra–this is what nets you a piece of Powerful gear for completing it. Once that’s done, make sure you have a Tincture of Queensfoil. With that in hand, you’ll enter the Lost Sector in Rheasilvia, the Chamber of Starlight. You’ll need to make your way through the entire thing, as the portal is located just behind the chest that unlocks after killing the boss. While optional, you might as well complete the Lost Sector to make things easier on yourself. With that out of the way, use the Tincture to gain the Ascendance buff, which allows you to see the Taken portal. The exact location can be seen in the video above and map below.

Jump through the portal to head to Cimmerian Garrison, located in the Ascendant Plane. Here, you’ll be faced with what amounts to a gauntlet–you’ll need to make your way through and kill an enemy at the end. Once you go inside, you’ll be chased by three knights. As you progress, you’ll have to deal with various enemies, including hobgoblins, shriekers, and thrall with yellow health bars. Take them out as you go, and you’ll reach a point where you have to platform across some rocks (because it wouldn’t be an Ascendant Challenge without some first-person platforming). Along the way, be mindful of the Taken corruption that will periodically explode with a blast of energy, which can send you falling you to your death if you aren’t careful.

Once you’re done platforming, you’ll have to kill a knight to finish things out, but beware the shrieker that spawns nearby. With the knight dead, open the chest to complete the Ascendant Challenge. There may not be any special rewards inside there, but you’ll get a piece of Powerful gear for turning in the associated bounty.

This week’s reset marks the end of the Iron Banner as well as The Dawning, and you’ll have to wait a bit if you’re itching for something new to do. There’s one last Forge activity to unlock in Destiny 2’s latest expansion, The Black Armory, but it won’t become available for to find and unlock until the weekly reset on January 8. In the meantime, though, there’s the Izanami Forge, which is the toughest and most involved to unlock yet–check out our guide for help.

The Halo TV show, which has been in development for a very long time, hit a bit of speedbump at the end of 2018 when director Rupert Wyatt (Planet of the Apes) dropped out. Microsoft has now confirmed it is is “knee-deep” in conversations with potential replacements.

Kiki Wolfkill, the head of Transmedia efforts at 343, said in a blog post that 2018 was a “year of momentum and energy” for the Halo TV show, and this included “a few roadbumps.” In better news, the project continues to move ahead, and work is being done on the scripts and even prototyping of physical props. As for who may replace Wyatt in the director’s chair, Wolfkill said more details will be shared in the time ahead.

It sounds like the Halo TV show is still in the very early stages, however, as Wolfkill said she and colleague Frank O’Connor (Halo franchise director) are still building the “foundation” of the series. Whatever the case, Halo fans eager to know the project hasn’t been abandoned or forgotten have some good news in this update.

“It’s been a year of momentum and energy and a few roadbumps along the way but we are ending the year on the Halo TV series happily exhausted,” Wolfkill said. “Not unlike game development, it has been a very rapid pace over the last few months of script refinement, concepting, and practical prototyping (but unlike game development, much of this is physical prototyping which is a whole other thrill)! There have been short flights, long flights (ask [Frank O’Connor] about his unobtainium flight status), skype calls, and working sessions all of which have left us excited to come back in January and continue to build our foundation for this show.

“In the meantime, we’re knee-deep in director conversations and will share deets when we’re back!”

Wyatt, who directed Rise of the Planet of the Apes, left the Halo TV show due to scheduling conflicts. He said he enjoyed the time he spent working on the show, saying it was a “creatively rich and rewarding experience with a phenomenal team.”

The Halo TV show will air on Showtime, whose parent company, CBS, also owns GameSpot. Network president of programming Gary Levine said in his own statement that the Halo show is “evolving beautifully with rich characters, compelling stories, and powerful scripts.”

The production demands for the Halo TV show continue to be “enormous,” Levine said. As such, Showtime needed to add more time to the production schedule, and this meant that Wyatt had to drop out. Showtime said previously that Halo is the network’s “most ambitious series ever,” and that’s notable given Showtime is behind some massive productions such as Homeland, Shameless, Billions, and more recently the Jim Carrey show Kidding.

The Halo TV show will feature Master Chief in some capacity, but it remains to be seen if he is the lead, or what other characters might join him. Kyle Killen (Awake) will serve as writer, showrunner, and executive producer.

Showtime has ordered 10 hour-long episodes of Halo for its first season. The Halo show was originally announced back in 2013 with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television set to produce, which it still is.

In other Halo news, Microsoft recently shared more details about the much-anticipated Halo Infinite. Specifically, we learned the game will feature four-player split-screen support, which is notable considering Halo 5 had no split-screen at all.

New year, new Happy Death Day 2U trailer! The upcoming sequel to 2017’s Happy Death Day is heading to theaters on Valentine’s Day, with the original cast returning for a new take on its horror-tinged Groundhog Day-like premise.

In the new film, Tree (Jessica Rothe) isn’t the only one dying every time the day resets. Now she’s leading a ragtag group of college buddies in an attempt to stop whatever force it is that wants them all very dead. As seen in the new trailer, she’s also figured out a clever way around being constantly murdered–killing herself. Whether it’s falling off a building, jumping out of a plane without a parachute, or blowing herself up, Happy Death Day 2U is mixing things up when it comes to killing off its star just as much as the first one did.

Happy Death Day 2U is set two years after the original movie and throws Tree back into the time loop that started it all.. By this point, though, she’s a pro as reliving the same awful day over and over, so she quickly jumps into action to mobilize her group of friends and figure out who it is that wants her so dead.

The latest film in the franchise sees the rest of the originals cast returning alongside Rothe, as well as writer/director Christopher Landon. Happy Death Day 2U hits theaters on February 14.