Author: Trafficblast

Actor Oscar Isaac, who plays the brash pilot Poe Dameron in the Star Wars series, has shared some new insight on the upcoming Episode IX. Speaking to IndieWire, Isaac said director JJ Abrams, who also directed The Force Awakens, is giving the actors more freedom to improvise. Isaac described the shoots, at least the ones he’s been involved with, as being “looser” than on The Last Jedi and The Force Awakens.

“The way they’ve been shooting it right now is looser than it’s been for the last two times,” Isaac said, adding that he was specifically talking about more improvisation. “It does feel like a relief to get on set and feel like, ‘Oh, we can try things.’ It’s a testament to J.J. coming back and feeling confident. There’s less pressure for it to be right. We just want to make a good movie and have a really good time while doing it.”

Episode IX is due out in December 2019, and it’s the third and final instalment in the new trilogy that began with The Force Awakens. A new trilogy of films directed by The Last Jedi‘s Rian Johnson will follow after that. Outside of the main series, additional standalone spinoffs are also expected.

Also in the IndieWire interview, Isaac addressed the negativity among some Star Wars fans about The Last Jedi. “Luckily, since I’m not directing it, producing it, or distributing it, I don’t have to worry so much about fan expectations,” he said. “Also, not all fans have the same expectations.”

Isaac said he’s observing a similar response to the new Star Wars movies as the prequel trilogy from George Lucas. “People had very strong feelings, but there wasn’t as much of an organized way to speak out about it,” he explained. “People that run blogs and websites need content. So it’s like, ‘There’s some content!’ Five people on Twitter. Hundreds. Whatever it is. Then you make it into a story.”

In other news, Lost and Lord of the Rings actor Dominic Monaghan will play an unspecified role in Episode XI.

Fortnite‘s next patch, v6.10, is coming very soon. Epic announced on Twitter that downtime will begin at 4 AM ET / 1 AM PT on Tuesday, October 16. At that point, patch notes will be available to explain the new features and fixes.

We already know at least one of the new features coming with the update. New in-game tournaments will reward players with pins and prizes, pitting players against each other from all platforms and control schemes. The first such tournament will start this week, with Solo play. Several others are planned for the coming weeks, including ones themed after Salty Springs and Tomato Temple, and a Friday Night Fortnite Squad tournament that will run every Friday evening through the end of November. We may also see the Quadcrusher vehicle wrapped in this update.

Epic hasn’t detailed what other features might be coming with the update, but the tournament feature certainly seems to be the centerpiece. We also may be getting more hints of things to come, as the recent update 6.02 leaked some upcoming skins.

This comes just after Epic has expanded the player base of Fortnite yet again by making the Android version free for all without an invite. The studio just recently disabled the guided missile while it investigates an issue, so we’ll see if it comes back in the 6.10 update. The tournaments will let you show off your skills, but we have a feeling Ellen won’t be able to hang.

Destiny 2 may be preparing to pay a visit to a familiar location. A bug appears to show a loading screen for Oryx’s Dreadnaught, which hasn’t been playable since The Taken King expansion from the first Destiny.

As spotted on the Destiny subreddit, the new Dreadnaught doesn’t appear to be a mixed-up asset or wild mistake, since the ship itself has an updated look. This seems to suggest that players will be going back to Oryx’s ship at some point. It could be part of the Year 2 annual pass. The main campaign of Destiny 2 implied the Dreadnaught could be returning. Spoilers follow.

The ball of light that spreads across the galaxy at the end of Destiny 2 has hit locations that have returned in subsequent DLC, in order of their release. It hit Mercury, then Mars, then the Reef–which were showcased in Curse of Osiris, Warmind, and Forsaken, respectively. The Dreadnaught came just after the Reef, which suggests it’s next. The mystery remains as to how it will return, but we may hear more when the Black Armory releases in December for annual pass holders. We know Bungie has a whole year of content planned ahead.

Destiny 2 just flung open the doors of Forsaken to all players without purchasing last year’s content, so it’s much cheaper to get into now than it once was. This week you can participate in a newly revised Iron Banner event, and the Halloween-themed Festival of the Lost kicks off as well.

As we approach the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, now is the time for the publisher to promote the game with impressive stats about just how much work went into the final product. But one number has been raising eyebrows, forcing Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser to issue a clarification.

In a lengthy interview, Houser suggested that the team worked 100-hour weeks several times throughout 2018. But now in a statement to Kotaku, he has elaborated that he was referring to the senior writing team, not the entire Rockstar development team.

“After working on the game for seven years, the senior writing team, which consists of four people, Mike Unsworth, Rupert Humphries, Lazlow and myself, had, as we always do, three weeks of intense work when we wrapped everything up,” he said. “Three weeks, not years. We have all worked together for at least 12 years now, and feel we need this to get everything finished. After so many years of getting things organized and ready on this project, we needed this to check and finalize everything.”

His clarification does square with the original piece in Vulture, which used the 100 hours quote immediately after explaining rewrites and edits. Houser’s clarifying statement also goes on to explain Rockstar’s general policy towards “crunch”–the widely used practice in AAA game development to put in long hours, especially near the end of a project that’s preparing to ship.

“More importantly, we obviously don’t expect anyone else to work this way,” he said. “Across the whole company, we have some senior people who work very hard purely because they’re passionate about a project, or their particular work, and we believe that passion shows in the games we release. But that additional effort is a choice, and we don’t ask or expect anyone to work anything like this. Lots of other senior people work in an entirely different way and are just as productive–I’m just not one of them! No one, senior or junior, is ever forced to work hard.”

This all has a tone of history repeating itself. When the first Red Dead Redemption was nearing completion, an anonymous letter alleged poor working conditions at Rockstar San Diego, including mandatory overtime. That prompted mediation from the IDGA. Houser’s clarification suggests the studio does not expect its employees to work such long hours.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming October 26. Its online mode, Red Dead Online, will follow in November.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas. Following an apparent look at the game size for PS4 Pro, the full file size on Xbox One has been revealed as well. The “Additional Information” section on the Microsoft Store lists its approximate size at 88.57 GB.

Weighing in at nearly 90 gigs puts it close to the leak from the PS4 Pro Bundle, which suggested it would be 105 GB. It’s possible that the disparity can be chalked up to the Pro version downloading some extra textures, and that it would be similarly sized on Xbox One X.

Red Dead Redemption 2 appears to be mind-boggling in its level of detail, though. Its weapon customization alone lets you personalize each of the 50 weapons with a variety of barrels, grips, sights, and scopes, all with metals, woods, varnishes, and engravings. It has 19 realistically rendered horse breeds, fishing, and more.

Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser said the full campaign will last about 65 hours, which much more to do in the open world. That includes 2,700 actors performing 2,000 pages of script with another 1,200 doing motion-capture work. This all comes at a price, though, as developers had to put in some 100-hour work weeks. It takes influences from several recent Rockstar games like GTA5, Max Payne, and even Bully.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is set to release on October 26 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The multiplayer mode, Red Dead Online, will follow in November.

Fortnite v6.10 will add in-game tournaments, Epic has announced through its official site. Tournaments will be scheduled events open to all players to get in over the course of several hours and win as many points as they can. If you achieve the score goal, you’ll get a pin to celebrate. Some special tournaments will use the pins as qualifiers for the next tier of a tournament or to win prizes.

Tournaments will be open to all players, but you’ll need to opt in for crossplay to compete. All players participating in a tournament will be treated as equals regardless of their control input–mouse and keyboard, controller, or touch. Epic says it was carefully watching pro players during the Summer Skirmish, PAX West, and Fall Skirmish events, and have concluded that controller players can be a match for mouse-and-keyboard players. The studio will be continuing to look at the competitive landscape and may offer limited tournaments for inputs or platforms.

Matchmaking during a tournament session will match you against players with similar point standing. In the coming months, Epic will be developing tournaments to take place across multiple rounds with pins acting as qualifiers. Players can even earn a spot for the 2019 Fortnite World Cup using the in-game tournament system.

The first tournament kicks off this week, and the initial tests will be continuing over the next few weeks. Check the first round of scheduled tournaments below.

• Alpha Tournament (Solo)
  • Dates: October 16 – October 21
  • Description: Participate in the first in-game tournament, spanning across several days of daily competition!
• Beta Tournament (Duo)
  • Dates: October 23 – October 25
  • Description: Grab a friend and take on the world – until you are the last two left.
• Friday Night Fortnite (Squad)
  • Dates: October 19 – November 30
  • Description: Join your friends every Friday and kick off your weekend with some exciting Squad action.
• Salty Springs Cup (Solo)
  • Dates: October 27 – October 31
  • Description: One week and three attempts to prove you’re the saltiest that Salty Springs has to offer.
• Tomato Temple Cup (Duo)
  • Dates: October 28 – November 1
  • Description: Become legends of the Tomato Temple Cup.

Epic Games has filed suit against two game streamers for posting videos of cheats in Fortnite and directing users to purchase those cheat tools. Brandon Lucas, who goes by “Golden Modz,” is being sued for violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, breach of contract, and “tortious interference.” Colton Conter (“Excentric”) who often appears with Lucas in his streams, was also named in the suit.

Engadget reports that Epic is requesting that Lucas and Conter earnings be disgorged–giving Epic an extra share of their profits since they were obtained unjustly–along with standard damages and court costs. It has also requested that YouTube pull several videos. The studio isn’t exactly hurting for money, so the tough legal stance appears aimed primarily at sending a message to cheaters.

Lucas, for his part, has said that other streamers were participating in similar behavior, and so he didn’t think of his videos as problematic.

Cheating has been a pervasive problem for Fortnite. On top of the usual rationale of protecting the sanctity of its game, Epic has reason to be concerned about phishing schemes from sites claiming to give away cheats-enabled versions. The studio is aiming to beef up its anti-cheat mechanisms in the game itself, but cutting off the source by discouraging streamers from promoting cheats could help mitigate the need for those later steps.

For help making progress the old fashioned way, check out our challenges guide. That will help you earn progress toward your Battle Pass to earn this season’s cosmetic items. Or for some lighter entertainment, watch daytime talk show host Ellen playing Fortnite with Ninja.