This episode of New Releases is taking a look at some of the biggest games launching in September. The new month starts off with a bang, with the action-packed Marvel’s Avengers, the amped-up NBA 2K21, and the trick-filled Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 all dropping on the same day. There are also two big re-releases on the horizon: Crysis Remastered and Mafia: Definitive Edition.
Marvel’s Avengers — September 4
Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Stadia
As you’d expect, Avengers lets you team up with friends to take on threats together. There’s a whole squad of superheroes to choose from, including Iron Man, Black Widow, The Hulk, and more. Of course, each hero has their own set of powers and abilities, and you can rank them up by collecting loot and filling out skill trees.
More Coverage:
NBA 2K21 — September 4
Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Stadia, Switch
NBA 2K21
This year’s game makes improvements to the Pro Stick system to help you dribble and shoot better. MyTeam and MyCareer have also been revamped. NBA 2K21 will be coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X later this year, but you should know that cross-gen gameplay won’t be possible with the new versions.
More Coverage:
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 — September 4
Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2
This is a double dose of skateboarding remastered, bringing the first two games in the Tony Hawk series to the modern era. It also includes mechanics that weren’t a part of those early games, like custom skate parks and skaters. Since the soundtrack has also been so closely tied to the games over the years, fans will be happy to know that there are 37 new songs included here.
More Coverage:
Crysis Remastered — September 18
Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Crysis Remastered
Crysis Remastered is already out on Switch, but now gamers on other platforms can get their hands on it. The remaster includes new 8K textures, improved lighting, and ray-tracing support. Crysis was once the game used as a PC benchmark, but now it should look even better as you battle your way across an island occupied by enemy soldiers and alien invaders.
Mafia: Definitive Edition — September 25
Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Mafia: Definitive Edition
Mafia: Definitive Edition isn’t just a remaster–the game has been totally remade from the ground up. It also has new story content, so those of you who played the original back in the day are still in for some surprises. Definitive Edition can also be experienced in 4K if you’ve got the hardware for it.
More Coverage:
September is only just arriving, so the next episode of New Releases will take a closer look at more video games coming soon. Next week, we’ll check out hot RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning, then learn how to make our own with RPG Maker MV.
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The world is mourning the tragic, unexpected death of Chadwick Boseman, who passed away from colon cancer at the age of 43 on August 28. The actor, who kept his diagnosis and fight under wraps, was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016–meaning that he was fighting his own private battle during the filming of Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, and his non-Marvel work during this period.
Ryan Coogler, who directed Boseman in Black Panther, has penned a moving tribute to the actor on Marvel’s website, where he praises Boseman not just for his performance, but for his humanity, his creativity, and his kindness.
Coogler discusses how he “inherited” Boseman’s casting from Captain America: Civil War, saying that this is “something that I will forever be grateful for.” He recalls seeing Boseman’s performance in an unfinished cut of the movie, and how it convinced him to come on and do Black Panther. “I’ll never forget, sitting in an editorial suite on the Disney Lot and watching his scenes,” he writes. “His first with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, then, with the South African cinema titan, John Kani as T’Challa’s father, King T’Chaka. It was at that moment I knew I wanted to make this movie.”
Coogler recalls how Kani and Boseman held a discussion in Xhosa, Kani’s native language, which he says “had a musicality to it that felt ancient, powerful, and African.” He learned that Boseman, who didn’t speak Xhosa, had made the decision to learn his lines in an African language. “I couldn’t conceive how difficult that must have been, and even though I hadn’t met Chad, I was already in awe of his capacity as actor,” Coogler recalls.
Xhosa went on to be the official language of the fictional nation of Wakanda, and Boseman famously advocated for T’Challa to speak in an African accent. As Coogler puts it, “he could present T’Challa to audiences as an African king, whose dialect had not been conquered by the West.”
Coogler recalls meaning Boseman for the first time in 2016, when the actor visited him during a press junket for his earlier film, Creed. “We spoke about the irony of how his former Howard classmate Ta-Nehisi Coates was writing T’Challa’s current arc with Marvel Comics,” Coogler recalls. “And how Chad knew Howard student Prince Jones, whose murder by a police officer inspired Coates’ memoir Between The World and Me.”
“I noticed then that Chad was an anomaly,” he continues. “He was calm. Assured. Constantly studying. But also kind, comforting, had the warmest laugh in the world, and eyes that seen much beyond his years, but could still sparkle like a child seeing something for the first time.”
Coogler says that it was Boseman who best recognized what the film could be, saying on the set “This is Star Wars, this is Lord of the Rings, but for us.” Coogler reflects back on this now and sees the truth in Boseman’s words. “I had no idea if the film would work. I wasn’t sure I knew what I was doing. But I look back and realize that Chad knew something we all didn’t. He was playing the long game. All while putting in the work. And work he did.”
Coogler says that he “wasn’t privy” to Boseman’s illness, and was as shocked as the rest of us about his passing. “After his family released their statement, I realized that he was living with his illness the entire time I knew him,” Coogler says. “Because he was a caretaker, a leader, and a man of faith, dignity and pride, he shielded his collaborators from his suffering. He lived a beautiful life. And he made great art. Day after day, year after year. That was who he was. He was an epic firework display. I will tell stories about being there for some of the brilliant sparks till the end of my days. What an incredible mark he’s left for us.”
Coogler ends his statement with an extremely moving sentiment. “In African cultures we often refer to loved ones that have passed on as ancestors,” he writes. “Sometimes you are genetically related. Sometimes you are not. I had the privilege of directing scenes of Chad’s character, T’Challa, communicating with the ancestors of Wakanda. We were in Atlanta, in an abandoned warehouse, with bluescreens, and massive movie lights, but Chad’s performance made it feel real. I think it was because from the time that I met him, the ancestors spoke through him.”
“It’s no secret to me now how he was able to skillfully portray some of our most notable ones,” Coogler continues. “I had no doubt that he would live on and continue to bless us with more. But it is with a heavy heart and a sense of deep gratitude to have ever been in his presence, that I have to reckon with the fact that Chad is an ancestor now. And I know that he will watch over us, until we meet again.”
Coogler has spent the previous year working on the script for Black Panther II. In the initial statement by Boseman’s family announcing the actor’s passing, they noted that “It was the honor of his career to bring King T’Challa to life in Black Panther.”
Chadwick Boseman’s final performance will be in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, coming to Netflix this year. He’s also in Spike Lee’s latest joint, Da 5 Bloods, released earlier this year. For Black Panther, Boseman won Outstanding Actor at the Black Reel Awards, Outstanding Actor at the NAACP Image Awards, Best Performance in a Movie and Best Hero at the MTV Movie + TV Awards, Favorite Male Movie Star at the People’s Choice Awards, and a cast ensemble award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Vigor is coming to PlayStation 4 and 5 later this year. The online shooter, which launched on Switch earlier this year, will also go free-to-play on Nintendo’s platform–right now, you can only play with a $20 Founder’s Pack purchase.
IGN has revealed, as part of their Gamescom 2020 coverage, that the game will come to the PS4 on November 25, and over the holiday period for PS5 (the system’s release date has not been announced yet). For Switch players, you’ll be able to play the game without a purchase from September 23.
Vigor is a multiplayer online loot-shooter set in a post-apocalyptic Norway, in which players have to team up to stay alive and overcome the challenges of the environment.
The Switch version released alongside Season 4 of the game; that will have likely ended by the time the PlayStation version of the game drops.
Back in 2018, Vigor was an Xbox console exclusive, and the developer explained that this was the case because Sony does not offer a Game Preview option.
Rocky IV, which originally released in 1985, is an extremely iconic 80s film. It’s got everything–huge hair, a banging soundtrack, and simmering tensions between the US and the Soviet Union that are ultimately overcome by a boxing match that unites both nations in their mutual love for Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa. And now, Stallone (who also directed) has announced plans for a 35th anniversary director’s cut of the film–but with the film’s single most 80s element cut out.
Stallone, who announced the Director’s Cut on Instagram, has responded to multiple comments asking him if the film’s robot, which is given to Rocky’s brother-in-law for his birthday early in the film, will make the cut. According to Stallone, the robot’s out–and people aren’t happy about it.
🚨 Sylvester Stallone is ELIMINATING Paulie’s Robot from his upcoming “Director’s Cut” of ROCKY IV DO SOMETHING “FILM TWITTER” 🚨 pic.twitter.com/wLoo17AelM
The robot is, in 2020, a wonderful bit of sci-fi ephemera. Thanks to its beep-and-boop synth music introduction, strange alien design, and impossibly advanced A.I. (the robot seems immediately aware of Paulie, and is somehow able to recognize its surroundings), people have grown very fond of it.
Rocky IV also has a bit of a reputation as being a fairly silly movie, so the robot–who Paulie is besotted with by the film’s ending–fits perfectly. Notably, the robot does not return in future sequels.
What else the director’s cut will change remains unclear. The latest film in the long-running franchise, Creed II, revisited the story of Rocky IV by bringing back villain Ivan Drago–who, back in Rocky IV, killed Apollo Creed.
It’s not clear where or when this new version of Rocky IV will release, or whether it will add in previously cut scenes.
Twelve Minutes, the upcoming adventure game from Annapurna Interactive set inside a time loop that players experience repeatedly, has some major Hollywood stars in it–James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe. Now, in a new behind-the-scenes video, McAvoy, Ridley, and creative director Luis Antonio have talked more about what to expect from the game.
Antonio says that originally the game was smaller in scope: “It was going to be a short game, and I was doing everything.” However, he eventually realized that if he could “go a little further,” things could get more interesting, and more options would be available to him. According to an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Antonio started working on the concept back in 2013.
The video, below, shows that while Ridley and McAvoy recorded together, they did so while separated by a barrier. Dafoe recorded his lines separately in Rome. According to McAvoy, the game is “about the danger of truly examining within,” and Ridley says that the game is about how you deal with your own truth and the truth of those around you, saying it will mean “different things for different people.”
In the game, McAvoy and Ridley play a married couple who are attacked by Dafoe’s detective–but you can break the cycle, and ultimately save yourself from death, by using the knowledge that you gain on each loop. The clips of their performances in the video above show off some of the game’s dramatic moments.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the final recordings between Ridley and McAvoy happened in August in a London recording studio. Antonio is in San Francisco, and directed the two actors through Zoom.
In the studios, face masks are required for everyone aside from the actors, and daily temperature checks were implemented. In the Entertainment Weekly piece, Antonio also addresses the possibility of the game coming to other platforms after its 2020 launch on Xbox and PC. “I would wait and see how everyone reacts to the game,” he clarifies–which means that it’s a possibility if the game does well.
Twelve Minutes will come to Xbox Series X this year, alongside PC and Xbox One versions.
WWE’s Summerslam was just last week, but it’s already time for another PPV. That’s right. The Payback event airs tonight on the WWE Network. While Roman Reigns surprised everyone in the Thunderdome for Summerslam, he’s headed straight to the main event for Payback as he takes on The Fiend and Braun Strowman for The Fiend’s newly-won Universal Championship in a triple threat match.
The Amway Center in Orlando, Florida will be hosting Payback, surrounded by the Thunderdome–which recently had some issues with misbehaving fans. Regardless, the new WWE innovation puts the faces of fans on screens surrounding the ring so it feels like there’s an audience–kinda. Also, it helps that there is audience noise being piped in through the arena.
How to watch:
The best way to watch Payback is through the WWE Network. Yes, you can order the PPV through your cable or satellite provider, but it’s a bit pricier. The WWE Network costs $10 a month and aside from streaming live events, there is a large back catalog of wrestling shows and original series to check out.
Here is what you can expect from the match card for Payback. There may be a few additions or changes throughout the day and even into the Kickoff show.
Match card:
“The Fiend” Bray Wyatt (c) vs. Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman (No Holds Barred for Universal Championship)
Bayley & Sasha Banks (c) vs. Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax (Women’s Tag Team Championship)
Keith Lee vs. Randy Orton
Apollo Crews (c) vs. Bobby Lashley (United States Championship)
Dominik & Rey Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins & Murphy
King Corbin vs. Matt Riddle
Big E vs. Sheamus
The Riott Squad vs. The Iiconics (Kickoff Show)
Let’s get ready for some Payback. Below, you’ll find updates and info from every match, as it happens. Keep refreshing to find out all the winners and losers for the WWE PPV.
Kickoff Show
Show begins at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET
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Based on Friday’s haul of $3.1 million, analysts say the final X-Men universe installment — which stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane, and Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton as Cannonball — will earn close to $8 million.
In related news, Orion Pictures’ Bill and Ted Face the Music, playing in 1,007 theaters while also releasing on PVOD, pulled in $400,000 on Friday and is projected to make a strong $1.07 million showing.
IGN’s review of The New Mutants called it an “entertaining, if at times formulaic small-scale genre movie” that didn’t deserve to be shelved for years.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
