Category: Games

As what can only be called tradition at this point, one of Ubisoft’s next games has leaked. Called Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, the game is a direct sequel to Ghost Recon: Wildlands and is scheduled to release on October 4 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

According to post on Reset Era, the leak came from a retail listing which was shared in a since-removed post in the Ghost Recon subreddit. Breakpoint will feature Major Cole D. Walker, a character both voiced and stylized after actor Jonathan Bernthal, as the game’s villain. Cole is the focus of the new story content that went live in Wildlands as part of Operation Oracle.

Breakpoint will be a “story-driven four-player experience,” which is a very similar description to 2017’s Wildlands. Cole has gone rogue, seemingly killing Holt, Midas, and (possibly) Weaver, and he’s got an army of weaponized drones at his disposal.

The retail listing is specifically for the Wolves Collector’s Edition of the upcoming Ghost Recon game. The edition comes with the game, a map, artwork, a Year 1 Pass, the Ultimate Pack (which contains extra missions, vehicles, and cosmetics), three day early access, and a statue of Cole–now disguised with a hooded cloak and mask.

Ubisoft has already announced a world premiere event in concern for a new Ghost Recon game. Scheduled for May 9 at 11:30 AM PT / 2:30 PM ET (you can watch it here), the event is most likely going to be the official reveal of Breakpoint, as well as confirmation for the information revealed in the leak. The leak implies the event will showcase alpha footage of Breakpoint’s gameplay, including traversing a jungle, mud mechanics, and clearing an outpost.

In our Ghost Recon: Wildlands review, Miguel Concepcion wrote, “As only the second open world game in the Clancyverse, Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a middlingly safe tactical shooter and a slightly wasted opportunity given the ambitious scope of its seemingly boundless map. While its main strength is its mission diversity, it doesn’t take long to lose the motivation after reaching El Sueno’s doorstep. Even with a foursome of highly trained friends, Wildlands eventually reveals its diminishing returns. The feeling of positive immediacy and dopamine hits begin to wane sooner than you expected from a game with such a large and diverse world.”

Regardless if you loved or hated Captain America’s Endgame finale, or if you prescribe to the writers’ or the director’s explanation of what actually happened in that scene, one fact remains: a version of Steve Rogers now exists (or existed) through the 1950s in America. Sure, maybe it was an alternate 1950s we’ll never see on screen and can’t reference in our history books, but it’s still the post-war era in America, no matter how the quantum physics shake out.

This left us wondering: Do the comics leave any clues as to how something like that would actually shake out for our favorite Star Spangled Man With A Plan?

The answer is a completely bizarre yes and no.

Understanding The Real Life History Of Cap

The first thing you need to understand about Captain America comics is how the whole “frozen and woken up in the modern era” thing we all tend to take for granted as Steve Rogers’ defacto origin story was actually an invention of the 1960s, 20 years after Steve was introduced in the comics, not the original game plan for the character. In fact, just about every part of Steve Rogers’ origin story is a somewhat modern invention. Just like the other heroes of the ’30s and ’40s, Captain America was introduced with only the most cursory background. The idea of skinny Steve Rogers being empowered by a super serum wouldn’t come for another couple decades.

Captain America comics were published through the end of World War II, despite the character’s waning post-war popularity. The idea that he “died” in the late ’40s? Like skinny Steve, that wasn’t a thing yet. Cap was shuffled around a bunch of different titles as his publisher, Timely, hopped him from one team to the next through the 1950s. In 1946, he lead the All Winners Squadron; in 1948, Bucky was shot and taken out of action to be replaced as a sidekick by Cap’s girlfriend, Betsy Ross (no, really) aka Golden Girl; and by 1953, he’d undergone a bit of a re-brand for a headline role in Young Men Comics. Welcome to the age of Captain America: Commie Smasher.

As you might imagine, commie smashin’ Cap didn’t really do all that well in terms of sales. This was the pre-Marvel era where the concepts of things like superhero shared universes were in their infancy and without a consistent story or team–and with post-war paranoia ramping up daily–the idea of a propagandistic children’s character rapidly lost its appeal. By 1954, Captain America had been completely shelved–not killed off, just no longer under mainstream publication.

And then a little publishing phenomena we know as Marvel Comics happened. In the early 1960s, superhero comics found their footing again as legendary creators Jack Kirby and Stan Lee began inventing teams like the Fantastic Four and The Avengers. Kirby, who had co-created Captain America back in the ’40s, used his new publishing platform to do a “soft” revival of the character, bringing him into a Fantastic Four story in 1963, which ultimately culminated in the reveal that the man behind the mask was an impostor, not Steve Rogers.

Lee, however, took the idea of a modern day Cap and ran with it, positing a complete revision of the last decade or so’s worth of Captain America comics for one shocking reveal: Steve Rogers had actually been frozen at the end of World War II and could now be literally revived as a Marvel Comics character proper and member of the Avengers. One year later in Avengers #4, Captain America was back.

But there was a problem.

People still remembered all of those post-War Captain America comics, no matter how unpopular they may have been. Suddenly, Lee and Kirby were positing that Captain America had been completely out of action since 1945, leaving readers and fans to wonder, if that were the case, who had they been reading comics about for the last ten years?

Enter William Burnside

The answer to that question would take another decade to resolve. The official answer to “what about the Captain America who existed after 1945?” was “that’s not Marvel canon” until the early 1970s when a story called Secret Empire broke across Captain America comics.

Centering around the machinations of an evil, Illuminati-style organization called–you guessed it–the Secret Empire, the story involved a highly complicated plan to destroy the public image of Captain America by unleashing an impostor. At the time, Steve still had a secret identity, so the complication of another person showing up in the Captain America costume claiming to be him wasn’t easily resolved.

Rather than just plucking someone off the street to fill the role, the Secret Empire enlist the help of a man named William Burnside who was eventually revealed to, retroactively, be the person behind the mask throughout the late ’40s and ’50s. In this revision, Steve Rogers had “disappeared” in 1945, but the government refused to accept that their greatest propaganda tool had been taken off the board. In light of that, they crafted a secret project to covertly “replace” Captain America with a new hero, but their plan was only partially successful. Burnside was selected out of a roster of potential candidates and given the same enhancing treatment Steve had been, but the calculations were off, and the radiation of the process slowly left Burnside unhinged.

Burnside’s madness was largely tolerated, however. He was used as a symbol throughout the Korean War and as a zealotus anti-Communist force through the Cold War. He even had his own Bucky–a kid named Jack Monroe who, like Burnside, was recruited for the project and indoctrinated to their new lifestyle and gas-lit into accepting that he actually was Bucky Barnes. Burnside went as far to have his face surgically reconstructed to be identical to Steve Rogers after Rogers’ personal records were made available to him.

In short, things were pretty dark, and extremely disturbing, but they were also a not-so-subtle commentary on the place and the responsibility of a character like Captain America during that specific chunk of American history. It was an idea that helped form the modern conception of Steve Rogers in a major way, shifting him from what many readers in the 1970s believed to be a dated, regressive token of vintage Americana into a modern, multifaceted paragon who stood for more than just blind loyalty to the flag. By setting up a story in which Steve was able to literally face down his own past–even after that past had been transposed onto someone else–Secret Empire helped pave the way to the Captain America we all know and love today.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty unlikely that we’re going to see any similar commentary–or any commentary at all–in the live action incarnation. Chris Evans is officially done with his MCU contract and, contentious and unsatisfying as it may be, the end for Steve Rogers in the live action movies is just that: The end. It may be fun to imagine a time-and/or-dimensionally displaced Steve Rogers tearing his way through the 50s in revolutionary style to provide a poignant commentary on things like nationalism and xenophobic paranoia as a direct response to the legacy of William Burnside, but the sad truth of the matter is that’s not something we’ll ever get to see in theaters.

Ubisoft’s collection of games is way cheaper this week, so if you’ve been holding out on a game from franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy’s, now’s the time to claim it at a much lower price. The PlayStation Store launched an Ubisoft publisher sale on PS4 games this week, but if you prefer to play on PC, Fanatical has a similar sale with even steeper discounts–up to 90% off on some titles.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is currently the “Star Deal” at Fanatical, which is simply a flash deal that lasts 48 hours or while supplies last. The epic Greek adventure is 63% off for a short time; you can grab it for just $22.49. This deal ends very soon, so don’t wait too long to claim it. Stay tuned for more Ubisoft Star Deals as they’re unveiled later this week.

Over 100 other Ubisoft games are marked down, including Far Cry New Dawn, which released in February and is now available for just $18.39; Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands for $19.79; Watch Dogs 2 for $9; and The Crew 2 for $17.39.

The Ubisoft PC game sale (excluding Star Deals) runs through May 15 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET / 3 PM GMT (and 1 AM AET on May 16). Note that these games are available to redeem via UPlay. You won’t receive a UPlay key; instead, you can redeem via Ubisoft Connect. Get more info on how to redeem a Ubisoft purchase at Fanatical.

GET UP TO 90% OFF UBISOFT GAMES »

See more of the best deals below, and check out the full sale at Fanatical.

Overwatch fans rejoice! We partnered with Fun.com to give away an incredible prize package that comes with a trio of Funko figures including D.Va & Meka, Mercy, Widowmaker, and a mini faux leather backpack by Loungefly.

To enter the giveaway you have to be following @GameSpot and @Fun.com on Instagram but you also have to complete at least one of the following actions:

• Like the Instagram post about the giveaway.
• Post on your Instagram account using the hashtag #GameSpotGiveaway (one post per participant).⁣
• Tag up to five friends in separate comments. This is important because if you don’t post in separate comments, it will only count as one entry.
• Sharing a post on your Instagram account using the hashtag #GameSpotGiveaway.

Remember that our giveaways are open to the US, Puerto Rico or Canada and don’t forget to check the official rules.

Good luck!

The End In Sight

It’s official. Batwoman is coming to The CW with a new standalone series set in the Arrow-verse. The series, which stars Ruby Rose as Kane Kate, who masquerades as the titular masked vigilante. doesn’t have a premiere date yet. However, the first teaser has arrived.

It doesn’t give away much beyond a look at the character standing on top of a building in Gotham City–and a quick shot of the bat signal–but Arrow-verse fans have already met this take on Batwoman. Rose appeared in the Elseworlds crossover event as Batwoman, which introduced not only the characters but The CW’s version of Gotham City.

It’s unclear how much of the Gotham we saw in Elseworlds will play out on the Batwoman, but among the Easter eggs hidden in the crossover were references to Riddler, Penguin, Clayface, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Bane, and Mr. Freeze. What we know for sure is that Batwoman’s primary villain, Alice, will be played on the show by Rachel Skarsten (Birds of Prey, Imposters).

Joining Rose and Skarsten in Batwoman are Meagan Tandy (Teen Wolf), Camrus Johnson (Luke Cage), and Nicole Kang (You). Additionally, Dougray Scott will appear in the series as Jacob Kane, Kate’s father and leader of a private security firm.

Batwoman will premiere either this fall or spring 2020 on The CW. Regardless of when the show debuts, though, chances are you’ll see Rose suit up as Batwoman once again in the upcoming Arrow-verse “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover event.

J. R. R. Tolkien is one of the most important authors of the 20th century, and his overwhelming influence on the fantasy genre is still felt today across books, movies, TV, video games, and beyond. Capturing the author’s early years in the biopic Tolkien, which follows him from childhood through his time at the University of Oxford and into World War I, was no easy task for director Dome Karukoski.

There are plenty of challenges inherent in attempting to portray a person’s real life in a way that’s narratively compelling as well as true to who they really were. Tolkien’s life presented even more difficulties beyond the standard ones, but Karukoski told GameSpot he worked hard to capture the “emotional truth” of who Tolkien was.

“There has been this one rule that I have learned, which is: Always uphold emotional truths,” the director, who’s worked on several other biopics in the past, said. “I know a lot of people can be very nitpicky about factual events and factual years, but if you lean too much on factual years or factual events, and the emotional truth does not come out of the characters, then it is not emotional–it’s usually a worse film.”

Karukoski said he always starts with the facts, but is willing to “dramatize” events whenever it makes the story better. For example, in the movie, Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) marries his wife Edith Bratt (Lily Collins) after returning from the war, while in real life they married before he shipped off. “I think that the emotion is stronger in this version, but it is still the same emotion,” Karukoski explained.

Creative liberties like that may have something to do with the Tolkien estate’s recent, very public disavowment of the film. But the director has remained firm in his insistence that not working with the author’s estate was a creative blessing that allowed him to take more liberties, in turn making Tolkien a better movie.

“It is really difficult for people who do not write films to understand how the structure and the form work,” the director said. “Everything has to be done so it is the best possible film emotionally, so that people can enjoy and love the film, I hope. And it is done with respect toward [Tolkien], and emotionally, I want to be very true to him.”

Karukoski said the research into Tolkien’s life was expansive, from studying the author’s letters and illustrations to reading existing biographies and meeting with experts. Through that research, the director said he and the movie’s writers, David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford, began to picture Tolkien as two distinct characters–one before The Hobbit’s publication, and one after. That led to the decision to focus entirely on the former, since according to Karukoski, “Those times, as you saw, were the most surprising and cinematic.”

“The writers and I felt like that is the dividing moment of his life,” Karukoski said. “It is such a different life post-publishing The Hobbit, when he actually gets published and he becomes more like an author than the younger Tolkien.”

The director identified reflections between Tolkien’s early life and his own early life, when he first discovered The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books. “When I read about his younger times, maybe he is about the same age [as I was], he is also the outsider, he is also growing up without a father, he is also alone, and he also wants to find friends and communities and a place of belonging,” Karukoski said. “There was a feeling of destiny, of how instrumental he has been to me, and what is the era that should be told in his life.”

That all makes sense, but the decision to focus on Tolkien’s life before The Hobbit also created a unique problem: The movie includes very few explicit references to Lord of the Rings, which may leave some viewers scratching their heads, given the subject matter. One way Karukoski got around that is by crafting “visions” that he imagined Tolkien might have had at pivotal moments in his life.

Karukoski described how Tolkien’s journey from orphan to student to soldier might have changed these visions–things that may have sparked ideas or provided inspiration later, like a hallucination of evil creatures roaming a World War I battlefield. The director imagined these visions gradually transforming from light to dark throughout the course of Tolkien’s life. If the author first envisioned great heroes, how would those ideas become twisted by the horrors of war?

“When his mind gets corrupted [by] all the bloodshed during war, and that vision becomes like a dark fallen knight, then that becomes an internal battle between good and evil within him,” Karukoski said. “Then I can imagine that he later uses that idea, you know? If a person gets corrupted, does that not become a Ringwraith–kind of a corrupted fallen king?”

The fantastical and terrifying visions Tolkien sees in the film bring various elements of Lord of the Rings to mind without explicitly referencing them. It’s a clever way of imagining how iconic characters and creatures may have formed over time in the author’s imagination.

“A Nazgûl is not a Nazgûl yet [when Tolkien imagines it on the battlefield],” the director explained. “It is an image, a vision of something, he does not yet know what–but his mind is building.”

Clearly Tolkien’s writers and directors took plenty of creative liberties with the author’s story. If you want to know whether it paid off, check out our reviews round-up to find out what critics are saying.

Tolkien hits theaters May 10.

An Elder Scrolls tabletop RPG scenario has been pulled following accusations of plagiarism. The “Elsweyr” adventure, released as a promotion for The Elder Scrolls Online‘s upcoming expansion of the same name, shared striking similarities with a Dungeons & Dragons adventure titled “The Black Road.” That adventure was published in 2016, written by Paige Leitman and Ben Heisler.

Ars Technica reports that Bethesda posted the adventure citing work from Bethesda Netherlands. It was quickly criticized by the community, and even gained the attention of Leitman herself. She posted a Facebook thread (which has since been pulled) highlighting the similarities between the texts. Bethesda pulled the scenario in light of the accusations.

“We have pulled a previously shared ESO tabletop RPG adventure while we investigate the source,” a Bethesda rep told GameSpot. “Thank you to those who reached out with concerns.”

The two scenarios are changed slightly with synonyms or flavor changes, but are otherwise almost identical. For example, take this passage from D&D’s The Black Road:

“There’s nothing like the desert to make people feel small and insignificant. In every direction, huge dunes roll across the landscape, and an even bigger sky looms above. The oasis of Vuerthyl is a motley collection of sun-bleached tents in the vast Anauroch desert.”

Then compare it to the corresponding paragraph from Elseweyr:

“Nothing beats the desert to make people feel small and unimportant. In every direction enormous dunes roll across the landscape, and an even larger empty air skies above it. The oasis on the border between Cyrodiil and Elsweyr is a colorful collection of sun-drenched tents in the vast desert of Elsweyr.”

Bethesda has faced similar criticism before. In 2016, a Fallout New Vegas modder claimed Bethesda had lifted their content for a scenario in Fallout 4‘s Far Harbor DLC. The tabletop RPG scenario is to promote the Elseweyr expansion, which launches on June 4. That will kick off the Season of the Dragon, with four DLCs launching throughout 2019. True to its name, the reveal trailer showed dragons once again occupying the world of Tamriel.

At long last, we have finally gotten a look at HBO’s upcoming adaptation of the Watchmen comics. Though the series won’t debut until this fall, the first trailer has arrived for Watchmen, giving a peek into the world the series will be set in.

While the trailer is brief, it sets up a story that seems to be set after the events of the Watchmen graphic novel. Based on what little we see, a group clearly inspired by masked vigilante Rorschach are preparing to take up arms. “We are no one, we are everyone,” the leader of the masked clan says. “And we are invisible.”

It could certainly be the way the trailer is cut together, but it seems like this group the vigilantes are coming up against are the police. “We convinced ourselves they were gone,” a senior officer played by Don Johnson tells his fellow cops, in reference to the vigilantes. “But they were just hibernating.”

What remains to be seen is how the story will play out. It’s possible HBO’s take on Watchmen will largely tell the tale of vigilantes vs. police. However, the trailer also sees the character played by Regina King suiting up in a vigilante costume or her own, the centerpiece of which is a police badge.

The teaser also gives us the first look at Jeremy Irons as an older version of Ozymandias, the villainous figure central to the graphic novel. Additionally, yet another masked character is seen, though not identified.

Sadly, the official series description, released in conjunction with the trailer, doesn’t give any more hints as to what the series is about. It reads, “Set in an alternate history where ‘superheroes’ are treated as outlaws, this drama series from executive producer Damon Lindelof embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel of the same name while attempting to break new ground of its own.”

So you’re just going to have to wait for plot details. At the very least, though, we know who will appear in Watchmen. In addition to King, Johnson, and Irons, the series stars, Jean Smart, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Hong Chau, Andrew Howard, Tom Mison, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, and James Wolk.

Watchmen premieres in the fall on HBO.

Bandai Namco has announced Code Vein will have a network test prior to launch, which will allow people to try out the game. An exact timeframe for the test hasn’t been revealed yet, but sign-ups are already live on Bandai Namco’s website.

Code Vein is releasing on Xbox One, PS4, and PC, but the network test for the game is only going live on consoles. As it’s a network test, the multiplayer features will be live, allowing you to play with a friend. The test only covers Chapter 1 of the game, which is Code Vein’s character creator, tutorial, and first area. Chapter 1 ends with a boss fight, the reveal of Code Vein’s first major NPC buddy, and the introduction of the game’s hub area.

If you want to know exactly what Chapter 1 entails, we played through it at a preview event. Our battles through the game’s opening area and first boss can be seen in the video embedded above. A Souls-like game, Code Vein takes inspiration–both mechanically and thematically–from both Dark Souls and Bloodborne. However, the game does differentiate itself with its Blood Codes. These encourage you to regularly respec your character’s stats and adapt your playstyle on the fly. Unfortunately, the game seems predisposed towards melee-focused builds. That said, you can specialize your character in the use of blood magic or rifles.

In Code Vein, you can equip one of eight different Blood Codes to boost your stats in different ways. Each Blood Code also allows you to equip up to eight different Gifts as well, most of which allow you to pull off a supernatural, vampiric-like ability. Specific Gifts and weapons can only be equipped with certain Blood Codes, creating many unique playstyles. The Fighter Blood Code specializes in slow but powerful melee combat, for example, while Prometheus transforms you into a fast rogue-like character who utilizes dodges and parries. Not all Blood Codes are tied to combat either. The Mercury Blood Code, for instance, is ideal for exploring the world, as it gives you balanced stats for journeying through any type of environment and extra stamina so you can quickly run everywhere.

After delaying Code Vein, Bandai Namco did not reveal a new release date for the game. Currently, Code Vein is scheduled to launch sometime in 2019.