Category: Games

The Child’s Play reboot movie filmed in late 2018, though at that point, nobody was signed on to give a voice to the maniacal Chucky doll. Instead, it was revealed at WonderCon in March that Star Wars and Batman: The Animated Series alum Mark Hamill was taking on the role.

It presented an intriguing situation for both Hamill and director Lars Klevberg, as the physical embodiment of Chucky and the way he moves and acts was already set in stone. Still, as Klevberg told GameSpot during a recent interview, the iconic actor was able to help shape the character in ways even he didn’t expect.

“I think that I had a clear idea of what I would like to have on this. But I said to [Mark], ‘I want to be open,’ and so we together we could find the perfect spot of creating this character,” the director explained. “And he was just amazing; it’s just super professional. But what had struck me the most is–I knew he could deliver all of that. It’s not like you’re hiring Mark Hamill and, ‘Oh, can he deliver?’ Like, you knew that immediately. But the way he was feeling and presenting these small bits, like the nuance in between takes. I can give him a line, and he presents three lines… It’s words, beats, like milliseconds that he waited, so it was just, he’s just amazing. And voice acting is difficult because you just have your voice. it’s just internal; you’re putting it on a piece of canvas like a painting.”

That nuance helped to establish Hamill’s view of the character, whose origin story is much different from the original film. While the 1988 Child’s Play saw a Chucky doll being possessed by the soul of a serial killer, the reboot instead presents Chucky as a smart toy with malfunctioning artificial intelligence.

Instead of being murderous right out of the gate, Hamill explained in a press conference for the film that this new Chucky “was really like an innocent child, just learning from what goes on around him.” And in that, he was determined to protect his best friend Andy (Gabriel Bateman).

“For this movie, you understand Chucky’s motivation, you understand he is going to be Andy’s best friend, he’s going to protect Andy and going to be his friend until the end,” Klevberg said. “But he’s self-aware. And self-aware entities, [the] first question is, ‘What is my purpose in life? What am I here?’ And that’s cool with this one because Chucky kind of figures out, ‘Okay, I have to be Andy’s best friend and I’m going to protect him from whatever makes him sad,’ but he doesn’t have his experience, or skill set, or analytical gifts to understand what that means.”

What that leaves the movie with is a thinking toy that reasons the only way to protect the child it has imprinted on is by killing and maiming anything it perceives as a threat. Of course, if you’ve seen a trailer for the new Child’s Play movie, everything and everyone is a threat Chucky needs to take care of. What else would you expect from a friend until the end?

Child’s Play is in theaters on June 21.

They say the demons come out at night, and so does Miriam the demon slayer. Famed auteur Koji Igarashi’s spiritual successor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, is out now–but you might not have realized it after some delays and the recent E3 hubbub.

Ritual of the Night recently underwent a huge graphics overhaul and made a brief appearance at E3 2019, but the buzz surrounding the game has been relatively quiet. Very few reviews have been published so far, with our own coming soon.

Iga released an announcement trailer, below, declaring Ritual of the Night will receive 13 pieces of DLC for free post-launch. The trailer goes through a variety of the game’s mechanics, including accessorizing, crafting, fighting, and posing. Zangetsu, the katana-wielding protagonist of Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, is one of three playable characters. The retro-style spin-off Curse of the Moon launched in 2018 as one of the original Kickstarter’s stretch goals. Yacht Club’s Shovel Knight will also make an appearance and may be another of the three playable characters, based on what’s seen in the launch trailer.

In a feature following a PAX East demo, we said the game is close to but not quite Castlevania. “On the whole, though, the classic sensation of quick, piston-tight platforming and combat has made the transition [to 3D]. Miriam’s variety of weapons feel alternately light and swift or heavy and thumping. The level design pitched a good balance of graceful platforming, tough combat, and occasionally a blend of both.”

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The Nintendo Switch version will launch next week on Tuesday, June 25.

Apex Legends has been teasing something big coming to the game, and now it appears to have arrived. Players have reported hearing and seeing dragons roaming about the map, potentially laying the groundwork for a world event to come with Season 2.

The flying beasts can be spotted in the game or on screens posted to the Apex Legends subreddit. The community has taken to calling them “Flyers” and if you bring one down you can get some loot. In a potentially related development, the Leviathan that wanders in the waters outside the map has moved significantly as well.

The trailer for Season 2 that debuted at EA Play, just before E3 2019, showed a giant lizard-like eyeball as a teaser at the very end. These creatures are significantly smaller than the one that implied, so they could be harbingers of some larger event to come.

Apex Legends’ battle royale competition Fortnite has become known for big world-changing events that accompany each season, and so far Apex hasn’t followed suit. Respawn has suggested that it is comfortable with a slower pace for its content drops so as to not burn out the team, but that was as compared to weekly and monthly updates. A new season could still bring big changes, so we’ll have to see if a giant dragon is among them.

Now that the frenzy of E3 2019 is over, all those great game deals are no longer available, but while the big Xbox One game and console sale has ended, the Xbox Store is back on its regular schedule of offering new weekly game deals. The newest batch of Xbox One deals is available now, including a Sonic anniversary sale, discounted indie games, $10 off Xbox wireless controllers, and more.

The spotlight is on everyone’s favorite speedy hedgehog this week, as Sonic the Hedgehog debuted on the Sega Genesis in North America 28 years ago this month. To celebrate, Sonic’s recent games on the Xbox One are marked down along with a collection of Xbox 360 games, many of which are backward-compatible with Xbox One. For the next week, you can get the newly released competitive racer Team Sonic Racing for $30, the gorgeous, retro-style Sonic Mania for $12, and 3D platformer Sonic Forces for $15. If you feel like taking a trip down memory lane, you can also save on classics like Sonic Adventure 2 for $5 and the original Sonic the Hedgehog for $2.49, both of which can be played on Xbox One.

The Xbox Store is also highlighting discounts on games from independent developers, who can self-publish digital games on Xbox One and PC with the ID@Xbox program. Some of the best indie games to grab on sale this week include My Time At Portia for $24, The Witness for $20, Observer for $9, and The Gardens Between for $12.

Plus, if you’re in the market for a new Xbox wireless controller, this is a good week to pick one up, as many styles are marked down by $10 in the Xbox Store (excluding, sadly, the new Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2). Both the Phantom White and Phantom Black special edition controllers are down to $60, and some older styles, like the pink Minecraft pig design and Armed Forces II special edition, are discounted to $55. However, consider checking Amazon first, where some wireless controllers are as cheap as $45 this week.

Check out the full offering of deals at the Xbox Store and more of our picks below!

Xbox One

Xbox 360

Sony’s annual Days of Play sale, which ran during E3 2019 with steep discounts on games and consoles, is finally over. But a new week means new deals, and luckily, the PlayStation Store has some eye-catching bargains available now.

Most notably, quite a few Persona games and DLC are currently scattered throughout the PSN deals section, including Persona 5, which is on sale for $16 (and only $14 if you have PS Plus). With well over 100 hours of content, this is a phenomenal deal on one of the console’s best games. If you already own Persona 5, there’s also a DLC bundle on sale with added Personas, which each bring unique battle skills to your team. That bundle is available for $14 ($12 with PS Plus). You can also get Persona 4 Golden on Vita for only $12 ($10 with PS Plus) and the Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection for $70 ($60 with PS Plus).

With Shenmue III scheduled to release this August, fans of the classic, open-world adventure series might be interested in grabbing Shenmue I & II at a discount. You can get the bundle together for only $21 ($18 with PS Plus). Monster Hunter World is also still on sale for $20, and with the Iceborne expansion beta launching this weekend for PS Plus members, there’s no better time to pick up the base game.

See all the weekly game deals in the PlayStation Store, and check out more of our picks below!

• Circuits — $3.34
• Destiny 2: Forsaken – Complete Collection — $40
• Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom — $34
• Monster Hunter World — $20
• Moonlighter — $10
• My Time At Portia — $24
• Overcooked 2 — $17.49
• Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight — $42 / $36 on PS+
• Persona 4 Golden (Vita) — $12 / $10 on PS+
• Persona 5 — $16 / $14 on PS+
• Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight — $42 / $36 on PS+
• Persona 5 DLC bundle — $14 / $12 on PS+
• Persona 5 – Ultimate Edition — $59.49 / $51 on PS+
• Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection — $70 / $60 on PS+
• Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs – Royal Edition — $15 / $12.49 on PS+
• Shenmue I & II — $21 / $18 on PS+
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 — $42
• Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth — $18 / $15 on PS+
• Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception — $18 / $15 on PS+
• Yoku’s Island Express — $10

After it was announced in April that the showrunners for FX’s adaptation of the Y: The Last Man comic book series were leaving the project, it wasn’t clear if the series would be delayed or was even moving forward at all. It’s alive and well, though, with a new showrunner at the helm.

In a press release, FX announced that The Killing and Animal Kingdom alum Eliza Clark would take over the duties on the show as showrunner, writer, and executive producer. “Eliza Clark is an enormously talented writer and producer whose ambitious vision for Y will only enhance the mystique and allure of this powerful story,” one of the network’s presidents of original programming, Nick Grad, said in a statement. She will partner with fellow executive producers Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Brian K. Vaughan, and Melina Matsoukas to bring the series to life.

In a statement of her own, Clark said, “A decade ago I devoured the complete Y: The Last Man series cover to cover, imagining how it might take shape on screen. It introduced me to the amazing work of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra and the complex, fascinating world of Y. I’m thrilled to tell this story and to be working with this immensely talented cast.”

Y, as the TV adaptation has been titled, is set in a world where all men–save for one guy and his pet monkey Ampersand–are dead. According to FX, the series revolves around a “new world order of women” that “will explore gender, race, class, and survival.”

Diane Lane will star on the series as Senator Jennifer Brown, with a supporting cast that includes Imogen Poots, Lashana Lynch, Juliana Canfield, Marin Ireland, and Amber Tamblyn. Barry Keoghan plays Yorick Brown, the last living man on the planet.

A release date has not been announced yet but Y is expected to debut on FX in 2020.

With E3 2019 behind us, Twitter has revealed its top trending moments and game announcements from the annual event.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that the biggest moment overall was Nintendo’s annual Direct presentation on Tuesday morning, which encompassed all of its games lineup including a surprise peek at The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2. Keanu Reeves’ appearance at the Xbox conference came in second place, and Square’s dual showings of the Final Fantasy VII Remake and Marvel’s Avengers during its press conference came in third.

Nintendo was also the most tweeted-about of any publisher, which makes sense given that its press conference was also the most tweeted moment. It was followed by Xbox, Sony, Square Enix, and Bethesda. Every publisher that held a press event, including Electronic Arts’ EA Play presentation on Saturday, gained the top spot on Twitter’s trending topics.

The top new games this year were FF7, Cyberpunk 2077, Breath of the Wild 2, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Avengers. Overall, the top games and franchises were Pokemon (due to Sword and Shield), Fortnite, Splatoon and Super Smash Bros Ultimate due to their tournaments, and Apex Legends.

It took longer than usual for some of Take-Two Interactive’s most recent successes–Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2–to hit the market. While the publisher is likely pleased with the results of such ambitious games, CEO Strauss Zelnick is convinced the development gap between releases will shorten thanks in part to post-launch content.

In a GamesIndustry.Biz interview during E3 2019, Zelnick envisions the trend of extensive time between game releases coming to an end. “I don’t see it expanding further. In fact, I would expect in many instances it may compress,” Zelnick said. “We find that intersection between the time it takes our creators to do the best work in the industry on the one hand, and what the consumer wants, recognizing that building anticipation is a good thing.” Zelnick cements his argument by saying “eight years is probably too long,” likely referring to the development time between Red Dead Redemption and its direct sequel.

Post-launch content might be the force that causes the pendulum to swing, according to Zelnick. “It’s possible that the ability to deliver content on an ongoing basis for a long time after an initial release,” he said. “Would mean that perhaps that initial release wouldn’t be as long in terms of [the] number of hours of gameplay as previously had been demanded in a world where that was all you were getting.”

He suggests the development could shorten because teams would be primarily focused on finishing a product first and delivering further content once the game is released. While Zelnick doesn’t predict a change in the way AAA publishers shoot for less ambitious titles, he does find the idea of post-launch content shortening development to be “a fewer, bigger, better strategy.”

Take-Two is the parent company of developers like 2K–and its properties 2K Play, 2K Games, and 2K Sports–and Rockstar Games. The big-name publisher has some games launching throughout the rest of the year. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is set to launch on August 27 for PC and sometime in December for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Borderlands 3 will launch on September 13 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and November 14 for Google Stadia. The Outer Worlds is scheduled to release on October 25 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.