Category: Games

With Arrow coming to an end after its upcoming season, many fans are wondering just how devastating the series finale will be. After all, it’s been made clear that Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) likely won’t make it out of the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover alive.

Be that as it may, Amell doesn’t think fans will be sad when the final episode concludes. “It’ a super happy ending,” he told GameSpot at San Diego Comic-Con. “I think it’s going to be a happy ending.”

Meanwhile, executive producer Marc Guggenheim hopes fans will appreciate the work they’d put into crafting a proper ending for the series. “We always go into these things with the best of intentions… We’re trying so had to just entertain everybody and honor all of the things the fans want,” he said. “We hope that everyone appreciates it on its own terms, the way we like to do things.”

As for how those involved in the show feel about wrapping it up, Amell admits that the fact that Arrow has launched an entire superhero universe on TV is a difficult feeling to parse. “It’s very, very difficult for me to have perspective on something I’m so deeply involved in. But it’s starting to crystallize just a little bit with all of the lovely things people have been saying this weekend about not just our show but the universe we’ve built,” he explained. “If you’re a fan of comic books and you pop on Netflix and you find Arrow, then you watch the first season and all of a sudden in Season 2 you see The Flash introduced, you can spend your entire summer vacation watching the content we’ve created. That’s really cool.”

So while it’ll be months before we find out exactly how Arrow will end, those involved in the show seem confident that they’ve come up with a conclusion worthy of the Green Arrow. That said, if the finale ends with Oliver’s death, which appears to be a foregone conclusion at this point, there’s going to be some sadness mixed in with that “super happy ending” Amell promised.

The final season of Arrow premieres October 15 on The CW.

QuakeCon is officially underway, and while the big focus of this year’s event is Doom in honor of the series’ 25th anniversary, Bethesda isn’t neglecting some of its other big releases. This weekend, the publisher will host panels for Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Online, and during today’s keynote, it showcased the latest update for Rage 2.

The free update is now live on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and it introduces a load of new content to the game, including three new modes. First is the long-requested New Game+, which will let you play through the story again with all your weapons, abilities, upgrades, and more. You’ll also earn Prestige badges when you play through the game again.

Additionally, developer Avalanche has added an Iron Man mode–die once in this mode and it’s game over. If that isn’t enough of a challenge, there’s also a new Ultra Nightmare setting that promises to ramp up the difficulty considerably.

Rounding out the free update are a variety of new cheats, as well as new skins, a number of quality-of-life improvements, and a voice pack featuring the Wolfenstein’s hero, BJ Blazkowicz. You can read more about all the new content available for Rage 2 on Bethesda’s website.

There’s more content on the way to Rage 2 this year. The game’s first major expansion, dubbed Rise of the Ghosts, launches this September and will introduce new story missions, additional locations to explore, a new enemy faction, and more. Then, in November, Rage 2’s second expansion is slated to arrive with its own assortment of new story missions, locations, and other content.

That isn’t all we got to see at QuakeCon so far. Bethesda gave us a much closer look at Doom Eternal‘s Battlemode, an asymmetrical multiplayer mode that pits one player as a Doom Slayer against several others controlling demons. The publisher also surprise released the series’ classic games, Doom, Doom 2, and Doom 3, on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Spider-Man: Far From Home has now made $1 billion worldwide, making it the first Spider-Man movie to reach that level without adjusting for inflation.

THR reports that this is Sony’s second time reaching the billion-dollar mark, the first being the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall. It’s a rare accomplishment, which Sony shares with Disney and Warner Bros. thanks to the success of Aquaman last December.

Far From Home reached a projected $333 million domestically and $672 million overseas, to total $1.005 billion. This also tops the previous Spider-Man movie, Homecoming, which earned $880 million. The only other two movies to earn more than $1 billion this year were both Marvel films. Those were Avengers: Endgame which set a new box office record, and Captain Marvel.

Spider-Man: Far From Home probably enjoyed a boost from Endgame. While Spidey goes on his own adventure, a large part of the plot serves as an epilogue to events from Endgame. The story focuses on Peter Parker vacationing in Europe when he meets the apparent superhero Mysterio, who says he has crossed from another dimension in the multiverse.

“It’s full of heart and good intentions, clever, quick-witted, and confident enough to pull off some really insane reveals,” Meg Downey wrote in GameSpot’s review. “The parts that work, work very, very well. But the parts that don’t tend to feel like stubbed toes or irritating splinters–not life-threatening by any means, but distracting at best and annoying at worst; like someone pulled the curtain back on the MCU’s systemic shortcomings a little too far. Still, if you can ignore that–and it’ll be easier for some than it is for others, depending on your relationship to the MCU at large–you’re in for a pretty good ride.”

With the Avengers: Endgame home release just around the corner–and the Russo Brothers going on tour to promote it for whatever reason–you can expect all sorts of juicy behind-the-scenes features and extra clips cropping up around the internet in the coming weeks.

There has been some discussion of scenes that were trimmed from the final cut of the movie featuring Thor and Valkyrie as well as a confusing moment in the Soul Stone for Tony Stark, but this is our first look at an actual clip of one. As an extended version of Tony’s death, the scene itself isn’t completely new–there’s no real dialogue and no surprise additions to the story–but it does protract the moments immediately following Stark’s snap to showcase how the other Avengers react. Or, well, how they don’t react. Take a look.

The most notable moment here is Gamora, who hilariously decides to just dip rather than following suit with all her strange new comrades and taking a knee. After all, she’s the Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, she doesn’t know any of these people. Why should she care that some man in a metal suit bit the dust? This is also a relatively concrete answer for one of the ending’s bigger question. What actually happened to Gamora? She just peaced out. Simple as that. And we can’t really blame her.

Also of note in the scene is Stephen Strange, a man who is both a literal doctor and a literal wizard, making absolutely no move at all to rush to Stark’s aid. Also, medical and mystical expertise aside, the Time Stone is definitely still on Tony’s modified gauntlet–if the stones were gone, Cap wouldn’t have had to go on his own little time travel adventure to put them back–and Strange is definitely a Time Stone expert. We just saw back in Avengers: Infinity War that the Time Stone can easily rewind one specific person’s death (RIP Vision). But apparently, none of those things matter in lieu of watching in stony-faced silence and participating in a strangely toned group action with his teammates.

But it looks kind of cool and the music is in a key designed to really tug at our heartstrings, so maybe that’s more important than maintaining any sense of narrative logic. After all, who can argue with a movie that sort-of-kind-of dethroned Avatar?

Another weekend has rolled around, and that means Xur has arrived back in the solar system of Destiny 2 to sell Exotic weapons and armor to lucky Guardians. It’s a good chance to gear up on Year One Exotics you might be missing ahead of the Solstice of Heroes, Destiny 2’s final seasonal event of its second year of content, and the end of the Season of Opulence. Check out the video above to see where to go and what Xur’s selling.

While you might already have all these Exotics thanks to their age, it’s possible the armor pieces Xur’s selling this week have better random perk rolls than the ones you’ve already found. Check out our written Xur guide for a rundown of all the rolls to compare to what you’ve already got, as well as more information about the other goods Xur is offering.

While it might have been a pleasant surprise, Street Fighter fans won’t see another entry in the long-running fighting game franchise at EVO 2019. In fact, fans will likely not see a Street Fighter 6 for a while, as the team has its sight set on Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition.

Series producer Yoshinori Ono confirmed the news on Twitter, saying that he “[doesn’t] have SF6.” Ono suggests the team is more concerned with the Arcade Edition of Street Fighter V, which launched on PC and PlayStation 4 in January 2018. SFV: AE includes all the base game’s content, newly implemented features, and a voucher for 12 additional fighters from Seasons 1 and 2 like Ibuki, Urien, and more. You can check out our Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition review here.

Street Fighter V’s base version released on PC and PlayStation 4 in February 2016, seven years after Street Fighter IV‘s initial release. (There had been several different versions of SFIV since then, one release each year in the lead-up to SFV.) Prior to this, the last mainline entry was 1997’s Street Fighter III: New Generation.

Capcom switched up the way DLC characters are offered, handing them out individually for a set cost instead of through a Season Pass. Kage, an evil version of Ryu, is SFV’s most recent combatant.

Here we are at the end of all things. The last of the finest. The curtain call for the single remaining start-up Netflix Original. House of Cards imploded by the end. Hemlock Grove never made it past Season 3. Same for Bloodline and Marco Polo. After that, you get into the second wave of Originals (Bojack, Kimmy Schmidt, Master of None, the Marvel shows, etc) and the business officially picks up on the Peak TV front.But Orange Is the New Black, with its addictive, macabre bounciness, has remained tall and true through it all. And it nails the ending here. Now that the show can put a final stamp on things and close up shop on the characters and arcs, there’s a freedom of design that hasn’t really been present since the first season. There are lags and sags, sure, as you’ll find with most 13-episode seasons where the chapters all run about 60 minutes each, but, damn it, there’s some sweetly destructive stuff here too. A bountiful blend of triumph and tragedy.

And that’s the OITNB bingo game running underneath Season 7, really: Who’s going to make it? Not simply “Who’s going to make it out of prison?” but “Who’s going to be okay?” Because those things can easily be mutually exclusive. And no, not everyone makes it. Viewers looking for the type of closure that comforts and consoles will probably have a hard time absorbing a lot of this.

Orange is the New Black: Season 7 Gallery

As Taylor Schilling’s Piper readjusts to the outside world, in a new life that’s set up for her (and other ex-cons) to struggle with and fail at, the rest of the inmates in Litchfield Max (the setting since the riot in Season 5) do their best to either face their fate or alter their course. Naturally, the predictable and generic choice for a TV series coming to an end would be to right wrongs and see justice prevail, but Orange dances to a vastly different beat.

You might think redemption is in store for a handful of these complex inmates, but you’ll only be right half of the time. Some go the distance while others trip up right before the finish line. Surprisingly, the fate-game, given the massive ensemble, adds a layer of suspense to Orange’s unique dramedy recipe.

Also, while Season 7 contains a decent amount of returning faces (not just those who vanished post-Season 5), it also stays honest to the credo that “sometimes people’s stories just end.” Sometimes folks vanish. Beneath Orange’s trademark witticisms and woke whimsy is a sinister source code that embraces chaos and directly showcases how each character accepts or rejects life’s cut-throat uncertainties.

Netflix Spotlight: August 2019

New faces flood in, some with their own tumultuous arcs and backstories, thanks to PolyCon Corrections’ ugly new ICE Detention Center, which we saw Blanca wind up in at the end of Season 6. Not that Litchfield itself doesn’t feature some seriously dire s*** in the final stretch — from Taystee’s deep dive into dark thoughts to an alarming ailment that grabs hold of Red — but it’s in the ICE block that most of the horrors unfold.

Sadly, I can’t divulge too much here, except to mention vague starting blocks like “Piper and Alex face relationship challenges now that Piper is on the outside,” “Doggett and Maria try to improve their lives,” “Tamika gets an exciting new opportunity,” and “Nikki tries to balance a new love with old responsibilities,” but it should be said that the most interesting stories to witness here are the characters who try their hardest to create systemic changes for good. From a bookend standpoint, we also get to cycle back into Piper’s life and revisit her inherent need to feel like an outlier, whether it draws people in or pushes people away.

Given how much this final season is meant to illuminate the creeping and cruel darkness saturating our country right now, Orange finds its strength, and salvation, in kindness and decency. Hell, even Alysia Reiner’s Fig discovers an inner light when confronted with the inhumanity of ICE. Orange may sometimes play things a bit on-the-nose, and not all the flashbacks this season are necessary (though the same could be said for most flashbacks after the first few years), but the full experience of this series, and this season, will simultaneously elevate you and haunt you.

When it comes to games, we’re pretty familiar with the trappings of fantasy, sci-fi or war narratives, but you might be a little less up to date with New Weird. Coined by author M. John Harrison to describe the work of (among others) China Miéville, it’s a form of speculative fiction that revels in inexplicability – it’s often a bit horror, a bit sci-fi, a bit fantasy, but if you put it up against any of the canon texts in those genres, it wouldn’t look like any of them. It’s telling that many authors who get told they’re part of the New Weird immediately reject it, because they think being defined at all is too limiting.Control

might well be the first mainstream New Weird game. New Weird fiction is often about a place, not people, and The Oldest House – Remedy Entertainment’s unknowable new setting – very much fits the bill. New Weird also reflects the underlying weirdness of the modern world, and Control’s fiction regularly weaves in real-life events, recontextualising them for a world in which there’s a government bureau to combat paranatural occurrences. Most of all, New Weird is really f**king odd. And yes, Control is that too.

Perhaps more than anything else, it’s that genre choice that makes Control stand out – but it might also make it feel unfamiliar. That’s why we asked narrative designer Brooke Maggs to put together a New Weird reading (and watching) list to help get you acclimated to the genre, and learn the influences that Control’s twisting to make its own New Weird narrative:

Southern Reach Trilogy – Jeff Vandermeer (Book Series)

Vandermeer quite literally wrote the book on the New Weird, so there’s no better place to start than with this trio of oddities: Annihilation (recently turned into a movie), Authority and Acceptance. The series is named for a secretive government agency (one overt connection to Control) and centres on its work in Area X, an abandoned portion of the US that’s begun creating inexplicable changes to both places and people inside. If you want some sense of how deep the homage goes here, the second book begins with a character becoming a new director of the agency in the title – also the opening to Remedy’s game. Oh and that character’s codename? ‘Control’.

House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski (Book)

Perhaps the best way to understand The Oldest House and its shifting innards is to try to understand House of Leaves. This work of staggeringly eerie weirdness revolves around the effects of a (possibly fictional) house that doesn’t conform to the laws of reality and a (possibly fictional) documentary made about it in which things go horribly wrong, all told (possibly fictionally) by a tattoo artist going slowly insane. It is, in some ways, a haunted house story, except the haunting is by physics.

No One May Ever Have the Same Knowledge Again: Letters to Mt. Wilson Observatory 1915-1935 (Book)

The only non-fiction entry on the list, this collection of 33 missives sent to an LA observatory includes rants on extraterrestrials, cosmology and the general state of the universe from real people across the world. It’s a fascinating mixture of science and fantasy, often written with the intimate touch of those who weren’t expecting to find their words reproduced for a book. The collection’s inspired a whole section of collectibles in the game, the Dead Letters, which are similar pieces of correspondence sent to the government and intercepted by the Bureau.

Control: 11 New Screenshots

The Bone Clocks – David Mitchell (Book)

The Cloud Atlas author’s multi-character, multi-time period novel is distinguishable for hiding so much of its weirdness. Most of its main characters (and the reader following them) aren’t initially aware of quite how dark and strange this seemingly normal world is behind the scenes, extending into immortality, ritual sacrifice and psychic warfare. Control places you inside of that stranger side, with protagonist Jesse Faden becoming more and more aware of how deep and dark the rabbithole gets.

Stalker (Movie)

Tarkovski’s sci-fi masterpiece centres on those travelling through the Zone, a military-protected area in which reality doesn’t function as expected, and even gravity needs to be tested to proceed safely. The Zone is a clear inspiration for the The Oldest House (not to mention Southern Reach’s Area X), but the titular Stalker – able to sense the route ahead and help those less able – also feels like an antecedent for Jesse, who becomes the Bureau of Control’s means of tackling its world-warping problems.

Twin Peaks (TV Series)

David Lynch’s landmark series doesn’t resemble Control very much – besides its government agent protagonist – but it’s absolutely a tonal reference. The series’ ability to segue seamlessly from soap opera to nightmare is reflected in how Control can turn on a dime from straightforward shooter into esoteric adventure. It’s also a visual reference – expressive lighting and a love of the colour red are a major part of both Twin Peaks and the game.

Legion (TV Series)

Noah Hawley’s adaptation of this comic book tale about Professor X’s son constantly plays with perspective, never quite letting you feel sure that what you’re watching isn’t inside someone’s head. You’ll quickly begin to feel the same about Control, where rooms can shift themselves around, portraits change in their frames, and nothing feels quite right. I haven’t seen an extended dance sequence yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out. On a more surface level, Legion is also the story of someone with extremely entertaining telekinetic powers – Control’s Jesse definitely fits that bill.

The X-Files (TV Series)

Perhaps the most straightforward comparison of all, Chris Carter’s magnificent series features government agents hunting for conspiracies, monsters and paranormal events that silently plague an otherwise unremarkable world. The Federal Bureau of Control – when it’s not being attacked from within – is much the same, as you’ll discover from its own case files strewn around The Oldest House. Just like the X-Files, some of those cases shine a new, weird light on real-world events you may have read about – you’ll want to stop to do a lot of reading.

Joe Skrebels is IGN’s UK Deputy Editor, and he still thinks about how House of Leaves made him read parts of it in the mirror, like a chump. Follow him on Twitter.