Category: Games

Spider-Man: Far From Home is in theatres now. It picks up after the events of Avengers: Endgame, and as such, it deals with the fallout of that film and The Snap, and much more.

Writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommars spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about some of the key moments and burning questions about Far From Home and some of its wider implications. This video is FULL of huge spoilers about Far From Home and the entire MCU, so you will want to have seen Far From Home before watching this video.

Far From Home has been a massive success at the box office; it’s made $847 million worldwide so far, after just two weeks in theatres. A sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, the film stars Tom Holland as Spider-Man, alongside Jake Gyllenhaal as Quentin Beck/Mysterio. Samuel L. Jackson and Cobie Smulders return as Nick Fury and Maria Hill, while Zendaya stars as MJ.

Given how Far From Home ends, a third new Spider-Man film is surely on the way. In fact, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige recently told Fandango that the next Spider-Man will probably tell a Peter Parker story that has “never been done before on film.”

For lots more on Far From Home, check out GameSpot’s roundup of all the Marvel Easter eggs and references—there are a lot.

Ubisoft has once again partnered with actor Joseph Gordon Levitt’s HitRecord studio for a unique promotion around user-generated content, this time for Watch Dogs Legion. As part of the collaboration, Ubisoft is looking to the community to create music for the open-world game.

HitRecord is asking the community to create 10 songs for Watch Dogs Legion which will play in the game on radio stations and generally throughout the game’s setting in London. As with other HitRecord projects, the songs are likely to be made collaboratively. That is, someone could write a bass line, another person could come up with guitar parts, someone else might lay down the drum beat. Other people can work together on lyrics and overall levels of polish. These are just a few examples; the possibilities, as you can imagine, are vast.

In all cases, HitRecord will pay $2,000 per song, which will be split among the people who contributed to it, and they’ll also have their names put into the game’s credits. People whose work is not selected for Watch Dogs Legion receive no payment.

HitRecord will review all final Watch Dogs Legion musical pieces, and at that time it will also ensure each artist is properly accounted for. After that, HitRecord will made a decision about how much money each contributor should receive for their part in creating the song. This information will be posted to HitRecord’s public site for everyone to see as part of what’s called the “Payment Proposal.” There is then a two-week period when people in the community can comment on the Payment Proposal, and then HitRecord will make its final decision; the first round of payments will go out for creators in January 2020.

More information about payment is available on HitRecord’s website by searching for Watch Dogs Legion here. You can sign up to create music for Watch Dogs Legion here on HitRecord.

HitRecord is looking for songs in the rock, hip hop, electronica, metal, and punk genres, and Ubisoft is seemingly looking for songs that are in some way related to London.

Some people, including game designer Mike Bithell (Thomas Was Alone, John Wick Hex) are speaking out against this partnership. Specifically, Bithell said he takes issue with the use of “spec work,” which is basically labor done for free with the hope of future payment.

“This sucks. Pay people for their labour. Stop exploiting fans and hobbyists, while devaluing the work of those with the gall to actually expect consistent payment for work done. Do better Ubi, we’re counting on you,” Bithell said.

HitRecord previously partnered with Ubisoft for a similar user-generated content program for Beyond Good & Evil 2. People also voiced their concerns about that “spec work,” and Gordon-Levitt responded by saying the controversy was due in part to people not understanding how HitRecord works.

“Honestly, this concern was sorta painful to hear,” he said in a post on Medium. “It’s not at all how I think of our community’s creative process. I do think that part of this disconnect is simple misinformation.”

Watch Dogs Legion launches in March 2020 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It is a super-ambitious game due in part to the main hook that you can control basically anyone in the game. Check out the video embedded above to learn more.

The Madden 20 ratings reveal continues. Following EA’s announcement of all the highest-rated rookies, the company has now revealed Madden 20’s four 99-rated players. These are the best players in the game, and that’s before factoring in the new X-Factor super-abilities.

The four 99-rated players in Madden 20 (at launch) include Houston Texans WR DeAndre Hopkins, Los Angeles Rams DT Aaron Donald, Seattle Seahawks ILB Bobby Wagner, and Chicago Bears OLB Khalil Mack. These ratings, and those of everyone else in the game, can and most likely will change over the course of the real NFL season, depending on on-field performance.

Madden 20’s new X-Factor system grants highly rated players super-abilities that can be used at key moments, and these 99-rated players all have them. As Pasta Padre reports, “Hopkins wins aggressive catches against single coverage. Donald can place pressure on the QB even while still engaged in a block. Wagner gets tighter coverage and a higher chance of picking off a pass on contested catches. Mack’s pass rush leads to quicker block shedding.”

The rest of Madden 20’s ratings will be revealed throughout July leading up to the game’s release at the end of the month. Keep check in back with GameSpot for more.

Madden 20 launches on August 2 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

New Releases takes a look at some of the biggest video games launching each week, and it’s a good time to be a PC or Nintendo Switch gamer. The Switch-exclusive Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order arrives this week, alongside a Switch port of survival horror game Distrust. Meanwhile, the smash-hit tabletop game Gloomhaven is getting its own PC game. For those of you who prefer to game on PS4 and Xbox One, don’t worry–this week is also home to Lost Orbit: Terminal Velocity and Lost Ember.

Distrust — July 16

Available on: Switch

Survival horror game Distrust takes cues from John Carpenter’s The Thing. A helicopter crash strands you in a research center in the Arctic, where strange monsters attack the crew. Fortunately, you can survive together in co-op, so you and a friend can choose from the 15 survivors, each with their own special skills.

More Coverage:

Lost Orbit: Terminal Velocity — July 16

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch

Terminal Velocity is the definitive version of Lost Orbit, coming to some new platforms. But it’s still the story of Harrison, a man stranded in space who just wants to get home. With no working ship, you’ll have to slingshot your way around planets, stars, and other heavenly bodies as you fling your way back.

More Coverage:

Gloomhaven — July 17

Available on: PC

Gloomhaven is based on the mega popular tabletop game of the same name, where a band of mercenaries moves through randomly generated dungeons. Combat is tactical and turn-based, so you can’t rely on dumb luck to get through. That said, the PC game does include a new roguelike mode, so you might still want a bit of good juju on your side.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order — July 19

Available on: Switch

The latest in the Ultimate Alliance line is set in a totally different universe, but it still lets you slam bad guys as the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and more. As the name implies, you’ll be going up against Thanos and his Black Order to save the world. Post-launch, you can join the fight with additional DLC heroes from Marvel Knights and the X-Men.

More Coverage:

Lost Ember — July 19

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Lost Ember sees you in control of wolf, and this wolf can actually take over the bodies of other animals. As you shift between birds, fish, and other species, you’ll be able to explore all different corners of the world, uncovering the ancient civilization that once existed here. A Nintendo Switch version is planned for later.

July still has some big video games on the horizon. Next week is home to Switch exclusive Fire Emblem: Three Houses as well as another Nazi-slaughtering adventure, Wolfenstein: Youngblood.

Gears 5 will not feature any depictions of smoking as part of a move to avoid glamorizing the addictive and deadly habit. Rod Fergusson, the head of developer The Coalition, said in a series of tweets that he has been against depictions of smoking in Gears “from the beginning.”

He pointed out that the concept art for the character Dizzy from Gears 2 was shown with a cigarette. But in the final game, the character doesn’t smoke. That’s because Fergusson stepped in and “stopped it.”

Some Gears of War games have featured depictions of smoking, but Gears 4 had no smoking and Gears 5 will not either. Fergusson said as long as he’s in control of the Gears series, smoking will never return.

The Gears of War series was created and originally developed by Epic Games, up until the Fortnite studio sold it to Microsoft in 2014 for an undisclosed sum.

Some stories have suggested that Gears 5 at one point featured depictions of smoking and were later removed, but this isn’t true, Fergusson said. He said there is “no censorship” because Gears 5 never had smoking to begin with; you can’t remove what was never there.

People on Twitter commented that this is a strange take because the Gears franchise is a Mature-rated series with brutal depictions of violence and alcohol abuse. Why focus so much on smoking? Fergusson said he isn’t trying to be the “moral police,” but instead he wanted to cleanse Gears of smoking to avoid glamorizing smoking and because of his own personal connection to lung cancer.

“I didn’t want to glamorize something that is addictive and kill you,” he said. “Wasn’t trying to me any moral police, just reflecting my beliefs after losing friends to lung cancer. If you had the ability to create a world, what would you change?”

According to Variety, the anti-smoking group Truth Initiative approached the TV company Turner–which broadcast this weekend’s Gears 5 Summer Series event–to discuss smoking in Gears 5. According to the report, “Turner collaborated with The Coalition to strip out smoking from the game,” but something seems to be lost here, as Fergusson pointed out Gears 5 never had smoking to begin with so it couldn’t have been removed.

The Truth Initiative has for years now called out video games for glamorizing smoking. The group criticized Blizzard for putting a cigar in Overwatch hero McCree’s mouth. “The creators of Overwatch may not realize that their choice to depict a hero with a lit cigar sends an influential and potentially addictive and deadly message to the young people who play the game,” the organization said.

In 2017, the Truth Initiative released the results of a study that claimed research demonstrates that there is a link between exposure to images of smoking and the probability of young people taking up smoking.

The Truth Initiative also released a list of video games aimed at teenagers that they say glamorize smoking, including Overwatch, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, We Sing, XCOM 2, and Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Gears 5 launches in September for Xbox One and PC. The game’s first technical test takes place this weekend–here’s how to get in and everything you need to know.