James Gunn tweeted out a PSA letting fans know The Suicide Squad will be leaving HBO Max by the end of this weekend, presumably on September 5.
Gunn made sure in his tweet to add a set photo of a dejected John Cena, teasing his upcoming spin-off TV seriesPeacemaker. Gunn will be producing the show alongside Cena, Matthew Miller, and Peter Safran and has directing credits for five episodes of the TV series. Peacemaker is slated to release on HBO Max in January 2022.
The Suicide Squad premiered in theatres and on HBO Max on August 6. Since the film’s release, it has earned $36.5 million at the box office.The Suicide Squad has a Metacritic metascore of 71 with a user score of 7.1 and is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score of 82% and a 91% Tomatometer score.
In GameSpot’s review of The Suicide Squad, Mike Rougaeu said the movie was “shocking, bloody, hilarious, and heartfelt” with a lot of care put into the writing of its ensemble cast of characters and soundtrack in comparison to the 2016 version of the film.
If you have HBO Max and 2 hours and 12 minutes to spare, be sure to check out The Suicide Squad before it leaves the streaming platform.
As Ted Lasso continues its second season on Apple TV Plus, the comedy series’ superlative popularity has led to a wild new theory among fans. Rumors have spread that the character Roy Kent is not played by a real actor, but is instead a CGI creation, with fans highlighting the sharpness of his beard and drawing comparisons to character models in FIFA games.
Now, Brett Goldstein, who portrays Kent on the show, has broken his silence on the matter. The actor posted a video of himself on Twitter to assert that he is a real human being who does “normal human, basic things like rendering and buffering and transferring data.”
Ted Lasso co-creator Brendan Hunt, who also plays Coach Beard on the show, offered a more tentative statement to CNET.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that if you entered data into an algorithm for ‘building the perfect actor’ it would produce Brett Goldstein,” he said.
To clarify, Goldstein isn’t just a real person, but also one of the driving creative forces behind Ted Lasso. The actor also serves as a writer and executive story editor on the series. He is currently nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance on the show’s first season. Ted Lasso became the most nominated freshman comedy series in Emmys history, garnering 20 nominations including spots in Best Comedy Series and Best Actor in a Comedy Series for star Jason Sudeikis.
In our review of the Season 2 premiere of Ted Lasso, IGN gave the episode a 9, saying that the show “[avoids] the common sophomore slump, retaining and fine-tuning what worked the first time around, while evolving its quirky formula in some welcome ways.”
J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.
There’s a new Cyberpunk 2077 mod available to download on PC that adds a healthcare system, one in which you pay a premium for a team of trained in-game medical professionals to revive you really quick.
The mod, Death Alternative by Nexus Mods user 3nvy, circumvents the death screen by giving you an option to revive in a nearby hotel room. Which room is anyone’s guess, but the amount of time treatment takes and the Eddies needed to activate a package is dependent on which tier you select. There are three available: Silver (10,000), Gold (25,000, and Platinum (50,000), which restore 25%, 50%, or 100% of your life, respectively.
This is how it works: You head over to the Trauma Team building located in the MedCenter, where you then select one of the three available plans. There’s no cost upfront, so you could choose the Platinum tier if you want. Once you die, you’re asked if you want to revive or go out the old-fashioned way: Watching the death screen and reloading a previous save. If you have enough Eddies in your pocket for your chosen plan, you’ll revive at a hotel room. End up short on funds and the Trauma Team cancels your insurance.
Hypothetically, you can revive yourself as many times as you want–as long as you have the Eddies to afford whatever your health insurance premium is.
The mod is still in the “early stages,” but 3nvy has planned features in the works, such as debuffs upon death and possibly waking up in the trash with all your gear stripped and a quest to get it back (if no insurance is enabled).
While this mod is currently available on PC, there may be a chance it could appear in the official game. Developer CD Projekt Red recently hired a group of modders to work on both Cyberpunk 2077’s backend and mod support.
There are more streaming networks than ever before, so if you have questions about the future of streaming, then you’ve come to the right place. All week long, IGN’s State of Streaming 3.0 initiative is featuring reviews and in-depth analysis about current streaming providers like Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, and more!
With IGN’s State of Streaming 3.0 upon us, we must ask the ultimate streaming question: Do you prefer to binge your favorite shows, or do you enjoy having episodes released weekly, forcing you to not watch them immediately one after another? Think of Disney+ series’ such as The Mandalorian, Loki, and WandaVision releasing weekly episodes – versus Netflix’s Stranger Things and The Witcher who just drop the entire season at once.
Vote in our poll below to let us know your favorite way to stream shows!
As of the time of writing, 73% of IGN readers prefer to binge TV shows, whereas only 27% would rather watch episodes weekly. In another IGN poll, we asked readers which streaming service they use most often, with Netflix coming in strong in first place with 47%, Disney+ following at nearly 20%, and HBO Max in third place at 13%.
On this episode of Game Scoop! the Omega Cops chat Welcome to Raccoon City, Game Informer’s enlightening interview about crunch at Naughty Dog, that REALLY COOL Dead Space Remake Tech demo that has us all saying “nicely job”, and the latest gameplay showing from the Marvel/2K game that everyone is talking about, Midnight Suns. Plus video game 20 questions if we get around to it. Scoop!
Watch the video above or hit the link below to your favorite podcast service.
While Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings provided no shortage of unexpected twists for the MCU, perhaps the biggest was the return of not one but two long forgotten faces–Tim Roth’s Abomination, last seen in the Edward Norton Incredible Hulk movie, who was teased in the trailers, and another (arguably more surprising) special appearance who went on to play a core role in the film.
This article includes spoilers for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, please proceed with caution.
That’s right, we’re talking about Ben Kingsly’s Trevor AKA The Fake Mandarin, from Iron Man 3. Poor Trevor has apparently been living in the Ten Rings compound for years after Wenwu captured him with the intent of executing him. Instead, however, Trevor did what he does best and improvised some acting, which inadvertently landed him a job as Wenwu’s personal jester-slash-prisoner. Shang-Chi, Katy, and Xialing find him in the bowels of the compound having apparently lost even more of his marbles since the last time we saw him.
Speaking of, the last time we saw him was all the way back in Iron Man 3. By all accounts, Trevor was a one-off for the MCU prior to this point, which wasn’t all that surprising. During Phases 1 and 2, one-and-done villains were the trend with bad guys like Iron Monger, Whiplash, and Ultron taking center stage while the slower burn villains with repeat appearances like Thanos or Loki drifted in and out of the spotlight. However, through Phase 3 and now into Phase 4, the MCU has seemed more and more interested in looking back for self-referential pulls (think Red Skull on Vormir or certain episodes of What If…?).
Trevor’s return represents one of the most surprising outcomes within that push–say what you will about Iron Man 3, but its Mandarin twist could have been very easily glossed over and never referenced again. Wenwu even has a brief bit of exposition in this movie explaining how he watched these events from afar and thought they were completely absurd. It would have been easy to just leave it at that and let the memory of those Phase 2 choices go gently into the night with a new, more legitimate Ten Rings introduced to replace them.
But, according to director Destin Daniel Cretton, getting Ben Kingsly back on board with the MCU was as simple as a phone call–and something he definitely wanted to do. In speaking with GameSpot, Cretton explained that “yes, it really did just take [a phone call]. I feel very lucky and privileged to have worked with Sir Ben Kingsly, and the conversation with him beforehand–it was such a pleasant surprise to learn how deeply he cares about that character, Trevor, and how much he wants to see Trevor go to the next stage of his life. It was so fun to watch him get into that character, it was one of the highlights for me.”
Of course, Cretton was unable to confirm or deny whether Trevor would be making any more appearances in the MCU after Shang-Chi. Presumably he was able to leave Ta Lo with the others, but we never actually see him in the aftermath of the battle, so it’s entirely possible that he will spend the rest of his life hanging out with his little monster buddies and practicing his sonnets. Maybe that’s the best possible ending for him.
As for Tim Roth’s Abomination, we’re left with even more questions–namely what this could mean in terms of the Multiverse and the Norton Hulk movies, which the MCU has bobbed and weaved around since the introduction of Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner back in The Avengers. We do know that he and Wong are apparently working with one another, however, at least in terms of their little magical fight club racket, so regardless of when or if Abomination shows up again, he probably won’t be all that bad a guy.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is in theaters now.
The new Jackass Movie, Jackass Forever, was scheduled to be released on October 22, but due to the pandemic, it was delayed to February 4, 2022. Series star Johnny Knoxville staged his own delay announcement for the film, and it’s exactly what you’d expect.
Knoxville climbed onto a billboard for Jackass Forever and and spray-painted “February 4, 2022” onto the advertisement, high above the ground. After the person taking the video asks Knoxville to move over to better showcase the date, Knoxville does so, but asks, ‘What?’ The video then promptly cuts out, adding to the silly nature of the stunt.
Jackass Forever was delayed earlier this week as part of a wider shifting of dates at Paramount. Top Gun: Maverick is now slated for May 2022, while Mission: Impossible 7 is now scheduled for September 2022.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, publisher 505 Games acknowledged the controversy around the upgrade path for Control Ultimate Edition on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
When Control Ultimate Edition was first announced last year, it was revealed that those who had bought the original Control back in 2019 for PS4 and Xbox One would not be able to upgrade that copy of the game to the Ultimate Edition. The only way to be eligible for the new-generation versions of the game was to purchase Control again via its Ultimate Edition on PS4 and Xbox One.
Despite initiatives like Microsoft’s Smart Delivery, that allowed players to receive both Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S versions of a game when purchased on the platform’s ecosystem, 505 Games president Neil Ralley said that it was something that the industry had never faced before.
“For Control, we made certain decisions restricted how we could perform Smart Delivery for the next-gen version of Control,” explained Ralley. “They were the correct decisions at the time, but they created those blockers. We were unable to backtrack and reorganize how we were developing the Ultimate Edition for there to be a sensible and fair way to do Smart Delivery.”
Ralley also noted that 505 Games learned a lesson from that situation, and that it had not handled communicating to the audience in the best way. However, going forward, they want to avoid something like that again. He cites Ghostrunner and Assetto Corsa Competizione as examples. When they release, those who bought the PS4 and Xbox One versions will be able to upgrade to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S ones for free.
Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins has shared her thoughts on the ongoing changes in the movie landscape as more films launch on streaming services day one. She said the decision to bring Wonder Woman 1984 to HBO Max was a “very, very, very difficult choice,” and it was the best the company could do under trying circumstances with the pandemic. But she said releasing on HBO Max was “hugely detrimental” to the movie, and she went on to criticize movies that come to streaming services as being “fake movies.”
“I was looking at what is actually turning out to be true, which is, we have no idea when this pandemic is going to get under control in the way that we hoped,” she said at CinemaCon recently, as reported by the LA Times. “It was the best choice of a bunch of very bad choices at the moment. It was a heartbreaking experience and hugely detrimental to the movie, and I sort of knew that could happen.”
Jenkins acknowledged that she was “happy to give the movie to the public,” and it was the right choice overall with all factors considered. Looking ahead, Jenkins said she hopes her movies can avoid the day-and-date release strategy in the future. (Warner Bros. has announced it won’t bring back day-and-date movies in 2022, instead opting for 45-day exclusive windows with theaters).
“I’m not a fan of day-and-date and I hope to avoid it forever. The truth is, I make movies for the big screen. I’m OK with people watching it for a second or third time on their phone, but I’m not making it for that experience,” she said. “I love the theatrical experience, and I don’t understand why we’re talking about throwing it away for 700 streaming services that there’s no room for in the marketplace. It doesn’t make sense for studios that have billion-dollar industries to throw them in the garbage so they can roll the dice at competing with Netflix. It’s crazy to me. All I’m saying is that one studio should make a huge commitment to the theatrical experience and plant the flag and the filmmakers will go there as a result.”
CinemaCon is a convention put on by owners of movie theaters, so her comments railing against streaming are not that surprising. In another jab at streaming movies, Jenkins said they are “like fake movies.”
“All of the films that streaming services are putting out, I’m sorry, they look like fake movies to me. I don’t hear about them, I don’t read about them,” Jenkins said. “It’s not working as a model for establishing legendary greatness.”
Jenkins has a deal with Netflix, but for TV instead of film. “Streaming is great for massive amounts of content and bingeing TV shows. I think they are two very different skill sets and I see them succeeding as two very different things. That’s why I think it’s a mistake for the film industry to throw something away so valuable,” she said.
Just about every week brings something new to Destiny 2, whether it’s story beats, new activities, or interesting new combinations of elements that let players devastate each other in the Crucible. Iron Banter is our weekly look at what’s going on in the world of Destiny and a rundown of what’s drawing our attention across the solar system.
I have to say, I’m loving the way Destiny 2 has been telling stories this year. Weekly seasonal story beats coupled with new activities to explore has provided a great way to drop into the game, even just for an hour or two, and watch the world expand and unfold. This week, we got a new creepy conversation with Savathun, listened as Mara Sov let the mask slip as relates to her late brother Uldren, and wandered around an excellently fragmented new Shattered Realm area. But just as with the seasons before it, it’s the story that continues to enthrall me.
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Now Playing: Destiny 2: The Witch Queen – What You Need To Know
Queens’ Gambits
On a stream last week, Destiny 2’s new creative director, Joe Blackburn, described the Season of the Lost as being something like The Silence of the Lambs with the presence of scary Hive god Savathun just hanging around. Like the frighteningly calm Hannibal Lecter in that movie, Savathun is already working on us. This week, she said a lot of cryptic things about what’s really going on in Destiny’s story, hinting at there being something more frightening and more powerful over and above the game’s central conflict between Light and Darkness.
I particularly like this take on Savathun’s head games from developer and podcaster merritt k:
Destiny 2 has broken the fourth wall on a few occasions. The Emissary of the Nine has made comments like that before, and there’s lore on the Skull of Dire Ahamkara Exotic helmet that refers to the reader as “O Player mine.” There are a lot of theories as to what these things are all about, but generally, Savathun seems to, at least, have more knowledge about the inner workings of the universe than we’ve yet heard. Since we have some idea what we’re building toward with The Witch Queen expansion–Savathun and her Hive brood wielding the Light, a major twist–it really seems like things are about to get weird(er) in Destiny 2, both through the Season of the Lost and the next expansion.
I’ve had a lot of theories over the last year about where Destiny 2’s story is headed, a few of which seem to have been borne out, but it’s interactions like this that are my favorite, because they’re some pretty intense head-scratchers.
There was also some suggestion in the first week that helping Savathun fight the worm gods might draw the attention of some giant worm bosses, like Xol, who we fought in a Strike back in Warmind. But just because Savathun is anti-worm generally doesn’t mean she’s against all of the remaining worm gods. Saniya Ahmed dug into some old Savathun lore to explore the possibility that more worms are coming back, and that at least one might still be an ally to the Witch Queen. We might know where Savathun is headed thanks to Bungie’s Witch Queen expansion showcase, but there are still a whole lot of potential plans within plans going on right now.
What if Mara Sov is as dangerous as Savathun?
Speaking of plans within plans, let’s talk about that Ahamkara egg in Mara Sov’s chamber. Theories are already floating around that Mara is going to use that egg, the Wall of Wishes, and the Techeuns we’re currently working on rescuing from around the Ascendant Realm, to bring back at least one Ahamkara for the sake of wishing Savathun free of that worm god she’s trying to ghost on. Personally, I’ve always found the concept of the Ahamkara–paracausal wish-granting shapeshifting monsters–to be super compelling, but they’ve never existed in the game the way they do in the lore. It seems like Mara is working to bring the Ahamkara back from extinction, partially as a means to defeat Savathun, but ultimately for her own ends.
Earlier this week, I speculated that the return of Ahamkara to the game could be a hint at what Destiny 2 could look like in a few years, after Bungie releases The Final Shape and we get the conclusion of the Light and Darkness saga, the current story arc. If the story of the conflict between the Light and Darkness has to end, that suggests that we’ll likely see Destiny 2 become a world without either the Traveler or the Darkness, or both. But since paracausal powers are so essential to Destiny 2 gameplay, it seems like the game will need ways for those forces to continue to exist, even without the gods responsible for them. Adding more paracausal creatures like the Ahamkara might provide a good story reason for some of the reality-bending video game things we can do in Destiny 2.
But even without making guesses that are years down the road, we can tell that both Mara and Savathun have a lot more going on than we realize. Both queens are executing larger plans, and neither has a single goal in mind. We know Mara works to consolidate her power all the time and that she ultimately has Awoken interests–and not necessarily ours–at heart. She also is, uh…meaner than I realized. Complete this week’s Tracing the Stars quest step to hear her talk shit about her dead brother Uldren, now risen as the Guardian Crow. Is Mara this season’s Lakshmi-2? I feel like we could be headed in that direction, discovering that the Awoken queen is actually a gossipy political maneuverer who sees us as pawns as much as Savathun does. Expect the Season of the Lost to reveal that maybe the machinations of Savathun, Xivu Arath, and the Black Fleet aren’t all we have to worry about.
Now, on to the goofy gameplay stuff that happened this week.
Dancing Is Banned
Sadly, we shall have far fewer lords of the dance in the Crucible this season.
Last week was the first chance for Hunter players to snag Radiant Dance Machines, a reprised Destiny 1 Exotic that’s back in Season of the Lost–and they immediately discovered it was hopelessly, hilariously broken. When you use your Hunter dodge near enemies while wearing the Exotic, you get a short period where you can do a bunch of dodges in a row. Players immediately thought of the Dynamo mod that gives you Super energy when you dodge and the Stasis Aspect Winter’s Shroud, which slows enemies near you when you dodge. They slapped those things on their Hunter builds and went on ridiculous tears in the Crucible.
Bungie almost immediately responded by disabling Radiant Dance Machines in the Crucible and Gambit because that was obviously not what was supposed to be happening, and we’ve now gotten a nerf that ratchets back RDM’s power to keep you from exploiting it in different builds. It sounds like RDM won’t get multiple boosts off mods like Dynamo, even when you do multiple dodges in a row. From a practical standpoint, though, RDM is still a goofy cool Exotic even without the mod synergy it afforded. Dodging around a player is hilarious–even if it gets you killed a lot because if you’re too close, people can still just easily punch you in the face.
That, however, means that RDM is an Exotic may not have much use anymore. Apart from the meme opportunities of dashing around other players, and top-tier players who can use it to utterly confuse people before they take them out, RDM isn’t going to fit into many builds without some added benefits to all those dodges. I’m hoping Bungie takes another look at this Exotic and finds a fun middle ground in the future, creating a situation where, in specific cases, having those extra dodges lets you do something cool with a thoughtful build. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I like the idea of Exotics such as Radiant Dance Machines offering more weird, super-specific build benefits that go beyond just letting you annoy people in the Crucible.
Lorentz Driver–now no longer providing PvP wall hacks.
Bungie also tweaked the new Exotic linear fusion rifle, Lorentz Driver, after some PvP complaints. The gun randomly targets and highlights a nearby enemy, marking them as a sort of “bounty” for you to take down; kill three of those enemies and collect the item that drops off them and the gun gets a sick power boost. The bounty part of Lorentz Driver wasn’t particularly useful in PvP, but the targeting was–it would briefly highlight a random nearby enemy even through walls, giving you a quick look at their location. Even with the randomness and the brevity of the highlight, though, a lot of players felt like that was a big advantage, especially against small teams. So Lorentz no longer gives you a brief wall hack in PvP. It’s another good change, really, although I hope Bungie lands on a slightly different solution in the future that makes the targeting system more active in PvP, maybe just adding the highlight when you actually aim at your targeting bounty and giving you a brief glimpse of their actions as they move behind walls. Other Exotics and abilities do something similar, and removing the highlighting sight altogether in PvP feels like Lorentz loses a bit of what makes it unique.
That said, the gun is extremely fun to use in PvP situations (and still works as it originally did in PvE), so even if this is the version we’re using from here on out, it’s a great gun you should be messing around with. The rifle is quick and snappy like The Queenbreaker in its heyday, and there is nothing more satisfying than hearing that satisfyingly deep “WOMP” sound and then snagging an extra kill or two from an unfortunate soul who was standing too close to your target, disintegrated by a Void explosion.
Banter About Banner
Before this gets too much longer, it’s worth a second to look at the new Iron Banner guns. The last few seasons have provided an impressive arsenal of Iron Banner weapons that make jumping into the event worth your time, even if you’re not usually a fan of PvP activities or of the generalized chaos of Iron Banner itself. I’ve been finding myself ripped apart by the fast-firing Forge’s Pledge pulse rifle, which really seems to slap if you can get it with high range and solid damage-boosting perks. It’s great for tearing through unsuspecting players at a distance they might not expect, and its fire rate is so fast that, if you’re landing headshots, you can often take people out before they have a chance to fight back. Forge’s Pledge will stand up pretty well against other pulse rifles generally, thanks to its rate of fire; I’ve lost the matchup while using an un-proc’d No Time To Explain a few times now.
Between Forge’s Pledge, the new bust-firing sidearm Peacebond, the stupidly good Multimach CCX submachine gun, and the reliable Riiswalker shotgun, you can put together quite an armory by dumping some tokens on Lord Saladin. The new armor isn’t too shabby either–now, wearing the new Iron Banner armor while playing Iron Banner gives you a chance at earning Enhancement Prisms at the end of matches. Anything that makes it easier to get Masterwork materials sounds good to me. I’m in debt up to my eyeballs with Spider trying to make new armor builds.
This season’s Iron Banner weapons, like Forge’s Pledge, are providing a lot of great long-term viability for PvP.
One last thing: Read the lore entries on the new Iron Banner gear, because it’ll give you an interesting perspective on what’s going on outside the Dreaming City. Mara Sov might have a plan, but nobody is happy about Savathun just chilling out in a big crystal in the middle of town. In one entry on some of the seasonal gear, you can read about how Caiatl considered just dropping a bunch of bombs on the Dreaming City, and even asked Zavala if he wanted to team up on that endeavor. Sure, it might start a war with the Awoken, but Caiatl was thinking that might still be worth it to have Savathun off the board. (For his part, Zavala decided it wasn’t okay to wipe out a bunch of innocent Awoken for a chance at dropping Savathun. Wonder if we’ll get some alternative views on that decision when The Witch Queen expansion rolls around.)
Lord Saladin, however, might not be so merciful. The Iron Banner guns suggest he’s meeting with Caiatl and putting his differences with the Cabal aside to broker further peace and face the greater threat. Saladin is pissed about the whole Savathun-is-Osiris thing–not to mention shaken by his inability to see through the deception–and it seems like he might be on a background path to revenge that could soon come to the forefront, much in the way we saw the faction coup develop in the lore in Season of the Splicer. Keep paying attention, because there’s a lot of story going on right now.
That’s it for our inaugural installment of Iron Banter, and there’s a whole lot we didn’t get to. If there’s other Destiny stuff you want to talk about, and if this column is something you’re enjoying, drop it in the comments below.
