Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut is set to release for PS4 and PS5 on August 20. It includes the full original game, plus the Iki Island expansion, an online co-op mode, and a number of digital extras. It’s available to preorder right now at a number of retailers (see it at Amazon).
If you already own Ghost of Tsushima, you don’t need to buy the whole thing again. We have full details about the various upgrade paths below, as well as info about preorder bonuses and more. Let’s get on with it.
If you already have the PS4 version of the game, you can upgrade to the PS4 version of the Director’s Cut for $19.99 on the PlayStation Store beginning on August 20.
If you have the PS4 version and you want to upgrade to the PS5 version of the Director’s Cut, you can do so for $29.99 on the PlayStation Store beginning on August 20.
If you have the PS4 version of the Director’s Cut, you can upgrade to the PS5 version for $10 beginning on August 20.
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut Preorder Bonus
Preorder the digital version from the PlayStation Store, and you’ll receive the following items:
Ghost of Tsushima digital mini soundtrack with 2 new bonus tracks.
Nintendo is adding more titles to Nintendo Switch Online’s SNES library next week. Three additional games join the service on July 28, but like the past few NSO updates, the Western selections are all pretty obscure: Claymates, Jelly Boy, and Bombuzal.
Both Claymates and Jelly Boy are side-scrolling platformers, while Bombuzal is an isometric puzzler. You can check out the new titles in the trailer below. Japan, meanwhile, is once again receiving a largely different lineup of games this month. In place of Jelly Boy and Claymates, the Japanese service is adding Dead Dance and Shin Megami Tensei If.
To date, there are more than 100 games across Switch Online’s NES and SNES libraries, including classics like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Metroid, and more. Each title supports some modern conveniences, including online play, save states, and the ability to rewind. You can see the full list of classic games on Nintendo’s website.
The SNES and NES libraries are included in a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, along with other perks such as cloud save backups, the ability to play online, and some exclusive offers. Individual memberships typically cost $4 for one month, $8 for three months, and $20 for one year, while an annual family plan runs for $35 and covers up to eight Nintendo Accounts across multiple systems.
If you’re interested in trying the service out before subscribing, Nintendo is offering a free seven-day NSO trial right now through its My Nintendo rewards program. Keep in mind that the trial will automatically convert into a monthly membership after it ends unless you turn off automatic renewal.
In other news, NSO subscribers can try out Among Us for free from July 21-27. The social deduction game will also be 30% off in the eShop during the trial period. The free-to-play Pokemon MOBA spin-off, Pokemon Unite, also recently launched on Switch, and everyone who logs in by August 31 will receive a free bonus Pokemon: Zeraora.
Whether or not 2K Sports releases a new PGA Tour 2K game this year remains unknown, but the publisher has now said that the series will continue, and when it comes back, it’ll be “bigger and better in every way.”
Asked about the future of the series, a spokesperson for 2K Sports told GameSpot:
“The next release of the PGA Tour 2K franchise is going to be bigger and better in every way. We’re super excited to tell you more but until then, we’re continuing to add new multiplayer content in PGA Tour 2K21 so our fans can get in and play together today.”
Reading between the lines, it sounds like there won’t be a new PGA Tour 2K game this year, but the company stopped short of confirming that. PGA Tour 2K21 was released in August 2020, and with time closing in on when we’d expect a follow-up, GameSpot asked 2K to clarify what’s happening with the PGA Tour 2K series this year.
2K’s parent company, Take-Two, will announce its next earnings results on August 2, at which time the publisher should update its release calendar to confirm whether or not a new PGA Tour 2K game is coming this year.
Earlier this year, 2K Sports signed a deal with legendary golfer Tiger Woods that will see the 15-time Major winner consult with the developer on future entries in the series, which is developed by 2K’s HB Studios. The team formerly made The Golf Club series before 2K acquired the studio and re-launched the PGA Tour 2K series in 2020 to 2 million sales and counting.
Woods suffered significant injuries during a California car crash in April, but whether or not this had had any impact on the PGA Tour 2K series is unknown. 2K Sports believes its deal with Woods could be Michael Jordan-like for the PGA Tour 2K series.
In addition to strong sales, PGA Tour 2K21 was a critical success for 2K Sports. Here at GameSpot, our PGA Tour 2K21 review scored the game an 8/10, with critic Steven Petite praising it as a game that appeals to both hardcore golf fans and newcomers alike.
Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel reportedly ended their feud back in 2019, but that doesn’t mean the Luke Hobbes actor is returning for Fast & Furious 10 or 11.
“I laughed and I laughed hard,” Johnson said. “I think everyone had a laugh at that. And I’ll leave it at that. And that I’ve wished them well. I wish them well on Fast 9. And I wish them the best of luck on Fast 10 and Fast 11 and the rest of the Fast and Furious movies they do that will be without me.”
Things could change, but Johnson’s comment seems pretty clear: Universal will be making Fast & Furious 10 and 11 without his Hobbes character. However, Johnson’s comment has just enough ambiguity in it to leave open the door for other Fast and Furious movies that could include him a la a sequel to Hobbes & Shaw, or, if we’re lucky, Hobbs & Han (please, Universal).
SlashFilm asked Johnson about this when talking with him about his upcoming Disney movie, Jungle Cruise, so co-star Emily Blunt was there to seemingly make light of the situation. She said, “Just thank god [Diesel] was there” because “he carried you through that,” which is the light ribbing between the two that’s been present in a lot of Jungle Cruises’ marketing thus far.
It’s sad news for the family, but the next two mainline Fast and Furious movies are still years away so who knows, maybe the two can crack open a Corona together and make up once more.
While details about Marvel’s upcoming “legal comedy” Disney+ TV show, She-Hulk, are still mostly being kept under wraps, the cast is constantly growing. Deadline has reported that Josh Segarra (Overboard, Katy Keene) has signed on in an unknown role.
She-Hulk stars Tatiana Maslany in the titular role of Jennifer Walters, a lawyer and cousin to Bruce Banner with similar powers. Able to transform into a giant, green monster–She-Hulk–Walters frequently struggles to balance her high stress day job with her alter-ego. Mark Ruffalo will be reprising his role as Banner, alongside newcomers Renée Elise Goldsberry and Ginger Gonzaga. Most recently, Jameela Jamil (The Good Place) was tapped to play main antagonist Titania, a wealthy woman with super strength and endurance.
In addition to Ruffalo’s return to Bruce Banner, Tim Roth will be making a long-awaited comeback to the role of Abomination for the show–a character that hasn’t been featured in the MCU since The Incredible Hulk (2008). We first caught a glimpse of him in the trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Beyond this, details about the actual plot of the She-Hulk show are vague. We can assume we’ll see plenty of Jennifer dealing with both superheroics and legal mix-ups, but how it will affect the rest of Phase 4, and how it will intersect with the burgeoning multiverse, is anyone’s guess.
She-Hulk currently has no slated premiere date. Next up for the MCU on Disney+ is the animated show What If…? Set to debut on August 11.
Minari filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung will no longer be directing the live-action adaptation of Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name.
According to Deadline, Chung parted ways with the project due to scheduling conflicts, leaving Paramount with the task of finding a replacement. The studio is reportedly actively looking for a new director to draft in and has already reached out to “several potential suitors,” though there’s no word yet on who is in the running.
The Hollywood live-action adaptation of Shinkai’s anime film will be produced by Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams together with Genki Kawamura, who produced the original, while the script is being penned by Arrival screenwriter Eric Heisserer. Toho will handle the movie’s distribution in Japan, with Paramount bringing it to theaters in all other territories.
Shinkai initially expressed his enthusiasm for the live-action adaptation, saying, “When such a work is imbued with Hollywood filmmaking, we may see new possibilities that we had been completely unaware of—I am looking forward to the live-action film with excited anticipation,” though he later added that he’s “not much interested” in how it is actually being handled.
One of the most exciting elements of each new Madden game is finding out the player ratings, and we won’t have to wait much longer to learn how the best stack up.
Electronic Arts has announced that the ratings for Madden NFL 22 will once again be revealed through ESPN over the period of a week, from July 25-30.
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The event kicks off on Sunday, July 25 at 9:30 AM PT / 12:30 PM ET as part of a special SportsCenter broadcast featuring ESPN personalities Laura Rutledge and Mina Kimes. The rest of the reveals will happen across ESPN’s other shows during the rest of the week.
The highest-rated players–those achieving 99 ratings–will be revealed during ESPN’s Get Up each morning throughout the week, while the top 10 players for a number of positions will be unveiled on First Take, SportsCenter, and NFL Live.
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ESPN’s Andy Tennant said the network’s coverage “will be replete with analysis and behind-the-scenes storytelling” about Madden.
The week-long reveals will wrap up on Friday, July 30 on ESPN with Louis Riddick and Kimes interviewing even more players and unveiling more ratings. Former NFL players Chad Johnson, Marshawn Lynch, and Alex Smith will be featured in the Madden ratings reveal programming.
Madden NFL 22 Ratings Reveal Schedule:
Monday, July 26: Top 10 Wide Receivers with Chad Johnson on First Take and full WR ratings reveal on SportsCenter, with additional coverage breaking down ESPN’s NFL commentators and analyst own Madden ratings on NFL Live
Tuesday, July 27: Top 10 Defensive Linemen with Vince Wilfork on First Take and live reveal of top 10 Edge Rushers on SportsCenter and NFL Live
Wednesday, July 28: Top Running Backs with Marshawn Lynch on First Take and full running back ratings reveal on SportsCenter and NFL Live
Thursday, July 29: Top 10 Safeties with Ed Reed on First Take, with additional ratings revealed on SportsCenter and NFL Live
Friday, July 30: Top 10 Quarterbacks with Alex Smith on First Take, with additional ratings revealed on SportsCenter and NFL Live
The Madden 22 ratings that get revealed next week represent the launch ratings for all players. As usual, ratings can and will fluctuate throughout the season based on how players perform in real life.
Madden 22 launches on August 20, featuring Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes on the cover together. For more, check out GameSpot’s Madden 22 preorder guide.
Detroit: Become Human has passed another sales milestone on its way to becoming the best-selling game of all time from developer Quantic Dream.
Become Human, which was originally released in 2018 for PS4, has now sold 6 million copies in total. This includes 1 million on PC as of July 6, 2021. Additionally, Quantic Dream said the game became the fifth most-streamed PC game on PlayStation Now for Spring 2021.
Overall, Become Human is Quantic Dream’s highest-selling game of all time, eclipsing Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain. Become Human likely has many more players than 6 million, too, as the game has been available on PlayStation Plus.
“Despite the sanitary crisis going on, 2020 was a very strong year in terms of growth for our studio,” Quantic Dream co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere said in a statement. He added that 2020 was a record year for Quantic Dream in terms of revenue.
Quantic Dream is no longer working exclusively with PlayStation, nor is it only a game developer. In 2019, the company began publishing titles from other studios, including Sea of Solitude: The Director’s Cut for Nintendo Switch. Additionally, Quantic Dream is funding Eqqo developer Parallel Studio’s next game and co-producing Red Thread Games’ new game, Dustborn.
In addition to its publishing efforts, Quantic Dream is currently developing an unannounced AAA game across its studios in Paris and Montreal. Cage told IGN that he’s excited to branch out and try new things with Quantic Dream’s next game.
“There are other ways of telling moving and emotional stories that we haven’t tried out yet, and I am really interested in exploring new directions,” he said. Cage added that he does not want to “milk the cow, and just make more games in the style that we created in the past.”
Quantic Dream was called out for a toxic workplace environment. Cage told IGN that all allegations against the studio have been proven wrong by independent audits. For the new office in Montreal, Quantic Dream will have a special HR team to address “workplace issues that may arise are dealt with in a swift and professional manner.”
Additionally, the management teams in Paris and Montreal will have harassment training. There is also a third-party investigation that will take place every year.
Roccat’s newest headset, the Syn Pro Air, has some appealing qualities on paper. It looks sharp. It’s got RGB lighting with a style unique among headsets. It has some neat features and upgrades, including 3D audio and a detachable mic with flip-to-mute functionality, a rare combination at the moment. Those flourishes, enticing as they are, fall flat in the face of some larger problems. Its loose fit leads to annoying adjustment issues. Pairing the headset takes a little longer than it should. Meanwhile, Roccat’s new configuration app, which launched alongside it, is a mess. The Roccat Syn Pro Air’s problems outweigh its achievements, showing that a makeover and flashy features can’t hide a headset’s fundamental flaws.
At a glance, every part of the Syn Pro Air looks like it’s designed to stand out from other, similar gaming headsets. The all-plastic top band and ear cups are covered with a thick, slightly scratchy mesh padding. Instead of sliding interlocked pieces inside the top band, the forks adjust via a pair of sliding cylinders locked onto the outside of the frame. RGB lighting in the base of each earpiece reveals a plastic honeycomb design underneath the plastic chassis, mirroring the design from Roccat’s recent mice, such as the Roccat Burst Pro and Kone Pro Air. These design nuances are only noticeable up close, but they give the Syn Pro Air a pop of personality.
The Syn Pro Air’s all-plastic frame makes for a light headset – 311 grams – without compromising its durability. A light headset is a comfortable headset, but the design has its issues. The top band is very wide so the headset doesn’t clamp, even on my fairly large noggin. It slides out of position very easily, and may even fall off if you shake your head forcefully. Despite the loose fit, it still provides a decent amount of passive noise-cancellation, reducing the impact of nearby ambient noise.
The earcup adjustment mechanism is also loose: When hung from a desk-mounted headphone hook, the earcups slid down and out of place. And without notches or numbers on the cylinders, you have to rediscover your ideal fit every time you put them on. On the plus side, the forks rotate, so you can lay the earcups flat on your chest or a desk.
Speaking of earcups, the mesh-coated earpieces are large, roomy, and heavily cushioned with a firm memory foam. Without any meaningful clamp from the top band, you don’t really feel cushioning much, but the wide padding helps the cups fit right and feel comfortable. Inside, the headset features 50mm drivers, which is standard for a mid-to-high-end headset.
There aren’t a ton of onboard controls and ports on the Syn Pro Air. On the left earcup, you have a volume control wheel, a power button, and a USB-C charging port. On the right, you have a second wheel, which lets you adjust mic monitoring in your headphone mix. It’s worth noting that the headset does not allow you to establish a wired connection via USB-C, so you’ll need to keep the dongle plugged in if you want to continue using it while charging.
The Syn Pro Air relies on a 2.4 GHz wireless connection via a USB dongle. It generally supplies a reliable, low-latency connection, which can keep up with competitive and non-competitive gameplay experiences… Once it’s connected, that is. Over more than a week of testing, I found that the Syn Pro Air and its wireless dongle frequently had trouble syncing up. In theory, when you turn on the headset, it should automatically pair with the dongle and start working effortlessly. In practice, the headset needs to be within a few inches of the wireless dongle to pair. I found myself laying the headset next to the dongle on top of my desktop for about 20-30 seconds every time I turned it on. The connection is great once the headset and dongle find each other, but the pairing process is far more painful than it needs to be.
On the plus side, it gets decent, if not stellar battery life. According to Roccat, the headset should last up to 16 hours on a full charge with the RGB lighting on, or 24 hours with RGBs off. I found the headset lasted through 3-4 days of everyday use, including gaming and work. That isn’t bad, but it isn’t outstanding, either. On the plus side, it features USB-C rapid-charging that can bring the headset back to a full charge in less than an hour.
The Syn Pro Air has an interesting detachable microphone. The long, popsicle-stick-shaped boom is larger than what you’d get with most detachable mics, and slightly less pliable. But it comes with a bonus; a rotating base that lets you flip the boom up when it isn’t in use, which automatically mutes the microphone. Flip-to-mute is common among headsets with permanently affixed microphones, but it’s pretty rare to see a detachable flip-up mic.
Syn Pro Air – Software
Roccat released a new configuration app alongside the Syn Pro Air called Roccat Neon, a sleek, streamlined app that allows you to adjust your audio mix, toggle virtual surround sound settings, and adjust the headset’s RGB lighting, among other things. It’s simple, looks clean, and makes it easy to find all of its settings. The app is only compatible with the Syn Pro Air for now, but the Roccat website suggests that it will become a universal configuration app for its peripherals.
For now, Neon is in beta, which you may accept as a reasonable excuse for why it doesn’t entirely work at the moment. Neon has a fair number of customizable options available, but not every setting works as expected. For example, the RGB lighting controls allow you to switch between a rotating pre-set pattern and Roccat’s AI-driven Aimo lighting mode, but don’t allow you to set the two discrete RGB lighting zones to specific colors. In the main settings menu, some options, like the 3D audio toggle, feature info buttons that don’t prompt any explanatory text.
There are also some features that I’d argue should be present, but aren’t available. Neon has an EQ menu that lets you tweak your audio mix, but doesn’t provide any presets or allow you to save custom profiles. None of the audio settings feature any kind of quick sound test, so you’ll have to bring your own.
On the plus side, Roccat has already taken steps to fix some of the larger issues present when I began this review, so the app is demonstrably heading towards full functionality. Still, at the current rate I wouldn’t expect Neon to be a capable app for at least a few months. Until that time, Neon’s half-baked feature-set undercuts many of the Syn Pro Air’s special features.
Syn Pro Air – Gaming
Setting aside the settings, the Syn Pro Air delivers good, though not necessarily impressive audio. Its smooth, balanced sound presents as clean and clear for easy listening. When you take a closer listen, though, it lacks the detail you’d expect from a top-flight headset.
In Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, you can hear the difference between when a bullet whizzes by in the open air or pings off a metal wall, but the latter sounds slightly dull. Even with Turtle Beach’s signature “Superhuman Hearing,” a performance-focused feature that makes footsteps easier to hear, I really needed to concentrate to follow the sounds of other players’ movements. Unlike past versions of the feature, however, Superhuman Hearing didn’t noticeably degrade the game’s audio quality – a problem that normally leads me to steer clear of it – so I’m cautiously optimistic that it may become more usable in Roccat and Turtle Beach’s future headsets.
The Syn Pro Air is Roccat’s first stab at 3D audio, expanding the virtual surround sound experience to incorporate angles above and below you. In Black Ops Cold War, you can follow players as they move up and down stairs or scale structures. As with the Superhuman Hearing, I found it was more difficult than expected to keep tabs on other players this way, but it does allow for more precision when you put in the effort.
In terms of chat, the Syn Pro Air’s microphone is very capable. Even with limited articulation, it’s easy to get it into a position where people can hear you loud and clear. That said, it also picks up a lot of ambient noise without any meaningful noise-cancelling countermeasures.
The first five episodes of Masters of the Universe: Revelation are available to stream Friday, July 23 on Netflix.
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As a sequel to Filmation’s classic cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, from He-Man superfan Kevin Smith, is a bonafide blast.
Developed and designed to be a follow up for like-minded Eternia stans, this new series might not play the same for those with little knowledge of the original, but for those familiar with these characters (and the old action figures and play sets), Masters of the Universe: Revelation superbly spins the story on its head and approaches the lore in a fun and satisfyingly modern way — even expanding parts of it that weren’t previously explained.
Revelation is chock full of twists, turns, and bold new takes on a few of the characters, but it also makes a point to honor the past. Nothing new presented here negates the previous series, which was born of a massively successful Mattel toy line and ran for 130 episodes in the mid-’80s. It only drives the saga forward in a more mature and serialized fashion — in ways more aligned with both modern animation and Golden Era TV.
This is definitely a more adult-oriented spotlight for He-Man and company, but it’s not full-tilt rated-R fare like Amazon’s Invincible. This is still a solid family-friendly adventure, but it shows characters dealing with more serious problems and making harder choices. The first episode, “The Power of Grayskull,” drops fans into the ongoing battle between good and evil — between He-Man and Skeletor — that served as the spine for the entire original series. Then, after making sure the original recipe formula was being honored and acknowledged, it blows everything up quite spectacularly. What then follows is an exciting and giddily rewarding journey that makes new and wonderful use of the ensemble.
The voice cast for Revelation is top-notch, but the real star is the story and what the series does with the characters. Sure, it’s awesome to hear Mark Hamill as Skeletor, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Teela, Game of Thrones’ Lena Headey and Liam Cunningham as Evil-Lyn and Man-At-Arms, respectively, and many more big name talents, but the surprising draw here is the fact that He-Man, more or less, is secondary to this tale, at least for these first five episodes.
Prince Adam and He-Man (voiced by Supergirl’s Chris Wood) are important, but they really serve as backdrop. In a manner similar to how Max acts as a lesser lead to Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, Revelation draws upon the might and majesty of He-Man to facilitate others’ arcs. Basically, this is Teela’s show. In taking this approach, Revelation can act both as a stunning sequel and also a wondrous “What If?”-type spinoff for those viewers unwilling to accept some choices as pure canon.
After Revelation opens the show by taking us beyond where we thought the He-Man mythos could go — while also making fun callbacks to both the original series and the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie — it becomes an epic odyssey about loss, redemption, and sacrifice. A new ragtag team of champions, formed of both heroes and villains, is tasked with returning magic to Eternia and saving the entire universe. Lifelong enemies learn to work together, while still operating under different sets of priorities and motivations, and it all culminates in a wicked game-changing cliffhanger that nicely sets up the back half of the season, which will be released at a later date.
Revelation takes some big swings, but still spares time for smaller moments of sentiment. It also makes fun use of He-Man’s insane rogue’s gallery of villains, with some (like Mer-Man, Tri-Klops, Stinkor) appearing prominently and others (like Clawful, Spikor, and — da hell? — Blast-Attak?) making for formidable background fodder. Again, long-time fans will know who these folks are, but for the uninitiated, they might just feel like random craziness.
Executive producer/showrunner Kevin Smith and his writers have very much created a niche product here, but it’s a beautiful and engrossing one that infuses Masters of the Universe nostalgia — which is filled with after-school special morals for a younger set — with heartfelt storytelling that contains actual consequences. It takes all the incongruous elements of the old story, with its wild mix of magic and tech, and silly characters who seemed like they were Mad Libs’d together, and makes it all feel connected and worthy of being part of the same mosaic. In an era of sequels we never thought we’d get, Revelation is a dazzling and exciting continuation that adds maturity and layers to a somewhat silly saga from the past, while never robbing the original of its goofy glory.
