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The Entertainment Software Association has announced plans to transform E3 into an all-digital event this June, and Xbox is one of the participating companies. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has now further commented on the announcement.

He said on Twitter, “Glad to see the game industry coming together again in June for a digital E3.” The executive went on to say that E3, along with other gaming events, demonstrate that “our industry is strongest when we work together.”

He ended his statement with a tease for Microsoft’s own plans for the summer. “Looking forward to sharing what we have in store this summer,” he said.

Microsoft is participating in E3 2021 in some capacity, but the full extent of its involvement remains to be seen. For what it’s worth, Microsoft previously said it would have more news to share about its games, and those from new subsidiary Bethesda, at some point this summer.

It was previously reported that Microsoft and Bethesda would make announcements during events in the summer. These events might take place on the same day, back-to-back, to deliver a big one-two punch, according to the reports.

As for what Bethesda could discuss, it could be updates on new games like Starfield or The Elder Scrolls VI, or brand-new games altogether. As for Microsoft, the summer show will be just months before Halo Infinite releases during the holiday, while it was also reported that Xbox has more unannounced games to reveal for 2021.

In addition to Xbox, E3 2021’s list of early commitments include Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two, Warner Bros., and Koch Media. The show is slated to take place June 12-15, and its programming will be free for everyone to watch.

After an extended internet campaign to make director Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League a reality, and then a lengthy runway of it actually going into production and then being marketed, numbers are starting to come out about how the movie has actually been landing with audiences. It’s only one metric, but Smart TV viewer-tracking application and audience aggregator Samba TV has recently released data showing that both in the US and the UK, less than half of those who started watching the four-hour epic stuck around for the whole thing.

Luiz Fernando, a data and box-office enthusiast, dug deep on the data in a Twitter thread and revealed that of the 2.2 million households that started watching Zack Snyder’s Justice League on HBO Max, only 36% in the US finished it–whereas in the UK, of 954,000 households only 48% finished. The thread excerpted below has other contrasting data, like the fact that this information means that Wonder Woman 1984 performed better both in its full week debut and after its opening weekend–with 3 million and 400,000 viewers respectively in those categories.

Some other data also worth reflecting on is the recent report that HBO Asia had reportedly crashed as a result of apparent demand for Zack Snyder’s Justice League. In a self-reporting Facebook post on the outage, HBO Asia said its HBO GO service experienced “an unprecedented surge in traffic for the exclusive premiere of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.”

All of this information may point to there being wisdom in Snyder’s pre-release, but still very publicly discussed plans to have multiple theatrical and home releases of the DC movie. It’s unlikely a black and white version–which Snyder has hyped the most–would offer a different result, but it’s also a safe bet others are either waiting in the wings or being worked on as of this writing.

After I ask him what Flight School Studio is all about, creative director Adam Volker laughs and says that the studio’s brand is that of “peculiarity.” Which, given the studio’s track record, makes perfect sense. “We like to make interesting things, and we find interest in oddity, interest in weirdness, and interest in differentness,” he said. “I think we love art, and we love storytelling, and we think there are all sorts of ways to do that that haven’t been done. And so we’re just trying stuff, seeing if it sticks.”

Ahead of the release of a new trailer for Stonefly, Flight School’s latest project, I sat down with Volker to talk about the game, as well as Flight School’s history and identity as a developer. Stonefly is just the most recent game in Flight School’s attempts to make something that’s a bit out there–it’s an intriguingly difficult game to define.

Stonefly is also the second time that Flight School has gone for a more traditional console and PC game than the virtual reality games that defined the studio’s origins. When I asked why Flight School decided to move away from VR games, Volker said, “Well, there’s a boring answer and then an interesting answer. The boring answer is that money dried up in VR.”

Beyond the boring financial reasons, the team also just really wanted to take a stab at a game that would be available on more mainstream platforms. That game turned out to be 2019’s Creature in the Well, a game that the team affectionately refers to as a “pinbrawler.”

“Pinbrawler was a word that somebody at PAX said to us after playing [Creature in the Well], a term we had not ever heard of,” Volker said. “And we’re like, ‘That’s perfect,’ and started marketing it as a pinbrawler.” Flight School counts the experience as a blessing. The team’s games have always been a bit difficult to define in that they take inspiration from many sources but don’t easily compare to other games out there. But describing Creature in the Well as a pinbrawler–shorthand for a game that adds pinball and brawler mechanics to a Legend of Zelda-inspired dungeon crawler–is catchy and easy to market.

It’s magic that Flight School has unfortunately not been able to capture a second time for Stonefly. With the COVID-19 pandemic cancelling all the major gaming events in the latter half of 2020 and the former half of 2021, there hasn’t been a chance for large groups of people to try Stonefly and let Flight School know what specifically about the game is the most enjoyable. “We get a ton of how we market our games from people playing,” Volker said.

On top of that, COVID-19 has changed how Flight School works on games. Flight School has a centralized office location in Dallas with a few folks going to an office space in Montreal. So unlike many indie studios that were already remote working from home operations, Flight School did have to go through the transition of changing where and how people work. Volker said that the team had experienced positive and negative changes since the start of the pandemic–the most noticeable difference is the unfortunate loss of the option for teammates to just call each other over to their desks for quick and easy feedback.

“We started the production [on Stonefly] before [COVID-19], but only by maybe six months or so,” Volker said. “I feel so horrible for [game designer Mel Ramsden] because she came to interview at the studio and we were like, ‘Check out our space, we’ve got this cool coffee machine and lounge area on the sixth floor of this beautiful building in Montreal,’ and then she’s never worked in the studio. We hired her, and then I think it was either the week or like the week after that we went into quarantine in Canada. I feel like she hasn’t even gotten the full experience.”

Part of that full experience is how Flight School pulls from so many sources for its games. Volker said that rather than try to craft unique game mechanics, he and Flight School Studio’s Bohdon Sayre talk about aspects of play. “Play is a much larger space than video games,” Volker said. “And so we’ll look at things like tag or board games–that’s why we talked about sumo wrestling for Stonefly.” During our conversation, Volker threw a lot of other brainstorms at me that he and the team have had for their games, including sports like soccer and baseball and activities like archery, axe throwing, and beer pong.

“Why do people keep doing this–what is beer pong?” he asked me. “Why do people keep playing it all the time? Is it just the social aspect–pretending you’re cooler than everyone in the room–is that the only reason people play? Do people play because they get to drink?” Flight School believes that if you can get at the heart of why someone finds a kind of “play” fun, then you can try and capture that kind of experience in a video game–like making pinball into a combat mechanic.

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In terms of more traditional inspirations, Volker mentioned that Stonefly pulls from Super Smash Bros., Dynasty Warriors, and anime, among other sources. For anime, he specifically mentioned Studio Ghibli–which makes a lot of sense, given that when I first laid eyes on the game and saw it in action, I felt like I was seeing Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty taking place in the same universe as Neon Genesis Evangelion or Gundam. “It’s funny that you mentioned mecha, because I’ve got a Gundam right above my desk,” Volker said.

That sci-fi-inspired setting and story is the only easily apparent connection that Stonefly has to Creature in the Well (when I asked if the team had any sci-fi fans, Volker said, “Oh yeah, totally,” without any hesitation). In practically every other way, Stonefly is a completely different game, which fits Flight School’s pattern of creating games that are very different from what the team has done before.

“It’s kind of our self-preservation,” Volker said. “We would never feel confident going toe-to-toe with BioWare or Bethesda or whatever, and make a giant, traditional third-person action RPG. Because there’s only a few of us, and those other studios employ like hundreds of super talented, brilliant artists. I feel like Bo and I–I don’t know that we’ve ever said this out loud–we have to make something different out there, because otherwise it would just get buried.”

Here’s hoping that Stonefly won’t get buried. I enjoyed the hell out of Creature in the Well and it’s unique implementation of pinball mechanics, so I’m looking forward to seeing how Flight School Studio manages to capture its brand of peculiarity this time around. Stonefly is scheduled to launch for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, PC, and Switch in 2021.

The final trailer for the upcoming thriller Without Remorse has been released. The movie is based on the Tom Clancy novel and hits Amazon Video on April 30.

Without Remorse stars Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Black Panther) as Navy SEAL John Clark, who we are told “is more dangerous and effective than any man we have in the field.” Clark is mourning the death of his wife, but is pulled back into the world of covert ops for a dangerous new mission. Inevitably, nothing about the mission is what it seems and Clark is forced to take matters into his own hands. Plotwise this is familiar territory, but Jordan’s intense charisma and the skill of director Stefano Sollima (Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Gomorrah) at delivering thrilling action should make it an exciting watch. Check the trailer out below:

Without Remorse also stars Jamie Bell, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Guy Pierce. It’s written by Taylor Sherdian, who wrote both Sicario movies. The novel Without Remorse was published in 1993 and was an origin story for John Clark, who had appeared as a supporting character in Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels. Clark has previously been played on screen by Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber.

In related news, it was recently announced that Jordan will make his directorial debut with Creed 3, as well as taking on the lead role once more. The next Rocky spin-off is set for a November 2022 release. However, Rocky creator Sylvester Stallone has also confirmed that he won’t be appearing in this latest movie.

For more, check out the biggest upcoming movies to watch in 2021.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Helen Mirren (State of Play, The Queen) will play Israel’s only female Prime Minister, Golda Meir, in an upcoming biopic titled Golda, according to Deadline. The film will be directed by Guy Nattiv (Skin), and comes from a script by Nicholas Martin (Florence Foster Jenkins). The film is expected to begin production in October.

“As someone who was born during the Yom Kippur War, I am honored to tell this fascinating story about the first and only woman to ever lead Israel,” said Nattiv. “Nicholas Martin’s brilliant script dives into Golda’s final chapter as the country faces a deadly surprise attack during the holiest day of the year, a core of delusional generals undermining Golda’s judgment, all the while undergoing secret treatments for her illness. I could not be more excited to work with the legendary Miss Mirren to bring this epic, emotional, and complex story to life.”

Mirren’s next film, The Duke, is currently slated for a release sometime this year. Like Golda, The Duke is a period piece. The film’s log line reads: “In 1961, Kempton Bunton, a 60-year-old taxi driver, steals Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London.” Mirren plays Dorothy Bunton, Kempton’s wife. The film also stars Jim Broadbent (Game of Thrones), Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk), Matthew Goode (Watchmen), and Anna Maxwell Martin (Line of Duty).

Mirren has also recently been cast as Hespera, a key role in the DC sequel Shazam: Fury of the Gods, which is expected out in 2023. Also on the horizon for the actor is Fast 9, the latest installment in the Fast Saga, which according to its Super Bowl trailer is “coming soon,” and will see Mirren reprise the role of Magdalene Shaw.

Microsoft is greatly expanding the number of titles you can play with touch controls on Xbox Cloud Streaming. In a blog post on Tuesday, Xbox announced that 50+ additional titles now have touch-based controls so you can play them without a controller.

These include Sea of Thieves, Gears 5, Slay the Spire, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of An Elusive Age, Hellblade, Tell Me Why, and Dead Cells. You can see the full list of the 53 games that support touch controls below, as shared on Microsoft’s website.

Xbox Cloud Streaming is included with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. For now, it requires an Android phone or tablet, but Microsoft is teasing an iOS release soon.

The addition of these touch-enabled games is just the latest expansion of Xbox Cloud Streaming. Just recently, Microsoft added backwards-compatible Xbox 360 titles to the streaming library; this was one of the top-request community features.

Xbox Cloud Streaming Games With Touch Controls

(As of April 6, 2021)

• Beholder Complete Edition
• Bridge Constructor Portal
• Celeste
• Dead Cells
• Desperados III
• Don’t Starve: Giant Edition
• Donut County
• Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age
• Enter the Gungeon
• Fractured Minds
• Gears 5
• Golf With Your Friends
• Gucamelee 2
• Hell Neighbor
• Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
• Hotshot Racing
• Ikenfell
• Jetpac Refuelled
• Killer Instinct: Definitive Edition
• Minecraft Dungeons
• Monster Sancturary
• Monster Train
• Morkredd
• Neoverse
• Nightcall
• Nowhere Profit
• Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Ultimate Edition
• Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition
• Project Winter
• River City Girls
• ScourgeBringer
• Slay the Spire
• Spitfarer
• Star Renegades
• Stranger Things 3: The Game
• Streets of Rage 4
• Super Lucky’s Tale
• Tell Me Why: Chapters 1-3
• The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics
• The Little Acre
• The Touryst
• The Walking Dead: A New Frontier Episodes 1-5
• The Walking Dead: Michonne – The Complete Season
• The Walking Dead: Season Two
• The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season
• Touhou Luna Nights
• UnderMine
• Viva Pinata
• Viva Pinata Trouble in Paradise
• What Remains of Edith Finch
• Xeno Crisis
• Yes, Your Grace
• Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

For more games to play on Xbox One or Xbox Series X this month, check out our guides to the best Xbox One games of all time and the best Xbox Series X games available so far. Plus, Game Pass subscribers should check out the best games available with Xbox Game Pass right now. Microsoft also just recently announced April 2021’s new Game Pass titles.

The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

Actor Ray Fisher, perhaps best known for his role as Cyborg in the DC Extended Universe, who recently starred in the polarizing Snyder Cut of Justice League has once again spoken out about some harsh but cryptic accusations he’s recently made about Warner Bros. executives. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Fisher says, “I don’t believe some of these people are fit for leadership.”

In the past, Fisher described abusive and racist behavior he and other cast members faced while on the set for the 2017 version of Justice League, after production was handed over from original director Zack Snyder to pinch hitter Joss Whedon, who finished the film. Speaking with THR, Fisher explains his trepidations and previous apparent fuzziness in his accusations: “I’m not looking to have any witnesses lose their jobs.”

Fisher says before Whedon took over, Snyder and screenwriter Chris Terrio had many lengthy discussions about the importance of telling Cyborg’s–the first Black superhero in the DC film universe–story correctly, a level of consideration that reportedly receded afterwards with Whedon. Instead, says Fisher, he found himself having “to explain some of the most basic points of what would be offensive to the Black community.”

When Fisher took umbrage with the new direction the script was taking, he said Whedon was “dismissive,” and that he similarly brushed off Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa. Last year, Momoa took to social media to offer his support to Fisher’s public allegations. Fisher says he was mindful “that the film was overseen almost entirely by white executives and filmmakers,” and felt his concerns weren’t taken seriously by those higher-ups out of a “fear of losing their jobs.”

“I don’t want them excommunicated from Hollywood, but I don’t think they should be in charge of the hiring and firing of other people.” says Fisher.

In great detail, THR piece and Fisher outline what sounds like a hostile work environment on Whedon’s Justice League–one that saw the director clashing with many of the film’s stars and being largely disinterested in and shutting down any feedback.