With a new Dune movie hitting theaters in late 2020, the seminal science-fiction franchise will also be making its return to the comic book arena this year. BOOM! Studios has announced a new adaptation of the Dune prequel novel House Atreides.
Dune: House Atreides is a 12-issue limited series adapting the 1999 novel by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Herbert and Anderson are also scripting this adaptation, though no artist has been revealed yet.
The first entry in the “Prelude to Dune” trilogy of books, House Atreides is set decades before the events of the original Dune novel. The story focuses on a young Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac’s character in the movie) and his future bodyguard Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa’s “Han Solo-esque” character) as they discover their shared destiny in a galaxy torn apart by revolution and political strife. Dune: House Atreides was followed by 2000’s Dune: House Harkonnen and 2001’s Dune: House Corrino.
Dune: House Atreides is published in an arrangement with Herbert Properties LLC and Abrams ComicArts. Abrams is also publishing a trilogy of graphic novel adaptations of the original Dune novel, with scripts by Herbert and Anderson, art by Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín and covers by Bill Sienkiewicz. Both Dune: Volume 1 and Dune: House Atreides #1 are slated to hit stores in Fall 2020, ahead of the film’s December 18 release.
“Dune: House Atreides holds a special place in my heart,” said Herbert in Boom’s press release. “It was the first novel Kevin and I wrote in my father’s fantastic Dune universe, and it is our first collaborative novel to be adapted for comics. In 1999, our novel was a surprise New York Times bestseller, and we have equally high expectations for this special BOOM! Studios adaptation.”
“It’s been more than twenty years since Brian and I published House Atreides, the first of our new novels set in Frank Herbert’s Dune universe,” said Anderson. “We loved exploring all the possibilities Frank created for us, and those books introduced a whole new audience to Dune. Now, in adapting House Atreides into a vibrant graphic format, it’s like rediscovering the story and the world all over again. So much of the novel is visually driven, the union of comics and House Atreides is a natural.”
This isn’t the only adaptation of Herbert and Anderson’s prequel novels in the works. A TV series called Sisterhood of Dune is being developed for the HBO Max streaming platform. A direct spinoff of director Denis Villeneuve’s movies, Sisterhood of Dune will delve deeper into the Bene Gesserit religious order and their efforts to produce the cosmic messiah known as the Kwisatz Haderach.
Star Wars: Episode 1 is memorable for a few key, standout reasons: Darth Maul, the podrace scene–end of list. But the podrace was immortalized in the classic game Episode 1 Racer that’s now being ported to PS4 and Nintendo Switch. That port has now been delayed indefinitely on both platforms.
In a tweet, publisher Aspyr announced that the port is being further delayed because of complications from the work-at-home requirements that are happening all across the industry due to coronavirus. This followed a previous delay for the PS4 version from May 12 to May 26. The new announcement didn’t attach a new release date for either platform.
In Episode 1, podracing is a deadly high-stakes sport enjoyed on the dusty planet of Tatooine and basically involves tethering two jet engines to a soapbox car. Despite sapping all dramatic tension by making the stakes so high that there’s no way Anakin could possibly lose the race, it was visually thrilling and a neat bit of world-building in the Star Wars universe.
We are so excited to share Star Wars Episode l: Racer with you soon! Unfortunately, due to the ongoing work from home requirements across the industry, the game will be further delayed on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. We’ll be back with an update as soon as possible.
“Its sense of speed is great, especially when you are whipping past corridors and canyons at 600mph,” Elliot Chin wrote in GameSpot’s Star Wars Episode 1: Racer review. “The graphics for the most part look good; the tracks are plentiful, varied, and interesting; and the racing experience is plain fun.”
Great Scott! Can you believe that Back to the Future is 35 years old this year? The sci-fi comedy classic debuted in 1985, and it’s one of the best films from that decade. Now, actor Josh Gad has put together another episode of Reunited Apart–a video conference call featuring actors, writers, and directors–and this time, it features the cast of Back to the Future.
On April 27, Gad debuted the first episode of the YouTube series featuring the cast of Goonies. On May 11, Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, director Robert Zemeckis, and more came together to talk to Gad about their experiences on the film and do some “table” reads of the scripts from the three films. Check it out below.
For any fan of the movie series, it’s just a lot of fun to see what these actors are up to and what they look like now. It will put a smile on any fan’s face. Gad’s new series is a fundraiser for Project Hope, which delivers masks and protective equipment to health workers on the front line of the pandemic.
Sadly, a few faces were missing, including Crispin Glover, who had a falling out after not appearing in the sequel, compounded with Zemeckis using a lookalike double. Glover sued over the film because of the bait and switch with audiences, which led to new rules within the Screen Actors Guild. The other main actor missing was Thomas F. Wilson who played Biff Tannen, Griff Tannen, and Buford ‘Mad Dog’ Tannen throughout the three films.
In other Back to the Future news, writer Bob Gale revealed some info about the timetable for the first movie, stating that Marty was only in 1955 for seven days, and that’s why his parents don’t really remember him in present day–1985.
Runeterra is the world of League of Legends, Riot’s MOBA that has arguably experienced a Golden Age of esports in the past few years. The MOBA has undergone various lore overhauls, but centralized all of its bits and pieces in 2016 to come up with a vision for Runeterra and its competing factions, as well as the backstories of the game’s champions. The latest step in fleshing out this world is Legends of Runeterra, Riot Games’ flagship contribution to the current online card game market–with DNA that’s a highly entertaining splice job between streamlined design sensibilities and touches that harken back to the original card game great, Magic: The Gathering.
The realm of Runeterra feels fully realized here, and part of that is how the game revolves around the various in-universe factions that are currently playable: Piltover & Zaun, Bilgewater, Demacia, Freljord, Ionia, Noxus, and the Shadow Isles. You’re not playing for rounds of ale at a tavern; this feels like a conflict of a uniquely larger scale because of the game’s insistence on you not embodying a hero but instead commanding them.
Each faction has these heroes, though they’re called champions. They’re souped-up cards representative of characters from League of Legends who are somewhere between Legendaries in Hearthstone and Planeswalkers in Magic: The Gathering–game-changing because they’re stronger than your average unit, but not game-breaking. The factions have their own unique playstyles that span the whole spectrum from aggro to control, spell-heavy to flood-dependent, and more. The champions themselves all buy into each faction’s playstyle fantasy, with flashy animations that depict their unique personalities and strengths.
Each deck is built from two core factions; which two factions you choose is left entirely up to you. You can build a Zaun and Ionia combination deck that relies on cards that reward you for both making and spending spells. You can alternatively decide to build a deck all about flooding the board or powering up attacking allies by going with Demacia and Frejlord.
Each faction’s core identity is intended to be very different, and with more factions to be added down the line, it’s likely that the game’s meta will evolve for as long as new champions are introduced. The recent Bilgewater patch introduced fan-favorite additions from League of Legends like Miss Fortune, and with new champions regularly released into Runeterra’s ecosystem via Riot’s MOBA, it’s easy enough to see how a steady stream of trickle-down hero introductions can give the game a sense of content longevity.
Where a healthy amount of Legends of Runeterra’s charm lies for the average player, though, is likely going to be in the fact that it’s eye-catching. It’s all shiny and chrome with large buttons, seamless scaling of visuals in windowed mode, and cosmetic pets that will be a hit with the Little Legends crowd, and card effects both look and sound spectacular as they play out across the board.
Whether you’re doing something as simple as forcing an enemy to block one of your units or leveling up a champion, the sound design complements whatever’s happening visually: cards are dragged into place with a satisfying thunk, and going Deep (powering up, essentially) with an aquatic unit has an answering croon worthy of the Loch Ness monster.
It’s these touches that make Legends of Runeterra appealing from an aesthetic perspective, but the test of a card game’s stickiness is more than whether or not it looks good; it’s about the pace of play. On that front, Legends of Runeterra’s quick and inherently reactive playstyle feels itself like a reaction to some of the complaints that have been leveled at its competitors. Matches are reasonably fast on the face of things: Everyone’s working with 20 Nexus HP (the health of your base), and that’s what you’ll have to knock off each other to win. However, unlike Hearthstone, there are distinct phases that make up each player’s individual round.
The flow generally looks a little like this: summoning units or casting spells (who don’t have summoning sickness, which in itself speeds up play), declaring attackers, declaring blockers, countering with spells or other unit effects, and the resolution of both combat and Slow spell effects. There’s an Attack token that flip-flops between players every round, ensuring predictability of whether you’ll be attacking or defending at any given time.
With each card played, your opponent is allowed to make a corresponding move of their own–it feels a lot more like a game of chess, where pieces move across the board in the service of a larger gambit, while very much reacting to immediate threats as they occur.
This sort of play generates a very back-and-forth flow, both within your individual round and also within an individual match. The balance of power can shift in a single round quite effectively, especially in spell-heavy duels where players have a lot of mana and enough cards on the bench to counter each other turn for turn. You can, in theory, resolve a board state before you even get to the combat phase by taking out your opponent’s units while they do the same to yours because of rolling spell effects and card passives that come into play once attackers have been declared.
This is the kind of experience that you can’t quite get from existing offerings without a framework that raises the difficulty floor. Magic: The Gathering has often been noted as being a game that can feel impenetrable to newcomers, but Legends of Runeterra has a number of ways in which it tries to ease first-time players into the experience.
Making factions the essence of deckbuilding is one such way, but making cards themselves strongly tied to easily identifiable champions and playstyles is another. Elise, the eight-legged arachnowoman champion, summons Spider units when she attacks. The faction she’s from, the Shadow Isles, has spell cards that buff Spider units specifically, and plenty of cards with an interaction called Last Breath: Cards either summon units or trigger an effect when they die, so killing off allies can set you on an inexorable death march to victory.
Even if you don’t know the first thing about what type of terminology describes that sort of deck, it’s very clear how a deck with Elise is going to work. Because of the limited number of champions available, and the fact that she’s the only one who ties in with arachnids like this, if you see an enemy playing spiders, then you can intuit what to expect even if you’re going in blind.
Legends of Runeterra tries its hardest to be something that’s easy to pick up and difficult to put down, and the way that it limits real-money purchases rewards your time investment instead of a monetary one.
The same goes for every champion and its accompanying archetype–encountering a new one in the wild feels challenging but not daunting since you have a common base of understanding. Legends of Runeterra’s various modes (Expeditions and regular PvP) offer you the chance to sharpen your understanding of how to compete against others, whether it’s building a deck from random presets that you can refine between victorious moments or just testing out a new formula with no restrictions on your creativity.
Expeditions will be familiar to those who have played Hearthstone’s Arena mode. You draft a deck from selections of cards, picking two faction archetypes and then a combination of cards that will ideally take you to multiple victories as you progress through a series of matches against other players who have done the same. When you win, you get the chance to tweak your deck which Hearthstone’s Arena mode fails to give you; you can trade cards that haven’t performed for you in your match-ups for ones with more synergy, allowing you to refine your strategy as you go, pushing you on to greater heights.
Other quality-of-life innovations to what’s already available in current online card games include the underrated Oracle function, present in the form of an eye to the left of your board. If you’re not sure about how your chosen actions in a turn might play out (because let’s face it, it can be hard to track a bevy of nested card effects, especially if you’re trying to calculate lethal), Oracle will tell you by showing off the board state when your actions have concluded–an obvious game-changer if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed.
There are also Challenges that are fleshed-out tutorials to acquaint you with various champions and how their archetypes work, though they’re clearly also vehicles to deliver the lore of Runeterra. Each Challenge gives you valuable experience with various types of decks or card passives, and they all tell a story of their own that’s rooted in how various champions conflict with each other. With each Challenge, you’re not only gaining mechanical knowledge; you’re also being exposed to the nuances of the space that each faction and its representative units occupy in the in-game world, replete with engaging cinematic effects and more.
However, while champions are introduced organically via those Challenges, some of the ways that Legends of Runeterra explains or handles its mechanics via card text aren’t always obvious. Connecting with these stronger cards is one thing, but separate deck mechanics like going Deep (powering up cards based on rapidly drawing and discarding others), or Scout (allowing a second Attack round in a turn but only if your first go exclusively uses units with this passive) aren’t as easily explained in practice. Those who play League of Legends already might be able to intuit a fair number of card effects without even reading them, just based on familiarity with a champion or faction’s ethos, but the same can’t be said for those approaching this with totally fresh eyes.
That being said, Legends of Runeterra tries its hardest to be something that’s easy to pick up and difficult to put down, and the way that it limits real-money purchases rewards your time investment instead of a monetary one. Leveling up various factions by using their cards leads to cool rewards like new champions over time, opening you up to new possibilities in-game as you gain more mechanical skill and ways to exercise it.
Whether you’re playing Expeditions, drafting a wild deck in traditional PvP, or picking apart a previously successful strategy, Legends of Runeterra finds a way to reward you for it by always having something for you to gain experience toward. Spending time in the game is investing in your future success, and the gains are often represented quite immediately in the form of new cards to toy with, bringing the most avid players back to the drawing board for more. While balance changes are undoubtedly on the horizon and the state of the game will evolve over time, Legends of Runeterra currently does a good job of introducing players to a colorful world popularised by League of Legends, and it’s a rollicking good time to boot.
Coming this week to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, developer Infinity Ward has revealed that the first-person shooter will get a playlist update that adds some new game modes on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Demolition, which was unveiled earlier this month, is now live in Modern Warfare. Seen in a variety of Call of Duty games, including Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2, Demolition tasks your team with either planting or defusing a bomb. While it shares a lot of DNA with Search and Destroy, Demolition differs in that you can respawn and bomb-defusing doesn’t end the round. This gives you multiple opportunities to complete the objective, unlike the one life you’re given in Search and Destory. The game mode is likely playable on a bunch of different maps, but Infinity Ward mentioned three in particular: Hackney Yard, Rust, and Shoot House.
Also revealed earlier this month, 3v3 Gunfight Knives Only is now playable on all platforms. This game mode foregoes the firepower for a more barbaric approach to combat. You can only use knives in this mode, meaning you’ll have to throw, melee, and use Finishing Moves to win six rounds.
Additionally, Modern Warfare will get an overall playlist update that changes the Shoot the Ship 24/7 moshpit into Shoot the Rusty Ship 24/7. On Rust, Shipment, and Shoot House, you can take part in close-range engagements in both deathmatch and objective-based modes. More information about this playlist update will arrive sometime this week.
There’s more coming to Call of Duty this week as well. Infinity Ward revealed that Modern Warfare will get a new Operator and legendary weapons soon, additional weapon blueprints, and more.
In other Call of Duty news, Infinity Ward recently rolled out a patch that nerfed the Snake Shot and addressed a few exploits, namely the helicopter bug. Previously, players were able to glitch the airborne vehicles under the map in Warzone, which prompted Infinity Ward to temporarily remove them from the game. Helicopters have since been added back to Warzone.
The CBS All Access original series The Twilight Zone is returning to the streaming service for a second season on June 25. And with that announcement comes trailer for the upcoming episodes.
While specifics about plot for the individual episodes of the anthology series haven’t been revealed, the trailer is unsettling–mainly because of that score. The Twilight Zone is a series focusing on the unimaginable, twisting ideas which many would consider “dreams” into “nightmares.” It was Black Mirror before Black Mirror, without the technological bend to every story. Check out the trailer below.
The latest season of the show will feature quite a few well-known stars, including Billy Porter, Morena Baccarin, Topher Grace, Tony Hale, Jurnee Smollett, Joel McHale, and Chris Meloni. Many of these stars were announced at the beginning of May, along with the episode titles for Season 2. More recently, photos from Season 2 were revealed, but they still don’t give much of an idea of what to expect, except Thomas Lennon is the host of some sort of variety show.
Twilight Zone Season 2 episode titles:
“8”
Starring Joel McHale (Community, Stargirl) and Brandon Jay McLaren (UnREAL, Graceland)
Written by Glen Morgan
Directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead
“A Small Town”
Starring Damon Wayans Jr. (Happy Endings, Let’s Be Cops), David Krumholtz (The Deuce, Evel), Natalie Martinez (Reminiscence, The I-Land), and Paula Newsome (Barry, Chicago Med)
Written by Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due
Directed by Alonso Alvarez-Barreda
“Try, Try”
Starring Topher Grace (Blackkklansman, Black Mirror) and Kylie Bunbury (When They See Us, Pitch)
Written by Alex Rubens
Directed by Jennifer McGowan
“You Might Also Like”
Starring Gretchen Mol (Boardwalk Empire, Manchester by the Sea) and Greta Lee (Russian Doll, High Maintenance)
Written and directed by Osgood Perkins
“Ovation”
Starring Jurnee Smollett-Bell (Birds of Prey, Lovecraft Country), Tawny Newsome (Space Force, Lower Decks), Sky Ferreira (Baby Driver, Twin Peaks), Paul F. Tompkins (BoJack Horseman, Comedy Bang! Bang!), and Thomas Lennon (Reno 911!, Night at the Museum franchise)
Written by Emily C. Chang and Sara Amini
Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour
“Downtime”
Starring Morena Baccarin (The Deadpool franchise, Homeland), Colman Domingo (If Beale Street Could Talk, Fear the Walking Dead) and Tony Hale (Veep, Toy Story 4)
Written by Jordan Peele
Directed by JD Dillard
“The Who of You”
Starring Ethan Embry (Grace and Frankie, Blindspotting), Daniel Sunjata (Graceland, Rescue Me), and Billy Porter (Pose, Like a Boss)
Written by Win Rosenfeld
Directed by Peter Atencio
“A Human Face”
Starring Jenna Elfman (Fear the Walking Dead, Dharma & Greg), Chris Meloni (The Handmaid’s Tale, 42), and Tavi Gevinson (Person to Person, Enough Said)
Written by Alex Rubens
Directed by Christina Choe
“Among The Untrodden”
Introducing Abbie Hern and Sophia Macy
Written by Heather Anne Campbell
Directed by Tayarisha Poe
“Meet in the Middle”
Starring Jimmi Simpson (Westworld, Black Mirror: USS Callister) and Gillian Jacobs (Community, Love)
Written by Emily C. Chang and Sara Amini
Directed by Mathias Herndl
Twilight Zone returns to CBS All Access in June. And while you wait, consider listening to GameSpot’s weekly TV series and movies-focused podcast, You Should Be Watching. With new episodes premiering every Wednesday, you can watch a video version of the podcast over on GameSpot Universe or listen to audio versions on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and Apple Podcasts.
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.
Nintendo has never been shy about sending legal challenges to fan-projects based on their intellectual property, and the unofficial PC port of Super Mario 64 is no different. YouTube footage of the fan-engineered port first emerged last week, which showed off its support for widescreen resolutions and modern visual effects through external software like Reshade.
That footage has now been removed from the popular video-sharing site, and download links to the port have disappeared across the web. According to the site Torrent Freak, this is due to legal action from Wildwood Law Group LLC, a law firm that has represented Nintendo in similar situations. As first spotted by Torrent Freak, the filed DMCA complaint reads in part: “The copyrighted work is Nintendo’s Super Mario 64 video game, including the audio-visual work, software, and fictional character depictions covered by U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA[REDACTED].”
While Nintendo has successfully removed the original video and its accompanying download, it will be far more difficult–if not impossible–to completely scrub the existence of the port from the internet. A simple YouTube search reveals dozens of videos that show off the PC port and its advanced graphical features. Similarly, while Nintendo issued a takedown notice for the acclaimed Metroid fan-game AM2R back in 2016, forcing the original developer to step aside, a development group of similarly-minded aficionados have continued to work on it.
According to recent reports, Super Mario 64 will soon make its way to Switch as part of a collection of some of Mario’s best games. If you’re interested in more Mario madness, a modder has recreated many of the best moments in Super Mario Odyssey in Super Mario 64.
We’ve reached out to Nintendo to see if they have any comment on these developments, and we will update this accordingly if we receive a response.
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Starting tonight at 7 PM ET, NBCUniversal will broadcast a daily variety show on its streaming service, Peacock, as well as for free via Facebook and YouTube. The At-Home Variety Show is set to be hosted by The Orville, Family Guy, and American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane and features an enormous line-up of actors, comedians, musicians, and athletes starring in short segments.
As reported by The Wrap, MacFarlane “will introduce each segment, which will generally be under 10 minutes and will feature performances from NBCU stars.” The At-Home Variety Show is, at least in part, meant to help raise money for charity. Peacock has announced its support for the United Way, Feeding America, and Americares and promises to help raise funds for three American non-profits selected, according to its website, for their ability to “[provide] critical services to essential workers and those communities most in need.”
The list of guests confirmed to appear on the show is huge. It includes Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Elizabeth Banks, Terry Crews, Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson, Ed Helms, Will Forte, Patton Oswalt, Kevin Hart, Jane Lynch, Christopher Meloni, Andy Cohen, Larry Wilmore, Glenn Howerton, Chelsea Handler, and many more.
The At-Home Variety Show debuts Monday, May 11, with new episodes streaming every weekday for the next four weeks. Filmed during quarantine, it’s also the most recent show to demonstrate how the entertainment industry is beginning to think of new ways to work on TV productions while traditional methods are made impossible due to the pandemic. The BBC, for example, recently announced a Talking Heads reboot filmed without requiring its actors to come into contact.
For more updates on the latest in entertainment, check out GameSpot’s weekly TV series and movies-focused podcast, You Should Be Watching. New episodes premiere every Wednesday and can either be watched as videos over on GameSpot Universe or listened to in audio versions on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and Apple Podcasts.
PC games storefront GOG regularly hosts excellent weekly sales, and if you’re a fan of zombie games, this week’s sale is right up your alley. The Zombie Gogalypse sale features 57 zombie games for up to 90% off. Every season of Telltale’s wonderful narrative adventure series The Walking Dead is discounted 25% off. The sale runs through May 17, so you have about a week to make your picks.
Developer Infinity Ward has revealed what’s coming to both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One sometime this week. The first-person shooter will see a brand-new Operator, additional Legendary weapons, and more.
First up is the new Operator, Iskra. She an Urzikstani native with the Chimera Faction intent on immobilizing the Al-Qatala forces. Iskra is available as a store bundle and comes packaged with two new Legendary weapons, the “Savagery” helicopter vehicle skin, an Epic Finisher, and more. Infinity Ward said more information about Iskra and her Legendary weapons will arrive later this week.
Also coming to Call of Duty this week is the “Twin Stars” bundle. The pack features two weapon blueprints, one handgun and one LMG, that “favor silent but deadly approaches to combat.” Both weapons are copper in color and gradually fade to black, perfect for blending in sandy locales like Aniyah Incursion and Rust.
In other Call of Duty news, Infinity Ward implemented a recent playlist update that brought helicopters back into the Warzone fold. The update also turned the Shipment 24/7 moshpit into a 10v10 game mode and altered Gunfight to become 3v3 Gunfight Knives Only. The studio also rolled out a patch that nerfed the Snake Shot and more.
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