Having only been signed to WWE since this past Februrary, Karrion Kross has made a name for himself, along with Scarlet, as one of the most intense signees of the NXT brand in recent memory. At Takeover XXX, Kross defeated Keith Lee for the NXT Championship, but this first reign has been cut tragically short.
Announced the following night on social media, it was declared that Kross would miss considerable time due to a separated shoulder injury he sustained during his match with Lee and the title would be vacated.
This is the second time the title has been vacated due to a champion’s injury. The first being Tomasso Ciampa, in 2019, having to take almost a year off to have neck surgery. NXT management announced Wednesday night that the now vacant title would be decided next week in the first-ever four-way 60-minute Iron Man match. Those competitors are Finn Bálor, Adam Cole, Tomasso Ciampa, and Johnny Gargano.
Bálor has not held the title in five years and has completely reinvented himself since he was NXT Champion. Ciampa never officially lost the title and his rivalry with both Gargano and Cole should have some great chemistry for what could be an instant classic.
If you’ve ever wanted to be a storm chaser but would prefer not to risk your life, Microsoft Flight Simulator might just scratch that itch. Dozens of virtual pilots have spent the past couple of days hurling their planes into Hurricane Laura as it bore down on the US Gulf Coast.
As Texas and Louisiana braced for impact, the real-time weather featured in Microsoft Flight Simulator was providing a visual spectacle for those flying directly into the storm. The stunning screenshots and videos that followed demonstrate the game’s incredible realism and accurate depiction of storm cloud formations. Virtual storm chasers have been eagerly capturing sights by flying above the hurricane, hurtling through its all-encompassing outer edges, and soaring within the surreal calmness of the eye of the storm.
For as impressive as this all is, it’s also worth noting the seriousness of Hurricane Laura. The storm made landfall overnight near Cameron, Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane, bringing catastrophic storm surge, extreme winds, and flash flooding to portions of the state, as reported by CBS News. It was downgraded to a Category 2 several hours after coming ashore, but the National Hurricane Center said the storm is still extremely dangerous, with a life-threatening storm surge continuing early Thursday along much of Louisiana’s coastline.
Aside from accurately mapping the weather, Microsoft Flight Simulator also throws up some unusual sights from around the world.
The latest flight sim earned a score of 9/10 in GameSpot’s Microsoft Flight Simulator review. “Microsoft Flight Simulator is a tremendous experience that makes you appreciate natural beauty and man-made ingenuity in equal measures,” said critic Edmond Tran. “Being encouraged to dive into the rabbit hole of learning how to operate genuine, complex machines to perform amazing feats of science is giddying, as is being able to journey across a realistic, mostly accurate depiction of our entire, beautiful planet. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a spectacular technical achievement and a deeply inspiring experience filled with glorious possibilities.”
In Autonauts, a colorful farming and resource-management sim, your goal is to develop sound practices to automate the work around town. Pumped BMX Pro is a side-scrolling extreme sports game focused on BMX tricks that features more than 60 levels and 200 challenges. Effie is a throwback action-adventure game set in a fantasy world. Tiny Troopers Joint Ops is a twin-stick shooter played from an isometric perspective, while Outcast: Second Contact is a remake of the 1999 action-adventure game set on a peculiar alien world.
If you haven’t been keeping up with Prime Gaming (formerly known as Twitch Prime), you’ll find that there are plenty more games up for grabs than just the monthly offerings. Prime Gaming has partnered with SNK to hand out more than 20 SNK games throughout 2020, and as of now, 14 of those games are up for grabs, including Metal Slug 2, The King of Fighters 2000, and Samurai Shodown II. Plus, you still have until the end of the month to claim August’s freebies and even more time to grab some of the bonus free games–yes, Prime Gaming gives away a ton of games.
New in-game loot for popular games such as League of Legends and Apex Legends just went live as well, so don’t forget to pick up those goodies when you claim your free games.
The Call of Duty League Championship is this weekend and Activision is giving away a unique prize to this year’s best Call of Duty team: A throne.
Alongside the annual trophy and championship ring awarded to the winning Call of Duty esports team, this year’s winner will receive a throne designed by Sheron Barber.
Barber has designed for artists like Drake, Billie Eilish, Rihanna, and Post Malone, but is now teaming up with the Call of Duty League for the prize throne. While the throne isn’t fully built yet, you can check out a design of it below.
The inspirations for the throne come from cubism and classic arcade machines. It will also be customized for the winning team to include the Championship date, as well as names and player statistics from the season.
Activision recently unveiled Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, a sequel to Black Ops developed by Raven Software and Treyarch. Check out IGN’s Black Ops Cold War preview for full details on gameplay, story, multiplayer, and more.
Evil Genius 2: World Domination was originally scheduled to launch on PC later this year, but developer Rebellion has decided to delay the evil lair management sim until sometime in the first half of 2021.
Rebellion says in a statement that its team has been successfully working remotely for the past five months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that the transition has slowed down some of its progress. As a result, the team wants to take extra time to ensure that the game it releases is as polished as can be for fans to enjoy for years to come.
“We want to release a sequel that will do justice to the franchise and be loved and played by the Evil Genius community for years to come, just like the original,” the statement, posted on Twitter, reads. “And while we know many of you will be disappointed to wait a little longer, launching next year affords us time to do exactly that.”
The statement says that Rebellion will be showing more of the game soon, with information about the game’s closed beta still to be shared. A firm release date is also still be discussed and will be communicated at a later date.
The organization didn’t specify the dimensions of the prize, but it’s a “functional [and] elevated gaming throne” created by Sheron Barber, a visual artist and designer who has worked with Drake, Rihanna, Post Malone, and others. The throne is made from Formica with a titanium veneer finish and will feature details like the Championship date, names, and player statistics from the season.
While it’s still being built, the organization shared conceptual designs of the throne, which are embedded below.
The Call of Duty League Championship will go live from August 29-30. In addition to the aforementioned trophies, the winning team will also take home $1.5 million as the top prize. Recently, the competition broke its previous viewership records, raking in a total of 115,000 people watching at its peak.
The new season of Fortnite is here with the 14.00 update. Chapter 2, Season 4 of Fortnite: Battle Royale features a Marvel theme that goes beyond what we’ve seen in the past–Marvel is the foundation for the entire season, rather than a limited-time mode or one-off skin. Here’s everything new in Season 4, but don’t expect any patch notes–once again, Epic has opted to share the highlights of what’s new rather than sharing any in-depth notes regarding gameplay or balance changes.
Unlike previous seasons, there was no major, The Device-style event. Instead, with Thor having arrived on the island, he has summoned a number of other Marvel characters–Wolverine, Iron Man, Groot, She-Hulk, Storm, Mystique, and Doctor Doom–to help combat an incoming invasion by Galactus as part of the Nexus War. Skins for some of these characters are available via the battle pass, and you’ll be able to acquire and use superpowers and tools related to these characters and others during matches, including Doctor Doom’s arcane gauntlets, Groot’s bramble shield, and the Silver Surfer’s board. Epic teases that more of these will be available at some point later in the season. Leveling up the Season 4 battle pass will also earn you special hero-specific emotes.
In addition to the tools you’ll have at your disposal, there will be new Marvel-themed locations to visit. Fortnite’s island map may not have been dramatically overhauled, but over the course of the season, you’ll be able to head to places like Doom’s Domain (located in the northwest corner of the map) and Sentinel Graveyard, among others that have not yet been specified. A SHIELD helicarrier is also featured prominently in the trailer.
Various weapons have been vaulted or unvaulted, as documented by users on Reddit, but the most notable new weapon for Season 4 is the Stark Industries energy rifle. This can be found by making your way to the quinjets that land around the island; you’ll see them actually fly by and head to different locations (indicated by blue smoke) at the start of a match, as you await to drop out of the battle bus. By killing one of the robots around the jet, you can pick up the energy rifle, which deals heavy damage. Killing those robots and using the rifle are both among Season 4’s challenges.
Not unlike Apex Legends, you’ll now see floating Stark supply drones flying around the map, near to those aforementioned quinjets. By shooting them down, you can acquire various powerful weapons and superhero abilities.
And of course, there’s a new battle pass with weekly challenges to complete. Along with earning various skins, back blings, and V-Bucks, and other rewards as you level up, you’ll also be able to earn the Iron Man skin by making it all the way to level 100. As per usual, this comes with its own set of challenges. Additionally, there are special Wolverine-themed challenges you can also undertake over the course of the season to unlock the Wolverine skin, not unlike how Aquaman worked last season. The first of these is now available and asks you to investigate claw marks.
The Season 4 update is out now on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, and Android (provided you’ve obtained the game outside of the Google Play Store). However, as previously reported, Fortnite Season 4 is not playable on iOS–with Apple having booted the game from its store to its ongoing legal battle with Epic, there’s no means for obtaining the 14.00 update on an iPhone or iPad. As such, you’ll be locked to playing an existing version of the game, provided you already have it downloaded or have done so in the past.
The Netflix show is not based on any of the video games, but will instead tell a new story. Not only that, but it will be presented in a unique manner–through two timelines.
One of the timelines follows 14-year-old sisters Jade and Billie Wesker, the daughters of Albert Wesker, who are living in a place called New Raccoon City. The city is not all it seems, of course, and the sisters quickly find themselves in danger. The second timeline is set more than 10 years in the future when Earth’s population has been reduced to just 15 million people. Humans are massively outnumbered by people and animals infected by the T-virus. In this timeline, Jade is now 30 years sold and she faces all kinds of new challenges.
Here is the official description for the Resident Evil TV show and its two timelines:
“In the first timeline, fourteen-year-old sisters Jade and Billie Wesker are moved to New Raccoon City. A manufactured, corporate town, forced on them right as adolescence is in full swing. But the more time they spend there, the more they come to realize that the town is more than it seems and their father may be concealing dark secrets. Secrets that could destroy the world.”
“Cut to the second timeline, well over a decade into the future: there are less than fifteen million people left on Earth. And more than six billion monsters–people and animals infected with the T-virus. Jade, now thirty, struggles to survive in this New World, while the secrets from her past–about her sister, her father and herself–continue to haunt her.”
Andrew Dabb (Supernatural) is the showrunner, executive producer, and writer for the Resident Evil TV show on Netflix.
“Resident Evil is my favorite game of all time. I’m incredibly excited to tell a new chapter in this amazing story and bring the first ever Resident Evil series to Netflix members around the world,” Dabb said in a statement. “For every type of Resident Evil fan, including those joining us for the first time, the series will be complete with a lot of old friends, and some things (bloodthirsty, insane things) people have never seen before.”
There will be eight episodes in the first season, and each is one hour long. Bronwen Hughes, who has directed episodes of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and The Walking Dead, is directing the Resident Evil TV show’s first two episodes, and she is also an executive producer for those episodes.
It sounds like it’s still early days for the Resident Evil Netflix TV show, so there is no word yet on when filming may begin, who will play the lead roles, or when the program will debut.
Fortnite: Chapter 2’s Season 4 is nearly here, and a new trailer has shown us what to expect from it. You can check the video below to get a glimpse at the new season.
The trailer shows several Marvel characters, including Iron Man, She-Hulk, Wolverine, Thor, Groot, Rocket Racoon, Mystique, Storm, Doctor Doom, and Galactus.
Epic Games will take Fortnite servers down to prepare for the new season at 2 AM ET / 7 AM BST (11 PM PT on August 26), with Fortnite version 14.00 and a whole new batch of content coming once its done a few hours later. Once Season 4 is live, Marvel fans are in for a treat.
Following the fallout of Epic’s legal clash with Apple, iOS users will not be able to play in Season 4. Players on both MacOS devices and iPhones will be left behind in the 13.40 version of the game, according to an official statement from Epic.
A multi-part prelude comic that mentioned Thor by name was released ahead of the new season–you can read those now by hopping onto Fortnite and navigating to the news tab.
Thousand Threads opens outside a tent in an unknown land, a dirt path presenting one potential way forward. If you stray from it, odds are a wolf will take notice and attack; you might fend it off with a stick, you might outrun it, or you might accidentally lead it to a house and watch in horror as it attacks the two randomly generated occupants that were sitting calmly a moment before, minding their own business. You might seek out more people and start performing little odd jobs for them; you might also return to the path and find the dead body of the region’s mail carrier, still carrying a sack of undelivered letters.
It’s a hell of a setup for Thousand Threads, a first-person exploration game that, over several hours, delivers on few of the promises these opening minutes set up. Nothing I experienced in the game after quite matched the excitement I felt in those opening minutes up to the point where I found the dead mail carrier. That’s not to say the game isn’t charming in places, though–this large open world has stories to tell and sights to see, even if they emerge at an achingly slow pace.
You start Thousand Threads in the Foothills, a large, verdant area with plenty of residents to meet, a store to visit, flowers and plants to forage for, wolves to avoid, and mail to deliver. There are five other areas that you’ll eventually travel through, but your goal remains the same throughout: Meet everyone and involve yourself in their lives. Each resident is randomly generated at the game’s opening, meaning that each player will encounter different people, although there’s not a lot to distinguish them in terms of personality. Some will give you tasks to do in exchange for money, such as acquiring an item from another character, finding someone and giving them a present, or knocking one of their enemies unconscious. Money is essential to progress, although you don’t need to complete many jobs to unlock the full map and deliver all the mail.
By the time I stepped away from Thousand Threads, most of the requests I was receiving were for me to knock out other characters with my stick or slingshot–possibly because, by then, I’d committed plenty of violent acts and stirred up a certain hostility across the game world. It took me a while to realize that there was no larger mission to the game; you can deliver all the mail, you can fulfill as many requests as you want, and you can explore the full map, but there’s no overarching narrative to uncover.
The fact that there’s no wider sense of purpose beyond whatever enjoyment you can reap from being a part of this world isn’t an issue at first, as it feels like you’re on the verge of stumbling across something interesting. But by the time I unlocked the last area, four hours in, it became clear that this wasn’t the case–and I had been trying to stave off boredom for the last hour already. You walk everywhere in Thousand Threads, and going for a stroll through a new area can be fun in the same way that it’s enjoyable to walk down a street you’ve never walked before. But it means that travelling back between regions to deliver mail, or getting out your map to make sure you’ve uncovered every near-identical quadrant of an area you suspect a resident you’re seeking is living within, becomes tiresome. You can ask people you encounter if they know where you can find someone you’re looking for, but it’s total luck of the draw if they have a lead or not, and there’s never clues to follow–they either know and your map updates, or they don’t and it doesn’t.
It’s possible to play Thousand Threads without much conflict. Avoid the wolves and bears that can kill you, refuse requests to knock people out, stay away from the fights that sometimes break out between residents, and you can live the life of a gentle helper. But you can go the other way, too. Your scant inventory contains both lethal and non-lethal weapons–the pickaxe you need to break rocks (which can yield useful resources) can also be used to beat people to death. In truth, I killed a few villagers in my playthrough not because they deserved it, but because I’d become bored and wanted to see what would happen. Not a lot, as it turns out. They’re gone, but there’s still plenty of other characters to talk to, many of whom will serve up identical dialogue.
There’s not a lot of personality to most of the people you meet in Thousand Threads, unless you open and read their mail (and you should, because there’s absolutely no penalty for doing so). The mail contains interesting story threads and personal dramas, which are, unfortunately, not at all reflected in the tasks the characters ask you to perform. The fact that the characters are randomly generated rather than crafted is to the game’s detriment in the end, as you’ll see the same dialogue come out of many mouths.
This is a shame, because there’s a hint of something great here. One letter I delivered was meant for a dead man; I found out that he was dead well before I found his home (you can ask people you encounter if they happen to know where someone you’ve only heard of lives), and once I found his corpse I was able to retrieve and deliver several letters intended for his son. This didn’t unlock any unique interactions, though–the tragedy unfolding is largely left unsaid outside of the mail. Since I delivered the mail to the son’s mailbox, I can’t say for sure whether he would have said anything powerful about his dad, but no mail I delivered directly sparked any interesting revelations. The letters tell of spurned lovers, estranged families, and burgeoning relationships, but these elements are only reflected within letters, not the game’s dialogue.
There’s a web of connections between the characters, and it can change as you play thanks to the “rumor” system. It’s amusing to see your own actions reflected back at you hours later; as I slowly moved back through the map, looking for things to do, I encountered characters who thanked, chastised, or attacked me over things I’d done hours earlier. It’s fun to see the rippling impact of your actions, but there’s very little sense of them having a tangible effect on these characters, because they’re so thinly sketched out. It’s impossible to keep track of what you did to characters to make them dislike you; there’s one character I encountered who I would describe as “creepy” (he asked me to steal another character’s baby teeth), but I’d otherwise struggle to attribute adjectives to any of the other dozens of villagers I encountered.
As you explore, you can also find artefacts and ruins that hint at something below the surface, waiting to be uncovered. But there just isn’t that much there. Handing the artefacts to a specific NPC turns up a bunch of interesting lore drops, but if there’s a deeper meaning behind everything, or a huge secret to uncover, it’s extremely well hidden. Over time, it became clear that the menace and mystery that the game promises with these structures, with its dead bodies and reports of random attacks, have little payoff behind them.
Amid all of this, though, there are moments of grace and beauty. Walking into a new area and watching as the color palette of your environment slowly shifts is lovely, as the game’s simple but striking visuals serve up some great views. The chaotic systems at play within the game can occasionally lead to wonderful moments, like watching two bears run through a trading post before turning on one another, or approaching a new character only to have them attack you because they’re related to someone you knocked out earlier. The rudimentary crafting system (which lets you upgrade your health and items with the plants and objects you collect) gives you some sense of reward when you’re eventually armed with a slingshot and pickaxe that can fend off attacks fast. By the time I walked away from the game there was a sense of, at least, personal progression in how much metal ore I’d gotten my hands on (which could have crafted bullets for a rifle I’d chosen not to buy, since my slingshot was already so powerful).
Thousand Threads cannot deliver on its initial promises of small-town intrigue and simmering maleficence–as you uncover the map and meet more of the people living on it, the less the game’s world feels like a real place. While I enjoyed the game’s atmosphere and sense of discovery when I started, by the end I had lost all interest in the interpersonal disputes of the game’s inhabitants, none of whom felt like real people anymore. The strange colonies of Thousand Threads are enjoyable if you’re just passing through, but stay more than an hour or two and you’ll find that there’s not much to do there.
