For Americans, Fourth of July weekend is nearly upon us, and while this holiday certainly won’t look like years past–everyone should still be social distancing, after all–we can still enjoy the barrage of online deals that are cropping up from retailers. From GameStop to Best Buy, July 4th sales are now in full swing, offering some remarkably good prices on gaming, tech, and more.
Quick look: The best Fourth of July deals
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If you’ve been on the hunt of a new gaming laptop, 4K TV, or gaming mouse, this is a great weekend to pick one up, as we’re seeing discounts on some of the top options from brands like Razer, Samsung, Apple, and Lenovo.
We’ve rounded up some of the best July 4th deals available now below. July 4th is this Saturday, so most of the deals are ending on Sunday or Monday. That means you’ll want to check out everything on offer and grab what you want before the weekend is over; fortunately, we’ve made it easier on you by curating some of the best Fourth of July deals floating around online.
Best game deals
Discounts on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC games this weekend
DualShock 4 and Xbox One pre-owned controllers are going for $40 each today, although they were $30 yesterday in an early-access deal for PowerUp Rewards Pro members. That said, $40 is still a solid price, especially if you just need an extra controller for multiplayer or as a backup. The sale includes a wide range of colors for either controller, so it’s a good opportunity to snag a color you’ve been wanting.
Get 20% off Marvel, Star Wars, and My Hero Academia collectibles
Funkos, figures, and other collectibles for three mega-popular franchises–Marvel, Star Wars, and My Hero Academia–are getting an extra discount for Fourth of July weekend. You can grab select collectibles from these franchises, like this Star Wars “Encounter on Endor” Funko Pop, for 20% off. For all other toys and collectibles, you can get 15% off when you spend $75 or more or 25% off on $125 or more, so be sure to check out everything on offer.
$1,710 (down from $2,000)
One of the best gaming laptops we’ve used, the Lenovo Y740, is getting a nice discount in this weekend’s Fourth of July sale. While not as flashy as other gaming laptops on the market, the Lenovo Legion Y740 is an excellent gaming laptop that works well for business users, with large keycaps that curve nicely to fit your fingers. It comes with a 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H processor, 1920 x 1080 Full HD display, 16GB of RAM, and Nvidia Geforce GTX RTX 2070 graphics card.
$220 (down from $300)
If you’ve been looking at budget gaming monitors, this 27-inch Acer XF FreeSync monitor is a great option for getting into PC gaming and getting work done at home. It features a 1080p resolution, 144 Hz refresh rate, and 1 ms response time along with four USB 3.0 ports for connecting devices.
$180 (down from $280)
If you’re looking to pay a little less and stay under the $200 range, this 24.5-inch HP display will get the job done nicely. It also features a 1080p resolution, 144 Hz refresh rate, and 100mm range of motion so you adjust the screen to your comfort level. If you’re OK with a smaller screen size, this HP monitor will suit your needs just fine.
$2,800 (down from $3,500)
The 2019 15.4-inch MacBook Pro is available for a great price as part of Best Buy’s Fourth of July sale, selling for $2,800 instead of its $3,500 list price. Great for business users, students, and more, this particular MacBook Pro features 9th Gen Intel Core i9 processors with Radeon Pro 560X graphics and an ultra-fast SSD. It also maintains up to 10 hours of battery life for long sessions of use and four Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports.
$600 (down from $900)
Best Buy’s Fourth of July sale features a fantastic discount on this 65-inch Samsung 4K UHD TV, which is a full $300 off its normal $900 price. The TV has a 2160p resolution and is HDR-compatible; it also includes all the major streaming services and has four HDMI inputs so you can hook up your consoles and more.
$300 (was $400)
One of our favorite Arcade1Up cabinets is a full $100 off this Fourth of July weekend, selling for $300 for the next couple of days. We wouldn’t wait too long, however, as the last time we saw this cabinet at this price, it sold out before the sale was over. The Golden Tee arcade cabinet features four classic Golden Tee titles, a light-up marquee, and a 12-inch riser to elevate the 17-inch LCD screen. The new Pac-Man Special Edition arcade cabinet, which just released this month, is also $50 off.
$30 (down from $80)
Logitech’s G502 Hero wired gaming mouse is always a popular option for PC gamers, which is clear from its five-star rating and over 1,600 reviews at Best Buy alone. Plus, you can’t beat its current price of $30; the G502 is normally priced at $80. It delivers precision tracking up to 16,000 DPI, 11 programmable buttons, and five different weights so you can personalize the mouse’s weight to your liking.
$50 (down from $80)
If you’re in need of a new gaming mouse, one of our favorite options is $30 off right now. The Razer Viper wired ambidextrous gaming mouse with Chroma RGB lighting is on sale for $50 for July 4th, down from its usual $80. Featuring a 16,000 DPI optical sensor for precise aiming and movements, the Razer Viper is lightweight, comfortable, and one of the best gaming mice you can buy. It’s on sale at Amazon now through July 4.
$70 (was $80)
Released earlier this year, the upgraded Razer Basilisk V2 wired gaming mouse features 11 programmable buttons, customizable scroll wheel resistance, and a 20,000 DPI optical sensor ensuring accuracy and precision. Like the Razer Viper, the Razer Basilisk V2 is lightweight, and it features a comfortable, ergonomic design to fit your hand perfectly. It’s discounted for the first time since its release this weekend at Best Buy.
$85 (was $130)
Razer’s Fourth of July deals include a 35% off markdown on its Thresher headset for PS4, which will also work with PC and Xbox One. While the Thresher isn’t the best gaming headset on the market, it’s a great budget choice that’s even more worth it for just 85 bucks (normally $130). You have the option to use it wired or wirelessly, and it has lightweight memory foam ear cushions for comfort.
$85 (down from $130) with promo code “july4thewin”
Already on sale for $100 (normally $130), the Whirlwind FX Element gaming keyboard is available for even cheaper with promo code july4thewin from now until July 6. The additional discount drops your price to just $85, and free shipping is included. The Element keyboard is great if you care about your gaming setup’s aesthetic, as it’s notable for its dynamic RPG lighting and effects. The keyboard is content-reactive, meaning the RGB lighting and effects will reflect what’s happening in the game, which is intended to increase immersion. Whirlwind has a video on its site demonstrating this in action.
$169 (was $200)
Amazon’s current deal on the Apple Watch Series 3 matches the best price ever for this model, according to CNET. The 38 mm version in Space Gray features a GPS, Retina display, swim-proof protection, an optical heart sensor, the ability to store music and podcasts, and more. It’s a great option for current Apple users.
Save up to 50% on the best party game bundles around
All six Jackbox Party Packs along with their standalone titles are seeing major discounts during Fourth of July weekend on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Amazon Fire TVs. From Quiplash and Trivia Murder Party to Tee K.O and Fibbage, these popular party games are super accessible to people who aren’t used to playing video games, as you can join in on practically any device including your phone. And while they were made for couch multiplayer, Jackbox Games has a handy guide for playing them online with friends and family remotely by using Zoom or Google Hangouts (or Remote Play Together if you buy on Steam).
Amazon Prime cardholders get 15% back until July 5
Amazon Prime cardholders can take advantage of a special offer that gives them 15% cashback on Nintendo Switch Eshop gift cards from now until July 5. Amazon Prime cards also give you 5% cashback on every Amazon purchase and has no annual fee, so it’s absolutely worth having if you shop on Amazon a lot. It ranks on our sister site CNET’s list of the best cash-back credit cards in 2020, so check that out for more info.
$60 (down from $120)
Let’s be real: The pandemic has forced a lot of us to start cooking at home more, and if you find cooking arduous, a multi-function pressure cooker is a real game-changer. This little machine includes a slow cooker, which lets you easily cook practically anything over several hours in a very hands-off fashion, great for prepping in the morning and enjoying for dinner. You can also cook rice in it, sauté vegetables, steam fish and veggies, and keep food warm in it. And with its 8-quart capacity, there’s enough for the whole family or ample leftovers.
$138.20 (was $238) with promo code “PLUS20”
Most of us have been spending a lot more time at home these days, and that might have you thinking a lot more about how to keep your home and family safe. The Google Nest outdoor security camera plugs directly into a power source so you don’t have to worry about batteries, and using an app on your phone, you can see everything going on outside your home in 1080p HD. You can currently get the security camera and two wifi smart plugs for $138.20 when you use promo code PLUS20 at checkout as part of Ebay’s July 4th sale. The deal ends July 6.
Hyper Scape is an upcoming battle royale shooter that’s developed and published by Ubisoft. GameSpot’s Michael Higham was able to play for two hours ahead of the official announcement and is joined by Tony Wilson to tell you about the game’s weapons, abilities, revives, and unique way to win. Hyper Scape distinguishes itself from other battle royale games with a few fresh takes on typical genre tropes and mechanics.
Hyper Scape’s combat feels like an arena shooter with high mobility and mechanics like a double jump and jump pads on the map. You get to pick from a roster of characters that only make a difference cosmetically and with voice lines. You can build a loadout around hacks which are abilities that can be picked up around the map and give players powers such as forming a wall, invisibility, or allowing them to turn into something like a hamster ball and leap great heights. When you die in this battle royale you remain invisible and must find your way to where an enemy is killed by your team in order to be revived. You are never out permanently as long as your team is alive. The map also doesn’t have a closing circle, instead, it has districts that shut down as the match progresses. The game also has a crown that allows one of the final teams to win by surviving a countdown without having to be the last one standing.
Hyper Scape is coming to PC. Stay tuned for more information on betas and the release date.
The Alien and Predator franchises have been a mainstay in the comic book industry for decades, and now they’ve both found a new home. IGN can exclusively reveal that Marvel Comics has acquired the rights to both Alien and Predator, paving the way for a new line of comics set in this cinematic sci-fi universe.
While Marvel isn’t ready to reveal specific titles or creative teams yet, we can debut a pair of incredible teaser images drawn by Batman artist David Finch. First up, here’s Finch’s take on Alien’s “Big Chap” Xenomorph:
Alien art by David Finch. (Image Credit: Marvel)
Then, feast your eyes on Finch’s Predator, as the artist shows what might happen if one of these elite hunters targeted the Avengers.
Predator art by David Finch. (Image Credit: Marvel)
To be clear, the Predator teaser isn’t meant to suggest the two franchises will be integrated into the Marvel Universe (as was the case when Marvel reacquired the Conan license in 2018). Marvel’s new comics will instead expand on the characters and settings of the various Alien and Predator movies. Still, it’s always possible fans will see some sort of Alien vs. Predator vs. Avengers crossover down the road.
Unsurprisingly, Finch had a blast rendering these two teaser images, telling IGN, “Alien and Predator are the two of the most identifiable, iconic characters of all time, and I love them for that. But mostly, it’s being fortunate enough to be a kid when they were new. I’ve seen every movie they’ve ever been in, and I cannot wait to see them wreaking havoc in the Marvel Universe. I drew my pictures of them with a massive smile on my face.”
Dark Horse Comics has been publishing Alien and Predator stories since 1988 and 1989, respectively, but it appears 2020 will mark the end of that arrangement. The move isn’t necessarily surprising given that both properties, like Marvel itself, now fall under the Disney umbrella. The Star Wars comic book line underwent a similar transition when it shifted from Dark Horse to Marvel in 2015 and Marvel kicked off a new line of comics as part of Disney’s revamped Star Wars timeline. Similarly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer shifted from Dark Horse to BOOM! Studios in 2018, paving the way for a rebooted Buffy universe.
“There’s nothing more thrilling than a story that will keep you at the edge of your seat, and Alien and Predator have delivered that time and time again!” said Marvel Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski in a statement to IGN. “I can clearly remember where I was when I saw each of these modern masterpieces for the first time, and reveling in how both masterfully weave extraterrestrial dread and drama into some of the most iconic scenes we’ve ever seen on film. And it’s that legacy that we’re going to live up to!”
“As a visual medium, comics are the perfect place to build on those moments, and we here at Marvel are honored to begin telling these stories for fans everywhere,” added Cebulski. “As our release schedule continues to return, we can’t wait to share more in the coming months!”
Editor Jake Thomas said, “The incredible legacies of both franchises offer some of the most compelling and exciting worldbuilding in all of science fiction. It is a thrill and an honor to be able to add to that mythology and continuity with all-new stories set within those universes.”
Stay tuned to IGN for more on the future of Alien and Predator at Marvel. With Comic-Con@Home taking place July 22-26, we may learn more in just a few weeks.
In other Alien news, director Ridley Scott recently revealed he has plans for a third prequel movie exploring the origin of the Xenomorph eggs seen in the original film.
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
It’s impossible to look at Mortal Shell and not immediately draw the parallels between it and the Dark Souls series, which is fine! If there’s one thing that is incredibly apparent after spending about four hours playing and replaying a demo build of Mortal Shell, it is that developer Cold Symmetry has a deep love and understanding for not just the Souls series, but the entire Souls-like genre. Your character moves like a Dark Souls character, NPCs talk like Dark Souls NPCs, there are item descriptions in the loading screens, combat is impactful and deliberate, and so on and so forth.
But what’s most impressive about Mortal Shell is that for as much as it borrows from the Souls-like formula, it also introduces its own ideas into the mix. They’re ideas that dramatically change how the game is played, and in doing so, Mortal Shell breaks out of its own Souls-like shell and becomes its own beast.
Mortal (Shell) Kombat
The first large departure from the formula is that there’s no block button in Mortal Shell. And sure, there’s no block button in Bloodborne either, but it’s still handled very differently. Instead, players are able to harden their body to something like stone in order to cause enemy attacks to bounce right off. This is an extremely powerful defensive option, as it doesn’t take any stamina away when you block an attack. It will nearly always cause your opponents to recoil, giving you an opportunity to attack, and you can even harden mid attack animation, allowing you to immediately shift to defense while attacking.
But here’s the catch: Harden is on a pretty substantial cooldown, and without it, your only two ways of defending yourself are a very risky and tricky-to-time parry, and an evasive roll that eats up a lot of stamina.
The other wrinkle in this combat system is that there’s no quick and easy health-restorative item like an estus flask or healing gourd that quickly restores life and is replenished at the game’s equivalent of a checkpoint. There are some mushrooms that heal a short amount over time and a few randomly dropped pieces of food that can be picked up off the ground, but without a way to quickly restore health, taking damage in Mortal Shell can feel devastating.
There is one other main way to restore health on the fly, which is by landing an Empowered Riposte, which is done by parrying an enemy and executing a powerful follow up blow. Doing so requires one bar of resolve, which is a resource that is built up as you deal damage to enemies, but will slowly drain if you don’t keep up the pressure. This plays into another key resource management decision, because if you manage to build up two bars of resolve, you can execute an extremely powerful special attack that deals massive damage and makes you completely invulnerable for the duration.
So what this all boils down to is a combat system where all styles of play have their own risks and rewards. Playing it safe means you won’t be getting a ton of resolve to utilize special abilities, but you’ll likely be more capable of managing your stamina and harden cooldown; and a more aggressive playstyle is rewarded with the ability to potentially heal mid-fight (if you have the skill to land a well-timed parry) and an extremely powerful attack that can kill most enemies in one-hit. It’s a really smartly designed combat system that truly feels distinct despite its roots being firmly established in the Souls-like genre.
Each Shell’s Got a Story to Tell
Then there are the Mortal Shells themselves, which essentially introduce class-based gameplay to the Souls-like genre in a way that hasn’t really been done before. The closest comparison is the blood code system in Code Vein. As you play, you’ll discover new Shells that each have their own unique stats and skills. In my demo, I only came across two: The starting shell, Harros the Vassal, which is a more tanky shell that has increased health, less stamina, and skills that affect his survivability; and Tiel the Acolyte, who has a massive stamina pool, less life, a more effective vanish as opposed to a quick dash as a dodge, and a variety of skills that allow him to occasionally take damage to stamina instead of damage to health, grant him extra damage on a successful riposte, and heal some of the damage taken by poison, which was a massive pain in the ass throughout the demo.
Shells can be swapped out at certain spots in the world, or an item can be used to swap them out on the fly, allowing you to make use of their unique characteristics as they become necessary.
As you’d imagine, when you defeat enemies you collect a currency that is used for both character progression and for buying items from the various shops. But unlike what you might imagine, character progression in Mortal Shell doesn’t take the form of traditional level ups. Instead, you use this currency, known as tar, to first learn the name of your equipped Shell, which then opens up their skill tree. Each skill costs both Tar and another currency called “Glimpses” to learn. Glimpses are gained by beating certain enemies or by finding itemized glimpses in the world, but unlike Tar, glimpses are only granted upon the first time you take them out. This I imagine, is how Cold Symmetry discourages players from farming easy enemies repeatedly in order to max out a character’s skill tree right away.
Glimpses are also an appropriate name for this currency because each new skill you purchase gives you a glimpse into who that Mortal Shell belonged to. It’s a very clever way to ground the character in the world and I can’t wait to see how it plays out in the full game.
It’s also worth noting that Mortal Shell has a Sekiro-esque second chance system in play. When you lose all of your health, your main body will actually get knocked out of whatever shell you were using. At this point, it’s one hit and you’re dead, but if you manage to get back to your shell and re inhabit it, you’ll regain all of your health and be right back in the fight. This ability only works once though, and once you use it, you won’t get it back until the next time you rest. Of course, if you do die, you’ll drop all of your tar at the spot where you were killed and if you die again before you’re able to get back and reclaim it, it’s gone for good.
All of this is great, but not everything involving Mortal Shell is without concern. I played the game on a PC build and was met with at least five crashes in just the relatively short amount of time that I played, which feels awful, especially in a difficult game like this where a crash can cause whatever momentum you built up to come to a halt. That said, it is of course an early build, so it’s not entirely unexpected but nevertheless something to keep an eye on. The aforementioned poison in the second part of the demo also feels absolutely oppressive with no item that is able to cure it and with the most common enemies inflicting it on every basic hit.
There’s also a bizarre mechanic that forces you to use an item before you’re able to know what it does, which is cool in concept, but in practice makes item usage unnecessarily risky and punishing since you could eat something that inflicts a negative effect without having any indication that it would do so.
All in all though, Mortal Shell left an extremely strong first impression, not because of how much it evokes the look and feel of Dark Souls, but because of how it evokes it while also feeling like something completely fresh and unique. You can check it out for yourself when the beta for Mortal Shell drops on July 3.
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Mitchell Saltzman is an Editorial Producer at IGN and is a long-time lover of all things souls-like. Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne Souls, Sekiro Souls, he loves them all.
Upcoming action-RPG Mortal Shell draws a whole lot of inspiration from From Software’s Souls games–you’ll find yourself in a dark fantasy world, engaging in tense, deliberate combat with enemies that can easily rip you apart if you let them. But while Mortal Shell is just as punishing as Dark Souls (and, seemingly, just as careful with its worldbuilding and stingy with its story details), it offers some new ideas to the formula From has popularized to bring some new challenges.
We played a short preview build of Mortal Sell, which gave us a sense of its Souls-like combat–check it out in the video above. You have a lot of similar abilities to Souls games, like dodge rolls and parries, as well as a devastating riposte attack that’s almost exactly like Bloodborne’s Visceral Attack. But Mortal Shell changes things up with two additions: the “harden” ability, which allows you to turn yourself to stone and weather an attack, either to stagger an enemy or get in close for a strike of your own; and the “shells,” which are character bodies you can switch between to make use of their different strengths and weaknesses.
Our time with Mortal Shell gave us a chance to try out two different shells and two different weapons, while engaging in a bunch of combat with various enemies. The preview build culminates in a big, climactic boss fight. If you’re a fan of the Souls games, Mortal Shell should scratch the same itch, while adding new ways to overcome challenges.
One of the first things I did in Mortal Shell, after getting walloped in the tutorial by a huge guy with a sword and stealing the corpse of an unnamed knight, was watch two guys sit by a campfire while one played a lute.
Given that this is a video game, the two goblin-looking locals turned hostile as I approached them, with the musician trading his lute for a hatchet before stalking my way. I cut through them with my huge two-handed claymore, then picked up the lute and spent the next five or so minutes learning to play it.
Hitting the “use” button on the lute about 10 times, I gained enough “familiarity” with it that my character could provide a performance of his own. I still have no idea what the lute is for, why I could pick it up and add it to my inventory, or what use repeatedly telling my character to pick away at its strings might bear in the future. That’s kind of my general impression of Mortal Shell, as well–there’s a lot about the game I don’t understand. But like the Souls games from which it draws obvious inspiration, it seems like there’s a lot to uncover and master in Mortal Shell.
Musical interludes aside, Mortal Shell is a game mostly about fighting deliberate, brutal sword duels with a variety of spooky enemies. Developer Cold Symmetry provided a short preview build of the game, which included what seems to be its opening tutorial, a look at a swampy area, and a dark, dank crypt, culminating with a boss fight. The whole thing took about two hours to get through on my first attempt, and about 20 minutes on my second–which might give you an indication of the curve of mastering Mortal Shell and what’s possible once you get the hang of the game.
Souls-Inspired
Even from the first glimpses at Mortal Shell in its reveal trailer, the game gave off a big Dark Souls vibe, and its gameplay is clearly inspired by From Software’s epics. Combat generally takes place against one or two enemies at a time as you swing huge weapons at each other in slow, massive arcs that dish out big damage. You have a green stamina bar that governs how many thrusts, slashes, sidesteps, and rolls you can do in a given fight before you need to take a second to let it recharge. One or two blows from an enemy are enough to decimate you, so death comes swiftly and often, especially while you’re getting the hang of Mortal Shell’s key mechanics.
In a lot of ways, Mortal Shell plays exactly like a Souls game. Dodging is an essential skill for getting clear of enemy attacks, and provides you with a few brief frames of invincibility if you time it right. You have a speedier light attack and a slower heavy attack, which usually also provides greater range. Even the controls largely mirror Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
Early in the preview, we got hold of a magical Tarnished Seal item, which is used to parry enemy blows, if your timing is right on. As you fight, you build up a meter called Resolve, and every time you complete a full increment, you can use the seal to parry a blow and open up an enemy to a brutal riposte attack–one that’s exactly like Bloodborne’s Visceral Attack. The riposte also heals you, which is essential, because one of the key things that Mortal Shell doesn’t have is a reliable batch of healing items like Estus flasks or blood vials.
The one big addition Mortal Shell brings to combat is the “harden” ability, which allows you to turn your body to stone almost at will in the middle of a fight. Harden lets you take a hit from an enemy, and if you time it right, to stagger them as their weapon bounces off you. That gives you a brief opening for a counterattack or to step back out of harm’s way. You can use harden anytime, and it’s specifically useful to harden mid-attack–that can let you get in close as your enemy attacks and fails to harm you, allowing you to unfreeze and score some damage without having to worry about timing a swing or getting caught out of position.
So fighting any of the enemies in Mortal Shell is about carefully managing dodging, hardening, parrying, and attacking, with careful attention paid to how long your moves take and how much space you need to land them. Harden in particular is a move that takes some getting used to; it doesn’t require quite the same split-second timing as the Tarnished Seal parry, but you still need to use hardening strategically, or it can leave you open to additional attacks. Harden also has a long-enough cooldown that you can’t spam it or rely on it to get you out of all situations.
How you fight also depends on two other things: your weapon and your character. You play as a strange, faceless white humanoid at the start of the game, without much of a health bar. But shortly after the preview build’s tutorial, we were thrown into a wooded, swampy area called Fallgrim Outskirts, and just ahead of the start, we encountered a corpse leaned against a gravestone. When you find bodies like this, you can inhabit them–they’re the “shells” mentioned in the title. The preview included two shells: a burly, middle-of-the-road knight that can build and maintain a lot of resolve, and a quick-moving thief with lots of stamina.
Which shell you’re inhabiting dictates a lot of how you’ll fight. The knight’s ability to gather resolve quickly means parrying and respoting becomes a more essential part of his fighting style. He pairs well with the heavy sword, because it is more likely to stagger enemies, making up for its slow swing speed.
We found the thief’s body a little deeper into the preview, hidden in a strange tomb, along with a new weapon, the hammer and tongs. Instead of a two-handed weapon, the hammer and tongs act as a pair, one in each hand, and can inflict enemies with poison. They’re faster than the sword, but the drawback is that they don’t stagger your opponents, leaving you less time to maneuver. Paired with the thief’s higher stamina, though, it becomes possible to pummel some enemies into submission before they have a chance to fight back. The thief also has a shadowy dodge that turns him temporarily invisible (or perhaps incorporeal), which makes it easier to get clear of bad situations, as opposed to the knight’s heavier roll.
Using the right shell for the job seems like a big part of the Mortal Shell experience, and the menu in the game suggested there would be two more to use beyond the pair that we discovered. They excel at different things, with the knight seemingly better for duels with tough enemies (and the eventual boss), and the thief better for clearing out smaller opponents quickly. You can only switch between shells if you physically walk up to them, though, unless you use a special item that lets you instantly switch between them. So, you’re not bouncing between shells as the situation demands–like in a Souls game, you need to plan, study, and react to what you’re facing, and that usually means dying and coming back better prepared.
Becoming “Familiar” With A Weird World
Combat isn’t the only thing that feels like Dark Souls in Mortal Shell. The construction of the game’s world also seems like it’s borrowing heavily from From Software’s approach, and in the preview build we played, we were left with a lot of questions about what’s going on in this fantasy world. Discovering the game’s story seems to be focused on picking up on clues from the game’s environment and from bits of lore included with the items you’ll find scattered around.
Each item has a flavor text attached to it, like in Dark Souls games, but you have to learn about everything in Mortal Shell by experiencing it. You learn the effects of a strange mushroom by eating it, raising your “familiarity” with it. You might then discover that it’ll heal you over time (which is the only way in the preview build to restore health, outside of doing a Resolve riposte) or poison you. Eat enough poison mushrooms, though, and you can develop a poison immunity, just like if you mess with the lute enough times, you’ll become proficient in playing it. Familiarity also sometimes gives you new flavor text, unlocking a slightly better understanding of the world.
The most interesting tidbits were related to the shells themselves–these aren’t just bodies you find and snag. They seem to be characters, with (probably tragic) pasts that illuminate the world around you. Learning about them gives you pieces of their stories, while also making them more powerful and more effective.
As you kill enemies, you gather a special substance called nectar, or tar for short. Like the souls of Dark Souls or the blood echoes of Bloodborne, tar is the thing you use to level up, and if you’re killed in battle, you lose it, unless you manage to return to the scene of the crime and reclaim it.
In the preview build, we got a look at how you seemingly level up your characters in Mortal Shell. In the strange crypt that marked the second half of the preview area, we encountered a mask-wearing woman called Sister Genessa, who offered us a sip of “sacred tar.” Taking her up on the offer lets you spend your tar like you would souls, unlocking new abilities for your shell. But to do that, you must first unlock the shell’s name, which provides some backstory about it. We discovered the knight was called Harros, the Vassal, whose story sounded like it related to some strange and spooky religious cultists. The thief-like character was Tiel, the Acolyte, who seemed to have a history with Genessa herself.
Once you know the name of your shell, you can use special items called Effigies to instantly switch between them. You also gain access to the rest of their upgrades, which might make their harden ability stronger, or boost their health reclamation from your Resolve riposte. The upgrades are unique to each shell, and each one has its own set of upgrade materials, so you’ll need to play them in order to make them stronger.
The last portion of the demo took us through a crypt, where we fought a number of strange enemies. There was a leaping man-beast-type creature, which could inflict poison or hit you in the shoulders and knock your character fully to the ground. Tougher enemies again recalled Dark Souls: one was a monster with swords stuck through its chest, who would pull them out and throw them until you closed the distance, and ended the fight by pulling off his own head, throwing it at you, and then exploding into a cloud of poisonous gas. Another was a huge creature with blades for hands, whose long reach made it tough to dodge clear.
The preview ended with Mortal Shell’s take on a boss fight, against a huge creature with swords for hands and a metal cage over its head, called the Enslaved Grisha. As you might expect, it brought all the tough elements of Mortal Shell’s combat together, with devastating hits, a long reach, and multiple combos of attacks, some of which were unblockable. It also threatened to charge from across the huge icy cave in which it was found, and would slam its head into the ground, jostling loose stalactites from the ceiling and sending them crashing down.
As Harros, I’m pretty proud to say that I bested the boss on the first go, largely with deft use of harden, and the experience really showcased how that ability will work in the full game. Harden is a Trojan horse of an ability, allowing you to bait an attack from an enemy to open them up to a big counter. I would routinely start a thrusting heavy attack, harden midway through, and tank one of the boss’ swings, only to unfreeze and stab it in the throat. That did a fair amount of damage and gave me time to dance away and avoid another swing from the boss. The Grisha would come back after me right around the time harden had cooled down, allowing me to repeat the process.
Of course, it wasn’t always that easy. A big hit from the Grisha can ruin your day, and there aren’t many good ways to heal up in Mortal Shell, at least in this preview. Healing either relies on skill with a Resolve riposte, or on finding items like food in the world that can be accessed from a quick bar. The mushrooms that I had to restore health would take a full minute to be fully effective, which meant keeping my distance when I knew one more blow from the Grisha could take me down.
And all those elements work to make Mortal Shell deliberate, strategic, and calculating in a way that’s similar to, but not the same as, From Software’s games. The fact that you can’t heal instantly means you have to be extremely cautious, but the fact that you can harden your body to absorb a blow in an emergency or as part of a battle strategy allows you to find other ways to recover. Mortal Shell is a tough and punishing game like those that inspire it, but in the short preview we played, it found ways to take elements of the Dark Souls formula and recombine them into something new.
What I’m most interested in with Mortal Shell, though, is its strange and seemingly vast world. I have no idea yet who the spirit-like player character is, or the identity and role of Sister Genessa, or what this world is supposed to be, or who lives there. I want to know more about Harros and Tiel, their histories, and their seemingly untimely deaths.
And I definitely want to know what I can do with that lute.
Mortal Shell is due out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via the Epic Games Store this fall. It’ll hit Steam in 2021.
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Halo Infinite has been teased by Microsoft for quite a while, but the game’s story may have been spoiled by an unlikely source: building toys. A Mega Bloks construction set includes a figure that could reveal plot details.
Potential Halo Infinite spoilers follow.
Fans on the Gaming Rumors subreddit (via IGN) found an image from an upcoming Mega Bloks set that could spell doom for an existing character. A Brute enemy appears to be carrying the helmet of Jameson Locke, one of the heroes from Halo 5: Guardians. The Brute appears to be named Hyperious, and he could be a new Banished antagonist.
This isn’t necessarily a story spoiler. For one, Mega Bloks could be exercising some creative license to create new characters and reference existing ones. But even assuming Hyperious kills Locke and keeps his helmet as a grim trophy, that could be a part of the story that Microsoft and 343 plan to show in pre-release promotional materials, rather than a shocking twist in the game itself.
We know that Halo Infinite will be part of Microsoft’s first-party presentation planned for sometime this month. Though Microsoft hasn’t formally announced a date, we’ve seen reports indicating it could be coming on July 23. Microsoft is also planning a week-long period in which fans can download limited-time demos of games on Xbox One, as an at-home substitute for the E3 show floor experience. That will last from July 21-27.
GameSpot’s Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming–is ongoing. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
On July 15, the iconic period drama Mad Men will be available free to stream from Amazon’s IMDb TV. The announcement comes as part of a complex licensing deal outlined in Deadline, which also sees all 92 episodes of the Matthew Weiner-created series being carried and rolling out on Amazon Prime across the globe throughout the rest of the year.
In The U.S., Amazon/IMDb will have Mad Men exclusively from July 15 until October 1, at which point the series will also be “returning home” to AMC’s platforms. Mad Men originally aired on cable network AMC from 2007 to 2015.
The show’s expansive cast included Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery, and many more. The series’ fiction timeline runs from March 1960 to November 1970 and follows Hamm’s self-destructive, supremely charming, and existentially adrift advertising executive Don Draper while also shading in the lives of the supporting cast in equal detail. Through these characters, Mad Men tracks how America and its political, social, and cultural attitudes shifted.
Along with other recent shows–Scrubs, Community, and The Office just to name a few–Mad Men will be adapting its content to confront the show’s use of blackface. Variety is reporting that Mad Men’s season 3 Episode “My Old Kentucky Home” will have a title card preceding it on all platforms “to provide context for the blackface scene.”
