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It’s the last episode of New Releases for April, and some war games have been itching to finally deploy. We’ve got Gears Tactics, Sakura Wars, and the Xbox One and PC versions of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered to check out. It’s also the return of a retro classic with Streets of Rage 4. If you’ve been itching to get behind the wheel of a vehicle recently, you can check out SnowRunner too.

Gears Tactics — April 28

Available on: PC

Gears Tactics turns the Gears of War shooter formula into a tactics game, giving you a squad of customizable COGs who will carry out your orders against the Locust. It’s not just cannon fodder they’ll be facing, though: expect to encounter big Brumaks and Corpsers during the campaign too. Tactics is coming Game Pass for PC on launch day, but the Xbox One version will launch later this year.

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Sakura Wars — April 28

Available on: PS4

This soft reboot of the long-running series is finally coming to the West, putting you in the shoes of protagonist Seijuro Kamiya. It’s the first time the games have offered direction action commands in combat, as Kamiya fights alongside the Imperial Combat Revue’s Flower Division. Outside of battle, he can explore the Ginza district and foster relationships with his fellow fighters.

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SnowRunner — April 28

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

If you’ve ever wanted to drive big vehicles in the most extreme environments on Earth, SnowRunner is your game. The open-world driving game puts you in the driver’s seat of real-world brands like Cat, Chevy, and more as you haul cargo through mud, over snowy mountains, and across frozen lakes. You can drive solo or convoy with friends online.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered — April 30

Available on: Xbox One, PC

The campaign is already out on PS4, but now it’s time for Xbox One and PC players to revisit the story. This remaster includes up to 4K resolution and HDR support, plus uncapped framerates and ultrawide monitor support for the PC version. You’ll get Underwater Demo Team Classic Ghost Bundle when you pick up the remaster on any platform–that includes some goodies for the first Modern Warfare and Warzone.

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Streets of Rage 4 — April 30

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch

It’s been 26 years since Streets of Rage 3, but Axel, Blaze, and Adam are ready for round four. Adam’s daughter Cherry joins the roster for this outing, along with Floyd, who definitely isn’t Jax from Mortal Kombat. Streets of Rage 4 offers four-play co-op, of course, but it also includes a Battle mode, which lets you throw down against each other.

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April is wrapping up, so the next episode of New Releases will take a wide look at May. The new month is bringing some special games to Switch, including Star Wars Episode I: Racer and Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Days Gone, one of 2019’s biggest PS4 exclusives, has been out for a year now, and developer Bend Studios is celebrating the game’s success. In a new tweet, the studio revealed that players have racked up 200 million hours in the game, and showed off some other play stats.

In the tweet, embedded below, Bend Studios thanks its player base for playing the game and using photo mode to send screenshots to them, and gives us some insight into how the game has been played.

45 million hoardes and 32 million infestations have been cleared, along with 30 million ambush camps and 30 million nero checkpoints. Photomode has been used by 1 million players, and 600,000 have opted for the advanced features.

Along with this, players have earned 100 million trophies in the game, which is a huge number.

Days Gone was not a huge critical success; it earned a 5/10 in GameSpot’s review. However, it achieved some sales success, and has received some updates since launch. The game is set to remain a PS4 exclusive, despite rumors of a PC version.

The record-setting Avengers: Endgame released in theatres one year ago this month. It’s a very different world today, with theatres closed around the world due to COVID-19. In a new interview with Deadline, co-director Joe Russo reflected on how he believes the movie theatre business will once again thrive, but there will complications in the coming years.

“Theatrical is going to be complicated over the next year or two, but we don’t think it’s going anywhere. We will always want that communal experience,” he said.

Joe Russo said the movie theatre business is facing greater competition from the likes of Netflix and other digital platforms, and this could shake up the traditional movie-going business. The quality of films released on digital platforms instead of in theatres is getting “higher and higher,” Russo reflected. The newer, younger audience audience has grown accustomed to watching movies and TV shows at home on smaller screens. “This next generation isn’t afraid to watch content on their phones and computers,” he said.

For Endgame, Russo said he and his co-director brother Anthony were trying to replicate the feeling they had as teenagers at the cinema.

“Most special about Endgame was trying to replicate the feeling we had as kids and teens in movie theaters, the emotions we felt after slipping into a dark theater with a bunch of people we didn’t know and being inspired, moved, and made to laugh and cry and leaving with a feeling that stayed with us for days,” he said.

Joe and Anthony’s latest movie is the action film Extraction, starring Thor actor Chris Hemsworth. The Russo brothers produced the film, and they pointed out that Netflix allowed the film to have a bigger budget than it might have under the traditional studio theatrical model.

“I would argue we got double the budget from Netflix that we would have gotten theatrically,” Joe Russo said, noting that director Sam Hargrave had never directed before and this would have given studios pause about increasing the budget.

Joe Russo said one issue with the current movie market is that film studios are using “outdated models,” including box office results, to determine if a movie is successful or not.

“The greatest thing that Netflix has done is take away box office from defining the success or quality of a film,” he said. “Movies are having trouble being funded in the old way and models don’t support it anymore. Netflix is supporting those films, in a way and at a financial level we’ve not seen before.”

Joe Russo added that he doesn’t like to get drawn into the debate between theatrical and digital because it’s not helpful and the audience largely does not care. “It’s a bad habit we adopted from years of film folks thumbing their noses at TV and vice versa. Some of the best quality storytelling we’ve ever had is on television right now through digital distribution,” he said.

Go to Deadline to read the full review.

One of the newly established Xbox development studios, The Initiative, continues to hire big-name talent for its first project. The southern California studio has hired Sylvia Chambers–who worked on Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy at Naughty Dog and Battlefield V with DICE–to become an animator at the company.

Chambers’ LinkedIn page states that she is working at The Initiative on a contract basis, having started in April 2020. In addition to working in games, Chambers worked as a shot creator for Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok at the pre-visualization studio The Third Floor.

You can check out Chambers’ demo reel below. Chambers is starting with The Initiative at a unique time, as all developers there are currently working from home amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The Initiative was announced at E3 2018 as part of Microsoft’s wider announcement of new studios and acquisitions. The company, which is based in Santa Monica, says its ambition is “about craft, creating story, innovating, and looking ahead to the next big thing.” While the company is owned by Microsoft, it claims to operate independently.

In addition to Chambers, The Initiative has assembled a big team of talent for their first game. Red Dead Redemption writer Christian Cantamessa is contributing to the script, while God of War lead producer Brian Westergaard is also working at the studio, alongside Dan Neuburger (a 12-year veteran of Crystal Dynamics), Blake Fischer (a 16-year Microsoft veteran in publishing), and Lindsey McQueeney (former recruiter at Google, Crystal Dynamics, and 38 Studios). Drew Murray, who was game director on Sunset Overdrive, is the design director at The Initiative.

The Initiative’s first game has not been announced, but the game is already playable in an early state. Xbox boss Phil Spencer visited the studio in January 2020 and his visit prompted a rumor that The Initiative was working on a reboot of an Xbox franchise.

It’s a big year for Xbox, as Microsoft will release the Xbox Series X this holiday with Halo Infinite as a launch title.

The Nintendo Switch Lite has been easier to find during the current pandemic than a standard Switch system, and if you just got your console, you’re going to want to keep it protected. The Nyko Premium Travel Kit has everything you need to keep your Switch Lite safe, and it’s on sale for a drastically reduced price at Amazon.

Normally $25, the Nyko Premium Travel Kit for Nintendo Switch Lite is currently available for just over $9. It comes with a hard-shell case, a tempered glass screen protector, silicon grip cover, wired earbuds, and a microfiber cleaning cloth.

With both the case and screen protector keeping it safe from drops and scuffs, you shouldn’t have to worry about needing console repairs, and the soft interior material on the case should keep it looking pristine. Right now, that is especially crucial, as Nintendo has temporarily halted repairs at its own centers due to the outbreak.

The hard-shell case includes room for the Switch Lite itself as well as charging cables, and there are eight game card slots so you don’t need to keep opening cases to pick a new game. Chunky zippers should also make it easy to open if you’re grabbing it in the dark to play some late-night Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

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