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Earlier this year, GameStop announced that it would experiment with new store layouts–focused around eSports, retro games, and more–at some of its locations in the United States. Now, video has emerged from one of these “pilot” stores that shows the new look–and it’s quite dramatic.

The GameStop store in Pryor, Oklahoma posted a video to Facebook earlier this month that shows off what appears to be one of the “retro” pilot stores. The first thing you may notice is that the layout appears to be sleeker and more modern-looking, with the POS registers in the middle.

Also immediately noticeable is how the store appears to have been designed to encourage people to spend more time in there than normal. There is a couch with a big-screen TV at the front, and CRT TVs at the back with retro systems like GameCube, Nintendo 64, and Original Xbox connected for multiplayer sessions.

This all appears to be part of GameStop’s ambition to become the “local church” of gaming. GameStop chief customer officer Frank Hamlin told GameSpot that the new store designs are meant to “celebrate video game culture in real life.”

“It is a really powerful thing to witness. My question around GameStop is, if you take the analogy of that Vatican, or Mecca, or the Wailing Wall, why isn’t GameStop the local church, synagogue, or mosque?” he explained.

IGN was first to report on the new GameStop store layouts in Pryor, Oklahoma. The site also confirmed the authenticity of the Facebook video.

During an earnings call earlier this month, GameStop management confirmed that its pilot stores will be located in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area. Pryor is about 45 minutes outside of Tulsa.

GameStop recently announced plans to close up to 200 stores, with more closures to follow, as part of the company’s “GameStop Reboot” initiative aimed at turning things around.

GameStop’s share price is close to an all-time low, due to a number of factors. For the latest quarter, company saw its total global sales fall 14.3 percent to $1.3 billion. GameStop posted a net loss of $415.3 million for the quarter, which is far worse than the $24.9 million that the company lost during the same period last year.

Looking to the future, GameStop said it expects total sales to continue to be down in multiple consecutive quarters to come, as the industry awaits the launch of next-generation consoles in Holiday 2020.

In 2018, GameStop attempted to sell itself, but the company canceled those plans in February.

After years of teasing out Death Stranding trailers and doing his best to explain Death Stranding, Hideo Kojima took the stage at Tokyo Game Show 2019 twice last week to dish out over an hour of new gameplay. We now know a lot more about exploration, customization, and the imposing Catchers–the otherworldly beasts you’ll fight in the world’s pitch-soaked battlefields. But in an effort to better understand where Kojima’s touted Social Strand system is coming from, we spoke with him at Kojima Productions’ Tokyo Office between his TGS demo days, where he also graciously posed for my new favorite photo.

Death Stranding’s Nov. 8 release will be here before we know it, and at that point all of his allusions, terminology, and even his post-Metal Gear reputation, will be put to the test. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kojima doesn’t care if we understand what he’s going for with Death Stranding when we finally get to play it for ourselves. That, he says, could take years to make sense to some of us.

It’s also no surprise that he’s already thinking of what comes next while the rest of us grapple with whatever Death Stranding turns out to be. Specific plans remain a closely guarded secret, but Kojima was able to shed some light on what we can expect from him, and from the industry, in the coming years–including a potential collaboration with Keanu Reeves. What follows is a closer look into Death Stranding, and the intent of its creator, in his own words.

Kojima Productions’ Aki Saito was the interpreter for the interview, and the transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and flow.

GameSpot: The last time we spoke was at DICE 2016, and at that time I asked what the biggest misconception people have of you is, and you said that people think it takes you too long to make games, and you said that’s not true. Looking at the scope of Death Stranding, I’m impressed that it’s already ready to be released, and I’m curious if you did anything notably different this time around?

Hideo Kojima: Don’t get me wrong, I’m always quick. It’s like, three years? I can’t really say anything about Sony right now…maybe it will take 8 years, or maybe 10 years for first-party titles, like Nintendo as well. Cyberpunk has probably been worked on for more than 8 years. I’ve created in three years. When I was creating Metal Gear Solid 5, I needed more time because I had to produce the engine, as well as produce other titles.

So, if you looked back at the interviews three or four years ago, I’m as consistent as I said about game design… I’m kind of very efficient in the way I make games in a short time. Every day, every hour, I decide right or left. I won’t say, “I’ll think about it” or “let’s think about it,” I make a decision on the spot. So, that’s one reason I don’t outsource so much because you have to answer emails and wait for answers, that’s why I do it in house as much as possible.

One of the reasons it’s fast is because I do all the planning, design, and produce, and that kind of forces me to make quick decisions. There’s no time lag. Like other developers might have different people doing boss battles, and different people doing the cutscenes–it’s a bit chaotic when they have to pull everything together. But our team is only about 80 people, usually other big teams are 300 or 600. So that’s what–with the short amount of time and [fewer] amount of people, and the direct feedback I give–allows me to make this game in this time.

During that same interview, you said you were never going to change anything just so a game could sell more copies. Now that you’re running an independent studio, and the stakes have obviously risen, do you still feel that way?

There’s an easier way to make money, like buying stocks… What I’m doing right now is really hard to do. I’m doing it the really hard way. Like with a new game there’s a lot of risk, but I want to do that. And I think that’s [the] destiny of my life, of the short lifespan that I have.

In creating this new Strand genre, what are the challenges that came with that, and with implementing it into a game?

So yeah, it was the same with the stealth genre before, but since I do most of, or part of, everything–like the game design, or the theme, or story, or the cutscenes–the theme was always there about connection, and that’s why it’s consistent. I think that’s the key to making this new genre, as you say. If i was doing just the story, it wouldn’t be what you see it today.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not just trying to create new genres, I want to create new fun for the users. The genre can be named by them afterwards, so that’s my goal. So what happened was that, when I showed the trailers to everyone, people said, “What’s this game about? I have no idea.” So I thought I should name it something, so I just named it Strand Game.

Do you think other developers are going to pick up what you’re doing and run with it in their own way?

Probably not the carrying aspect, but of course the online aspect…maybe a lot of developers might use that element. When doing the Metal Gear games, when stealth was introduced, I deliberately made the player not use a weapon. But when competitors brought out stealth games, they used the stealth element but with a weapon, so probably a similar thing will happen.

Since you’re trying so many new things, are you anticipating that some players might not understand it, even when they play it?

It doesn’t really matter, they can play in their own style. I think, at the very least, they will understand through the story of connection, or even the meaning of not being connected. I have to kind of accept the fact that when you introduce something new, people will take time to digest the concept because it never existed. People will say, “Oh, I don’t want to just carry things” because it never existed, so it might take time for that. So again, it doesn’t really matter if people get it right away, maybe in five or 10 years it will make me happy if players realize what the game is about after time has lapsed, when each player has, at their own pace, digested.

Recently, all the games are like: you play it, you know it, you feel good, they’re fun, and that’s it. I want to create a game where there’s a hit to it, you can’t swallow it and it’s there for a long time. Maybe in a year, or in five years, suddenly there may be an experience in their life and they realize what Death Stranding is talking about. Maybe they will play it again and have a different perspective. That’s why I said that I don’t really care about people not understanding it on the first try.

How do you feel about the feedback loop that exists on the internet, between game developers and players?

I don’t think it’s real communication. For example, in Japan there’s a word called “omoiyari” which means caring for others. Like if you go to a restaurant in Japan, you’ll find this, where people care for you beyond just serving food. But in America you tip the people, so they try to service you more. In Japan, you don’t have this tip system.

So for instance, there’s a letter–we’re online now so it’s really quick, you can FaceTime, it’s right away–but 100 years ago, 200 years ago, there were only letters. There’s a soldier in the war field back then who writes a letter to his wife. So he gives it to the military, it’s sent by ship, it takes like four months, and then his wife opens the letter. This is what was written four months ago and maybe he’s dead on the other side of the world [by then]. It’s not real time, there’s such a big lapse. The wife has to think about what the husband was thinking about four months ago, in this situation, and this is the omoiyari feeling–caring about others. In this era, it’s a little different because it’s instant, a lot of people are anonymous, and you can say bad things on there.

In the game you see footprints but there’s a time lag in the game as well, just like the letter theory, so you have to think about why they went that way. Or, there’s a bottle of water in the locker, not in a private box but in a shared box. And you’ll wonder if the player put it there because they had to lessen their load, or, were they serving other players? You kind of think about that. That’s not happening in the real world on the internet. So the player gets thirsty, and they find this box, and they are really happy. And you’ll remember that feeling; you’ll be so thankful for people you’ve never met before. And if you continue like that, you will probably do that as well. That’s the thought here.

I don’t think this is the correct answer, but currently, in games like first-person shooters you aim for a headshot, you try to defeat others. The, “I’m stronger” kind of thing. Of course those games are great as well, but for my game, I want it to use the letter theory and give that experience to players.

For instance, if you climb mount Fuji [in real life], it’s really rough. There’s a cabin in between when you’re climbing. Of course it’s very easy if there’s a path, but sometimes there’s no path. And I always feel very thankful for the path and the cabin. I’m always grateful to the first person who makes it, and if I can drink coffee in that log cabin I am so happy about it. So I think if someone feels that way, they can then give that to other people as well. That’s my hope for the game. It’s not the main theme, but that’s the hope.

But what if people do the opposite in the game, and as you’ve mentioned before, leave a ladder to disaster. To what extent can the opposite be true?

It might not be intentional. We do a lot of playtests in the office. So sometimes there’s a bridge that crosses a deep river, and people feel grateful, but it only goes to the middle of the river. Of course you don’t give that bridge a thumbs up, but it probably wasn’t intentional. I pretty much feel that there won’t be much intentional evil. I want people to think about that as well if they fall [off that bridge]…”I won’t do that to someone.” And you might make the same mistake.

Say there’s a cliff and you go down a rope, but you need to go down further, but you can only reach a certain point. So maybe then I see your rope and your footprints and I felt really thankful for it. But if I go down, I might see that it doesn’t go all the way and think about the reasons you did that. The best thing would be to put a second rope so other people don’t fall in the trap. When I check people playing the game, a lot of people only play for themselves, and they just use it. And others, these people change the way they think when they place the ladder, and think of a different perspective: what if I put the ladder here, will it be useful? It’s interesting to see this, and especially [in] the footprints. You might get lost and your footprints will scatter around, but when you find the footprints of others you might feel very happy at first. But you don’t know if that’s correct and you just follow it and it goes off a cliff, you know this person was probably lost too. So when you think about that you want your footprints to be accurate or correct.

In the game, when you follow someone’s footprints, and then a person comes for a third time [to follow the footprints], the wilderness that was there will turn into a small path. People have a natural intention to follow the path, so it really depends on who you are playing with indirectly. The path might already be there if people are already follow it over and over again.

How far can players shape the world and how long will that persist?

One of the hooks is that it’s not just making the path, but because of Timefall, because of the time lapse, that path might go away if people don’t use it–then new ones would be made. But the most appropriate ones would probably persist.

Is this connection mentality something you want to continue to explore after Death Stranding?

Yes, the Social Strand system, I would like to continue, maybe. Like streaming games, if I want to do something new in that aspect, I might keep this thinking as well, but not the storyline or the gimmick.

So Death Stranding won’t be made into a series, necessarily?

I’m not really sure. But the most difficult part is: when you create something new, you have to create a sequel and then a third version, or it would not remain as a genre. So that’s one difficult part. When this game comes out there will be a lot of pros and cons, and [these elements could become the essence of the core part], but I think it’s better that I keep it going in a sequel. Why I can’t say it’s definite is because I only have one body, and there’s many projects that I have to be involved with. And it’s really tough for me physically to do many things at once. Yeah, probably at least 1.5, and then 2, maybe, at least so that it remains and people are aware of the genre. There are a lot of other projects that come up like TV dramas and things like that. A lot of pitches come my way.

Do you want to continue making games driven by technology, or do you ever want to pull back and do something that’s a bit more primitive, in a sense?

Well it’s difficult to explain, but yes and no. Yes, meaning I want to use new technology like streaming and AI, but created in a more analog way, so to speak. So yes and no. Like, not really gamey-gamey like you see, but something with an analog feel to it. However, even if it might look primitive, the technology I use will be really advanced and state-of-the-art technology.

When you think about game streaming, which company is taking the right path?

I can’t really say, I have a lot of connections with people, right? [Laughs] I can’t say who will be the winner, but I can say that the streaming era will come for sure. VR is actually stagnant right now, but will probably progress in the future with AR as well. So the next five years will be the era of streaming where people can use their personal devices and everything will be streamlined, but the years after that will be when AI jumps in more.

I’m being told this is my last question, so I have to ask: will Keanu Reeves be in Death Stranding?

Keanu is a great guy. I have a close friend, Nicolas Refn, he introduced me to Mads and I made an offer to Mads to be in the game. I went to Denmark and talked to Nicolas again before I gave the offer to Mads, and I said I met Mads a couple of times but I really wanted to reconfirm with Nicolas that I really should work with Mads. Nicolas said, “I made Mads grow. He’s great, but the best guy is Keanu,” and he was doing Neon Demon at that time. So he was trying to persuade me to use Keanu, and I thought maybe I will change from Mads to Keanu.

We were having this dinner, and there was this chef, and I called the chef and told him that I’m thinking of using Mads, and asked what he thought. Even the chef said maybe Keanu is better, even though he liked Mads a lot. But I did write the character for Mads, imagining him, so I am very happy that I offered it to Mads in the end.

So as I said, Keanu is a great guy, and in the future it would be great if we could work together. It could be a game, or maybe a movie or TV I might work on, so maybe next time. But I want to say Mads is really great. When I met Keanu, I was shocked that he was so polite; a real good guy. Were are only one year apart in age, so the appreciation towards a lot of things are similar, I think. So in the future, I would like to offer something to Keanu.

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Children of Morta is a game about family. Mechanically, it’s a satisfying dungeon crawler where you grind through bad guys, level up your characters, and unlock better abilities so that you can face off against a series of increasingly difficult bosses. But really, at its heart, it’s a compelling game about what it means to be a part of a family, and how being surrounded by loved ones can make you a better, stronger person.

The Bergson family, six of whom you’re able to play as, is made up of warriors, mages, and inventors all tasked with holding back the Corruption–which has, at the game’s opening, started to spread across their homeland. Their house sits atop a shrine, and to battle against the evil forces of the demonic Ou they need to travel through portals and conquer dungeons, in order to awaken three spirits that can guard against the Corruption.

It’s a cliched fantasy setup, but Children of Morta makes the most of its tropes by making sure that you’re invested in the Bergsons and their plight. Between runs of the dungeons, you’re treated to cutscenes and vignettes of the family interacting with one another, and you get to know the beats of their lives and what they get up to when they’re not enduring dungeons. You start with two playable characters, family patriarch John and his eldest daughter Linda, but the other four are introduced within the game’s opening half. Seeing them train and grow in cutscenes, and getting a sense of their place within the family, means that you’re already attached to the characters before you get your hands on them.

Gameplay in Children of Morta involves battling your way through hordes of enemies to reach each dungeon’s boss, exploring thoroughly and nabbing as many temporary boosts as you can along the way. Each character has three main abilities they’ll unlock as they level up: a standard attack that can be used continuously, a special attack with a cooldown, and a more defensive ability (although some of these can still do damage). The combat isn’t necessarily super deep, but it’s a lot of fun thanks to some extremely satisfying animation and the strategic possibilities that become available as you level up. Dungeons consist of multiple levels and are generated anew each time you enter, so finding the entrance to the next level will always require some exploration. Occasionally I’d find myself frustrated when the path to the exit ended up being very elaborate, but this also kept the game feeling fresh when some dungeons took a long time to clear.

There’s an imbalance between the number of melee and ranged characters–four melee to two ranged–which is a shame, because playing the ranged characters changes the rhythm of the game significantly by encouraging a slower, more thoughtful playstyle, and only having two of them feels like a missed opportunity. I found that Linda (who uses a bow and arrow) was the character I most often managed to beat bosses with, since so many bosses are primed to punish you for getting too close, and I would have loved to have another option beyond her and Lucy, the family’s youngest daughter.

Each character plays differently, and you’ll no doubt have your favorites. Lucy can shoot a continuous wave of fireballs while standing still, and can be upgraded to withstand three hits without damage; Kevin, the youngest son, can dramatically increase his speed and strength by building up “rage” with continuous knife attacks, but he needs to get very up-close to do so before using his power of invisibility to get out of danger. Some characters are less interesting; for the life of me I can’t figure out how to make Joey, who swings a huge hammer, effective. But it’s still fun trying out a character you haven’t played for a few runs and getting into the groove with each of their distinct rhythms.

You need to switch characters regularly, too, as any member of the family who is used too many times in a row begins to suffer from corruption fatigue, which lowers their overall health until they’re given time to recover. Each member of the family can also unlock new abilities that benefit every other family member as they level up (like higher rates of critical attack or even assists in certain situations), and later abilities in their skill trees can be very useful–I initially dismissed John for being too slow but found his shield and wide swing arc extremely useful later in the game, and was ultimately glad that the game encouraged me to use every character and discover their strengths (in five cases out of six, at least).

The plot’s focus on the family, paired with the tremendous art and beautiful animation, makes it easy to love the Bergsons. Lucy is so full of energy that she’ll jump in the middle of her run animation (which doesn’t interrupt your pathfinding at all but adds personality to her sprite), while eldest son Mark’s Naruto-style run is a perfect complement to his martial arts fighting style. Charming touches like this are everywhere, and they give the characters more personality. You feel those unique traits come through in combat, too; there are few things more satisfying than seeing Kevin shimmer with rage and rip through a huge mob of enemies.

And as with any family gathering, Children of Morta will encourage and then test your patience. It’s a grind-heavy game; it was very rare for me to beat a dungeon on my first shot, as most required that I level up and learn the boss’ attack patterns, which requires storming through the dungeon to get to them a few times. You can get away with running right past most enemy mobs, but to stand a chance against the boss at the end, you want to be armed with powerful buffs, and growing stronger requires farming experience and gold to unlock new abilities and improve your stats.

However, it takes a long time for the grind to start wearing you down. The combat is meaty and intense, and the allure of growing stronger is so compelling that dealing with huge crowds and collecting all the gold they spill can hold your attention for hours. There’s a sharp increase in difficulty right at the end, but I could always identify what had gone right–which fights I’d avoided, which charms I’d made use of, how I’d thought about my character’s relative strengths and weaknesses to the boss–and adjust my strategies accordingly to continue to do well. The grind helped make me a better player, instead of simply acting as a level gate.

There are special buffs that are only active for that session, and you have a much better chance of beating the boss if you go in after thoroughly exploring the dungeon and powering up. There are many different kinds of buff you can unlock, some temporary, some permanent; I found that I did far better against bosses when I went in with a lot of them active. You can find the various items and objects that make you more powerful throughout each dungeon, or buy them from shopkeepers that pop up, and I found myself getting excited whenever I found a good combination. Going up against a boss that has beaten you several times, now armed with a combination that you think will give you an advantage, is a great feeling.

Your dungeon runs are also broken up by numerous subquests that can appear throughout each dungeon, which expand on the game’s lore, introduce new NPCs, and result in significant upgrades or rewards. A few even have major narrative impact–there are a series of quests early on that end with the Bergsons adopting and raising an adorable puppy, for instance. But if one dungeon is really giving you grief, eventually it can feel like the game’s ready for you to move on before you’re ready yourself–you’ll stop getting cutscenes and character vignettes after missions, and you’ll find that you’ve run out of subquests to complete. But then, the feeling of eventually taking down a boss that was troubling you is extremely satisfying, especially knowing that you’re going to get more lovely character moments as you try to beat the next one.

You also have the option of playing the whole game in co-op, and the game balance differs depending on whether you’re alone or not. However, I found myself preferring to stick to solo play–it’s annoying for a friend to talk over cutscenes and the difficulty scaling makes co-op more complicated.

Children of Morta’s fantastic art style and enjoyable storytelling take what would have been an otherwise fun roguelike dungeon-crawler and elevate it a great deal. Taking down enemies and eventually triumphing over bosses is enjoyable, but what kept bringing me back was the connection I felt to the Bergsons, and my sincere desire to help them push back against the Corruption. After all, it’s a lot easier dealing with dungeons full of monsters when you have a family to come home to.

Streaming giant Netflix recently announced it will be the exclusive streaming home for Seinfeld starting in 2021. Given that Seinfeld is one of the most popular shows in the history of television, the company had to pay a pretty penny for the rights. But how much scratch are we talking?

According to sources speaking to The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, Netflix paid Sony Pictures Television more than $500 million for the five-year streaming rights. It’s a big get for Netflix, as the streaming network recently lost The Office and Friends to rival streaming services.

According to reports, NBCUniversal paid $500 million to take The Office off Netflix and put it on its own streaming service beginning in 2021, while WarnerMedia is estimated to have paid $425 million to pick up Friends and take it away from Netflix as well. These deals, which are said to span five years, are for US streaming rights only, whereas the Seinfeld deal reportedly is global.

Hulu is the current exclusive streaming site for Seinfeld in the United States. According to the reports, the company paid $130 million for a six-year deal that expires in 2021.

Netflix is said to have outbid Hulu, Amazon, WarnerMedia, and NBCUniversal for the streaming rights to Seinfeld. Viacom, which recently merged with GameSpot’s parent company, CBS, also reportedly put in a bid for Seinfeld to run on CBS All Access before Netflix ultimately won out.

“Seinfeld is the television comedy that all television comedy is measured against,” Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos told The LA Times. “It is as fresh and funny as ever and will be available to the world in 4K for the first time.”

Seinfeld’s rights and ownership is mixed between numerous different companies, including WarnerMedia and CBS (which is GameSpot’s parent company), along with the show’s creators, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. Each company and individual will receive a cut of the $500 million-plus, with Sony taking a “significant percentage” as the program’s overall distributor. Seinfeld was originally produced at the now-defunct Castle Rock, which is now owned by WarnerMedia.

While Netflix is getting the exclusive streaming rights to Seinfeld, re-runs of the show will still be shown on TV and WarnerMedia’s own network TBS. According to WSJ, Sony Pictures Television has already negotiated $3 billion worth of rerun deals over the years for Seinfeld.

Look to your left and then to your right: both of those people own Funko Pops. The impossibly popular toy company is now expanding further with a brand-new Funko movie.

According to Deadline, Warner Bros. has optioned the rights to Funko for a movie to be developed by Warner Animation Group based on the toys. Funko, which was founded 20 years ago, has been working with Warner Bros. for a long time already with its Batman, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Looney Tunes toys, among others.

Warner Animation boss Allison Abbate said, “Their fresh take on pop culture make these figurines incredibly appealing to fans of all ages.”

Warner Bros. has hired some big-name talent to work on the Funko Pop movie. Teddy Newton, who worked on Disney movies like Ratatouille and The Incredibles and earned an Oscar nomination for his short film Day & Night, is writing the story. Meanwhile, Mark Dindal (Emperor’s New Groove, Aladdin, Chicken Little, The Little Mermaid) is also attached to the project.

Funko CEO Brian Mariotti said in a statement, “We’re thrilled for this opportunity and are committed to make an amazing Funko movie that stands on its own merit. This isn’t about selling toys or building a brand. The team at Warner Animation Group have a unique vision of what the first film should be and we are extremely excited to take this journey alongside them.”

Warner Bros. picking up the rights to Funko Pops for a movie doesn’t mean a movie will ever be made, only that they have the option to do so. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Whatever the case, it seems to be very early days for a potential Funko Pop movie.

Another toy company, Lego, found enormous success converting its toys into movie mega-franchises with The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman movie series, among others. Toy company Mattel is making a Barbie movie with Margot Robbie in the lead role, while a Settlers of Catan film is also in the works.

Funko’s line of Funko Pop toys are immensely popular, and Funko has partnered with numerous different companies, sports leagues, and more to create toys. There are Funko Pop toys for Bob Ross, The Dude, Pinhead, and Vampire Mr. Burns, among many, many others.

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