Fleabag Creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge Signs New Deal With Amazon For $20 Million Per Year

Phoebe Waller-Bridge won big at the Emmys on Sunday. Her show Fleabag won Best Comedy Series and she herself took home awards for best writing in a comedy series and outstanding lead actress. She’s now signed a huge new deal with Amazon, which she was already working with for Fleabag, to make more original TV content for the network.

According to Variety, Waller-Bridge will make and produce new shows for Amazon Studios; these programs will air only on Amazon Prime Video. Sources told the site that Amazon is paying Waller-Bridge around $20 million USD per year under the deal.

“I’m insanely excited to be continuing my relationship with Amazon,” Waller-Bridge said. “Working with the team on Fleabag was the creative partnership dreams are made of. It really feels like home. I can’t wait to get going!”

Amazon Studios boss Jennifer Salke said in a statement that Waller-Bridge is “clever, brilliant, generous, and a virtuoso” across writing, acting, and producing.

“Fleabag has been a gift to our Prime Video customers and we are excited for what comes next from this brilliant mind to dazzle and delight our global audience,” Salke said.

Fleabag won a total of six Emmy awards for its second and final season, making it among the most decorated shows of the event.

Waller-Bridge was also hired to contribute to the script for the new James Bond movie, No Time To Die. According to reports, 007 actor Daniel Craig specifically requested for her help.

Top 10 Best-Selling PS4 Games And Exclusives Of All Time (US Only)

Sony’s PlayStation 4 is the best-selling console this generation with more than 100 million units shipped, but what are the platform’s best-selling games?

NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella released a list of the top 10 best-selling PS4 games and exclusives, and, just like on Xbox One, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V is No. 1 on the “all games” chart for dollar sales (physical and digital) through August 2019 in the USA.

Rockstar’s newest game, Red Dead Redemption II, is No. 2 on the list, with Call of Duty titles making up the rest of the top five. In total, Call of Duty games represented four of the top 10 titles.

Sony’s own Spider-Man game was No. 6, which is an impressive result given it is ahead of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (though that game did perform worse than expected). Another Sony-made game, God of War, landed at No. 8. By comparison, no first-party Microsoft games made the Top 10 list for Xbox One.

Moving to exclusives, Spider-Man was the top-seller, with God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and Bloodborne rounding out the Top 5. You can see the full Top 10 list below.

In other news, Sony held its latest State of Play event today where it showed off a stunning new trailer for The Last of Us: Part II and confirmed a release date for February 2020.

For more game sales charts, check out the story below.

Doctor Who: The Edge of Time Puts Puzzles on a Spaceship

Doctor Who: The Edge of Time, which launches ‘soon’, is the first ‘feature-length’ Doctor Who VR game. Much like the TV show, it’s a galaxy-hopping ride from one dangerous location to the next, all while Daleks, Weeping Angels, and other nasties nip at your heels.

Recently I got to take a deeper look inside the game, in which after a brief five-second look at the TARDIS (this VR control room being the closest I’m likely to get to a childhood dream come true), I was ushered forth into the corridors of a spaceship. Fitted out in a decor that wouldn’t look entirely out of place in a classic Robert Holmes episode of Who, the ship is home to a laser lock puzzle that you can watch unfold in the gameplay below. For any would-be-time-travellers, don’t worry: you won’t be seeing any solutions here.

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Is There Finally A Game That Feels Like Doctor Who?

Doctor Who is a mainstream phenomenon in the UK and a cult hit around the world. It’s enjoyed by millions of people every year when it airs on our TV screens and is one of the BBC’s biggest franchises. Yet, despite its sizeable audience, no Doctor Who game has ever really made a mark.

That’s not for the lack of trying: Sumo Digital’s Doctor Who: The Adventure Games was a valiant effort but was released and quietly canceled without barely a murmur. Supermassive’s attempt, The Eternity Clock trilogy, was canceled after just one installment. Worlds in Time, an MMORPG, was shut down just two years after its launch. There’s a pattern emerging, isn’t there?

All this means I went into a preview build of Doctor Who: The Edge of Time feeling a little apprehensive, desperately wanting a great game that did justice to the show I love so dearly, but not really thinking it would do so. And I’m pleased to report that, while it is flawed, Edge of Time is finally a Doctor Who game that, well, feels like Doctor Who.

It’s a VR title in which you play a friend of The Doctor–who, incidentally, features the likeness and voice of Jodie Whittaker. The style of play changes dramatically from level to level: one mission I played was a horror-themed trudge through an alien forest planet filled with creepy glowy-eyed creatures, while the next section was pure puzzle game based around lasers and light refraction. Later levels, I was told, include a more action/shooter-focused segment in which you control a Dalek shell and a separate encounter with the Weeping Angels, though I didn’t get to play these.

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The highlight, however, was piloting the TARDIS. It may have, in reality, been a simple memory puzzle to get the engines whirring away, but there was something very special about stepping inside the Doctor’s iconic ship and pressing its buttons and twisting its knobs (whatever it is they do). It was a moment that reminded me of the power of VR–that if you can suspend your disbelief, you really can get lost in other worlds.

That’s not to say The Edge of Time is perfect–visually, as with many VR games, it leaves much to be desired. And as fun to wield the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver is, it doesn’t allow as much interaction with the game world as I’d like. It can unlock some predesignated doors, for example, but not every door like it would in the show.

In a strange way, however, these issues give Edge of Time a low-budget feel that helps it match the quirky and endearing approach Doctor Who made its name on. Yes, there’s a visual glitch here and there, but the series was once famed for its continuity errors and flimsy sets–it’s part of the charm. What’s more British than trying to be dramatic and just falling short?

Doctor Who: The Edge of Time is “coming soon” for PSVR, Oculus, and HTC Vive.

Jurassic World 3 Brings Back Jeff Goldbum, Laura Dern and Sam Neill

Three stars from the first Jurassic Park movie will be reprising their classic roles in Jurassic World 3. Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum will return as Alan Grant, Dr. Ellie Sattler, and Dr. Ian Malcolm, respectively, for the sixth installment of the Jurassic franchise.

This marks the first time the original trio have been in a Jurassic movie together since the original.

They will join returning stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard along with director Colin Trevorrow. Trevorrow is executive producing with Steven Spielberg. The script for Jurassic World 3 is co-written by Trevorrow and Emily Carmichael (Pacific Rim Uprising, The Black Hole) from a story by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly, the same pair who co-wrote Jurassic World and its followup Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom.

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Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare’s 100-Player Modes Should Be Available At Launch

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is already confirmed to feature the franchise’s biggest multiplayer mode ever with its 64-player Ground War. As suspected, the military shooter may offer multiplayer modes that are even bigger in scale.

In a press release, Activision said the previously discussed 100-player modes may be available at launch. “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer is expected to support up to 100 players in select multiplayer experiences upon launch on October 25,” Activision said.

The wording here is important. The release specifically mentions “select multiplayer experiences” plural, which suggests there may be more than one 100-player mode. Additionally, the line mentions that these modes, whatever they are, are “expected”–but not confirmed–to be available upon release.

In August, Infinity Ward’s Joel Emslie told GameSpot that Modern Warfare is capable of supporting more than 100 players, though he didn’t have any more information to share at the time. It remains to be seen if the 100-player mode(s) will be battle royale or something else entirely.

2018’s Call of Duty game, Black Ops 4, features a battle royale mode called Blackout. Just this week, the mode introduced huge tanks to crank up the action.

Modern Warfare, which is a reboot of the 2007 game of the same name, launches on October 25 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. In a big change for the series, post-release DLC maps are free. Not only that, but the game supports cross-play and cross-saves. Just recently, it was also confirmed that PS4 players will have exclusive access to the Survival mode in Spec Ops.

The game launches with a huge amount of hype behind it, as the Modern Warfare beta was the franchise’s biggest ever in terms of total number of players and hours spent in the game.

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Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Beta Set A New Franchise Record

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The recently concluded Call of Duty: Modern Warfare beta test has set multiple new franchise records for a Call of Duty beta. According to Activision, it was the “largest [beta] in Call of Duty history.”

Some of its achievements included:

  • Highest total number of users
  • Highest number of hours played
  • Highest peak concurrent number for PS4, Xbox One, and PC combined

Activision said “millions” of people played the beta. The pre-release test was held over multiple weekends in September, beginning on PS4 before coming to Xbox One and PC. Those who pre-ordered the game were invited in first, before Activision opened the beta to everyone.

The second weekend’s beta test was a big one, as it introduced the 64-player Ground War mode and cross-play support that allowed people on different platforms to play together. Additionally, it was discovered that Modern Warfare supports cross-saves between competing systems, so you can play on PS4 and move to Xbox One (or PC) and keep your progression and levels intact.

Infinity Ward boss Patrick Kelly said in a statement that Modern Warfare beta gave the studio “important data and feedback” to help improve the game at launch on October 25.

Activision’s statement went on to reiterate that Modern Warfare’s multiplayer may introduce a mode or multiple modes that support up to 100 players, though whether or not this will be a battle royale mode remains to be seen.

Modern Warfare was co-developed by Beenox, High Moon Studios, and Raven Software. Additionally, it appears Call of Duty: WWII developer Sledgehammer’s new Melbourne, Australia studio contributed to the engineering work that made Modern Warfare’s Ground War mode possible.