Call Of Duty: Warzone Dev Teases Future Of The Battle Royale Mode

Call of Duty’s free-to-play battle royale game, Warzone, is performing incredibly well right now, and Activision is apparently going to continue to support the game even after the next mainline Call of Duty game comes out later this year. In a new interview, Infinity Ward’s Taylor Kurosaki teased that Warzone will be the “through line that connects all the various sub-franchises of Call of Duty.”

Reading between the lines here, it sounds like Warzone will continue to be supported with content based on the year’s new Call of Duty game.

“We’re in kind of uncharted territories here,” Kurosaki told GamerGen. “Call of Duty has been on a very regular cadence for many many years, and Warzone has made us rethink exactly how best to release new content and how to integrate it. Call of Duty is a genre in itself, there are different branches in the Call of Duty tree, but they’re all connected in some ways. Warzone will be the through line that connects all of the different various sub-franchises of Call of Duty.”

Kurosaki further teased that he’s excited to see how the various other Call of Duty games get incorporated into Warzone as the years go on.

“It’s going to be really cool to see how the different sub-franchises sort of come in and out of focus, but Warzone will be the one constant,” he said.

2020’s new Call of Duty game is reportedly a Cold War/Vietnam-era Black Ops spin-off from Treyarch with the support of Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software. It is expected that it will be a cross-generation title, releasing for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, as well as PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Warzone is Call of Duty’s second battle royale experience, following the Blackout mode that was featured in 2018’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. The situation is different, however, as Blackout is only available to people who bought Black Ops 4, while Warzone is a free-to-play standalone game.

Now Playing: Call Of Duty: Warzone Video Review

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Star Wars Returns To Fortnite, But Not For Long

A day before the official celebration begins on May 4, Fortnite has brought back Star Wars goodies. Only available for a limited time, they include lightsabers from some of the franchise’s biggest characters as well as outfits, emotes, and more.

Four different lightsabers are currently available in the game’s item shop. These include Rey and Obi-Wan’s blue lightsaber, Luke’s green saber, Mace Windu’s purple saber, and Kylo Ren’s special red lightsaber, complete with its unique crossguard.

A “dark side” emote is available now for 200 V-Bucks, as are skins for Kylo Ren, a red Sith Trooper, and Rey. Though they won’t give you any competitive advantage in battle royale, looking that cool may boost your confidence enough to increase your performance.

You won’t have very long to get the goodies before they’re gone again. Star Wars Fortnite items will be gone on May 5, but the fun doesn’t stop with Fortnite. There are a ton of different deals available on Star Wars games right now, including Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and older releases on Steam.

The deals are available across PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, and include popular games as well as smaller titles from decades ago. It’s also worthwhile to get a month of Disney+ in order to watch The Mandalorian as well as all nine films in the Skywalker Saga.

Now Playing: Fortnite Event – Star Wars Exclusive Scene And Massive Lightsaber Battle Gameplay

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Call Of Duty: Warzone Will Get Duos, But There Are Still Issues

Call of Duty: Warzone has most of the features players have come to expect from battle royale games, including a high player limit and different party sizes, but Duos mode has been mysteriously absent so far from the game’s flagship mode. That is going to change in the future, but the game’s development team has encountered issues that have delayed its rollout.

Speaking to French publication GamerGen (via VGC), Raven Software creative director Amos Hodge explained that there are still bugs that need to be ironed out before it can be implemented into battle royale. He also wants to ensure that the timing is right for the mode and that players are interested in playing new content while building on what was there before.

This includes identifying the most popular modes, which will remain in the game as others are swapped in and out. It’s this strategy that Warzone’s developers are still adjusting, as players have reacted negatively when certain modes, like Trios, have been removed from the game several times. In response, they’ve been added back in, but too many options could split up the player-base.

The updates and tweaks have certainly increased the game’s total file size, as well. If played through Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, players on PC will need more than 180 GB of free space, and even more is needed on PS4 and Xbox One. Warzone is also available as a separate download, making the file size lower.

Now Playing: Call Of Duty: Warzone Video Review

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Uncharted Deepfake Video Stars Nathan Fillion As Nathan Drake

For as long as there have been talks of an Uncharted movie, there have been calls for Nathan Fillion to play Nathan Drake. The actor’s sarcastic demeanor and physical similarities make him a natural fit for the character, and a deepfake video shows just how easily he could settle into the role. Of course, the technology is also downright unsettling.

Taking a scene from 2016’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, YouTube user Jarkan used deepfake technology to replace Nathan Drake’s computer-generated face with Fillion’s. The voice remains the same, and it’s extremely difficult to tell the clip has been altered. No other characters were changed for the deepfake.

After the scene is played in full, you can view a side-by-side comparison of the deepfake clip compared to the original game. Nathan Drake certainly has a more expressive mouth, but the resemblance is uncanny.

Fillion himself has expressed interest in playing Nathan Drake in the past, and even starred in a fan film back in 2018. Though only about 15 minutes, it showed his chops for the character and how he could combine sarcasm with blockbuster action.

The official Uncharted film has been encountering production troubles for years, losing six different directors since it was announced in 2008. As of now, the plan is for Tom Holland to star as a younger Nathan Drake with Mark Wahlberg as his mentor Sully. It’s scheduled to release on July 16, 2021.

The Wretched Review

The Wretched is currently available to stream at IFC Midnight.

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Launching this weekend via IFC’s genre label, IFC Midnight (for horror, sci-fi, etc), is the witch-next-door/coming-of-age mystery, The Wretched. It’s an earnest, interesting low-budget creepfest that combines a Goosebumps-style teen thriller with some of the grimier and gooier carnage of wood witch, baby-eating horror.

For an indie film with no easily-recognizable players, The Wretched lands well. It looks good. It moves with energy and urgency. No cast member feels egregiously out of place or not quite ready for the screen. There’s even room for a noble-enough twist heading into the third act. And the film’s central hero, a troubled youth, Ben (John-Paul Howard), is an engaging protagonist.

As a moody rebel whose folks are more than willing to ignore once he starts making calamitous claims about the vacationing couple next door to his townie dad’s house — where he’s been sent to live for the summer — Ben is faced with an uphill climb from the get-go. Add to this the fact that the film’s bogey-creature, a grody body-snatching forest demon, uses a maniacal form of mental trickery on the families it targets, making them forget about their own children. That way no one misses them when they get whisked away into the woods for feasting purposes.

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Written and directed by brothers Brett and Drew Pierce, The Wretched is a unique addition to the realm of craggy crone horror, making sure to include all of the grossest and most off-putting elements of the monster’s devilish design and malicious M.O. The main issue The Wretched runs into is the blending of. what sometimes feels like, two different films. One one hand, there’s the ghoulish gore parade, involving a fair amount of splatter and sinew, and on the other we’ve got a teen drama featuring Ben resenting his dad’s new girlfriend (Supergirl’s Azie Tesfai), running afoul of rich kid bullies, and developing a crush on a local girl (Piper Curda).

At some point, even though mixing these two stories is far from an awful idea, both sides get short-sheeted. Both wind up with unfinished narrative business and the film’s attempt to end things on a small “gotcha” beat plays more like a smirk than anything resembling dread. And so, at the close, the story feels a little lighter and less menacing than the adventure before it would lead you to believe.

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The Wretched achieves a credible mood and style, presenting a voyeuristic puzzle to solve that exist mostly between two houses. At first it seems like the story is looking to craft a bond between Ben and the neighbors’ kid, Dillon (Blane Crockarell), who starts fearing for his life once his mother (Zarah Mahler) starts behaving suspiciously sinister. Instead, the film throws a nice curveball and steers the story in a more jagged direction. One where Ben’s meddling makes him and his own family a target.

There are a bunch of different push/pulls at play in The Wretched. The idea of dripping darkness lurking underneath a small summer-destination town. Ben’s own need for parental stability manifesting into chaos for the family one house over. Tonally, and thematically, it can be hit or miss, but it’s always watchable.