We’re nearing the end of Amazon Prime Day and there have been some seriously great deals. When you factor in competitors like Walmart’s Prime Day deals, this has been the best time to save since Black Friday.
We’ve been watching the numbers and crunching them down to make them easy to digest. Here are YOUR favorite items from Amazon Prime Day, based on IGN audience data. One thing is for sure: people love a PS4 Pro deal.
Prime Day is almost over. It’s been an exhausting journey of deals and savings, but we made it through, together. I like to think we’re closer than before, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking?
In any case, this Prime Day was easily my favorite, in terms of opportunities to save. Some of the best savings in gaming since Black Friday happened during the course of Amazon Prime Day. The deals weren’t just at Amazon, either. Walmart brought the thunder with some deals of its own.
If your bank account is looking a little wiped out right now, don’t sweat it. There are still lots of gaming deals to be found for under $100. You can get the PlayStation Classic for $19.99, for example. That’s an 80% reduction in price since it was first introduced. Dang.
While on the surface, Disney’s latest live-action remake looks a lot like the 2016 adaptation of The Jungle Book–and even has the same director in Jon Favreau–the new Lion King was actually crafted very differently. That’s due, in large part, to the technology used to make the film.
During a press conference to promote the film, Favreau revealed that his take on Jungle Book owed a lot of its technique and style to James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar. “In Jungle Book, we were essentially using the same motion capture technology for performers and cameras as had been developed ten years prior for Avatar,” he explained. For The Lion King, though, the technology used to make the CGI-film took a major jump forward. In particular, advances in virtual reality allowed him to create an interactive version of the movie’s setting.
“Towards the end of [Jungle Book], there was a whole slew of consumer-facing VR products that were hitting the scene. And we started experimenting with it at the end of Jungle Book and realized that we could build this really cool system of filmmaking using game engine technology and this new VR technology,” he explained.
The engine in question is Unity, which is also used in the development of several games, from Hearthstone to Cuphead to Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality. When it came to The Lion King, the engine and VR technology allowed Favreau to create a virtual Pridelands that both his cast and crew could fully explore.
“[He] did an amazing job with this,” JD McCrary, who voices young Simba, recalls. “So it was me and Shahadi and Mr. Favreau. We put on the headsets, we had these little controller things in our hands, and we could fly. It was like we were Zazu. We were birds. We were whatever we wanted to be. And we saw everything. We saw the Pridelands. We saw Pride Rock. We saw the watering hole. We saw the elephant graveyard. We saw it all, man. And it was so cool.”
More than allowing his cast to experience the setting they’d be acting in, though, the virtual Pridelands helped Favreau and his team decide how best to film the movie. Describing the program as a sort of “multiplayer VR filmmaking game,” the director noted how it allowed those on the crew without extensive visual effects backgrounds to view the set as if it were a physical location. “The crew would be able to put on the headsets, go in, scout, and actually set cameras within VR,” he said. “And whenever anybody visited, I would pop them into the equipment.”
“It’s like watching your favorite movie, but, like, you’re in it,” McCrary mused. “You’re in the movie.” Now Disney just needs to release that VR program for the rest of the world to play with. In the meantime, The Lion King is in theaters on July 18.
After three weeks of 9.30 content updates, a new patch is on the way for Fortnite. The v9.40 update will arrive on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices tomorrow, July 17, and it looks set to introduce some new weapon variants to the battle royale shooter.
Downtime for the v9.40 update is scheduled to begin at 1 AM PT / 4 AM ET / 9 AM BST, developer Epic announced on Twitter. The studio didn’t discuss what new content will arrive as part of the update, but Fortnite’s in-game news feed is teasing that Epic and Legendary variants of the Tactical Shotgun are “coming soon” to the title.
Given that new weapons are advertised in the News feed just ahead of their release, the Epic and Legendary Tactical Shotguns will presumably arrive in this week’s 9.40 update. We’ll have the full 9.40 patch notes once the update is live.
Fortnite’s Week 10 challenges arrived on all platforms last week, which means we’re quickly nearing the end of Season 9. Epic typically caps off each season of the game with a big world-changing the event, and it appears one may happen this weekend. Dataminers have recently discovered evidence that a large battle between the monster formerly beneath Polar Peak and the giant robot being assembled at the Pressure Plant will kick off in the game on July 20.
There have been numerous indications within the game that some large-scale event is happening soon. One of Week 10’s challenges tasks players with visiting public service announcement signs, while players have recently begun noticing countdown timers around the island that lead up to the fateful showdown this Saturday, although what exactly that will entail remains to be seen.
Fortnite is preparing to wrap up Season 9 in a few weeks, and it appears this weekend could start the events that will lead into Season 10. Data miners have found evidence of an large-scale battle that could kick off on Saturday evening.
The giant eyeball from Polar Peak, apparently belonging to a monster nicknamed Cattus, has vanished. It has been roaming around the island and causing havoc. Meanwhile, a giant robot called Doggus is under construction at Pressure Plant. The two seem likely for a confrontation sooner or later.
Eurogamer reports that the datamines have found indications that the event will take place on July 20 at 11 AM PST / 2 PM EST / 7 PM BST (4 AM AEST on July 21). The game itself has started placing posters encouraging players to find high ground with public service notices when things start to get wild, in case you need a good vantage point to watch it all go down.
If you’re still catching up with Battle Stars, you can check out our challenge guide for a little hand with this week’s challenges. We already know a little about Season 10, notably that it will change the system requirements. Epic also recently warned mobile players about the latest iOS 13 beta update, citing stability concerns.
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The annual limited-time Summer Games event has returned to Overwatch. The event continues until early August, offering three weeks of challenges to complete, new cosmetics to unlock, and the return of a beloved arcade mode.
The Summer Games have been divided into three segments this year, with challenges to complete during each week. Every week offers the same three challenges: win three games, win six games, and win nine games. The rewards for each week are outlined below.
July 16 – July 22
July 23 – July 29
July 30 – August 5
The three aforementioned skins can only be unlocked by completing those challenges, so you’ll need to win at least nine games per week during the Summer Games to unlock every new cosmetic during the limited-time event. Four new Legendary skins–Kendoka Genji, Lúcioball Wrecking Ball, Surf ‘N’ Splash Torbjörn, and Wave Hanzo–are available to unlock via the traditional Summer Games Loot Boxes. All seven new skins are pictured below.
You’ll also be able to unlock any of the Epic and Legendary skins from past Summer Games if you’re missing any. The same goes for old Summer Games emotes and Intros, and two new Emotes and one new Intro have been added to this year’s event.
In Arcade, Lúcioball has returned for the Summer Games. Overwatch’s Rocket League-like soccer mode can be played in three different arenas: Estádio das Rãs, Sydney Harbour Arena, and Busan Stadium.
Summer Games 2019 ends August 5, and once it’s over you’ll have to wait until next year to unlock its summer-themed cosmetics. So if anything tickles your fancy, it’s better to jump back into Overwatch sooner rather than later. Remember, the new Epic skins can only be earned through the weekly challenges, so you need to keep playing throughout the Summer Games in order to unlock them all.
This year’s Summer Games has started earlier than previous ones; almost by a whole two weeks. As a result, Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan revealed, in a recent dev update, that the 31st Hero would be coming out later than initially anticipated. We still know little about the new Hero, other than that Kaplan has confirmed they will be male.
Overwatch is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
The first update for Final Fantasy XIV‘s latest expansion, Shadowbringers, is now live and gives players their first wave of post-release content. Patch 5.01 introduces additional quests for those who finished the Shadowbringers main scenario questline under the umbrella of Chronicles of a New Era. There are also a handful of tweaks to many of the jobs and bug fixes, but the most substantial addition is the new 8-player raid dungeon called Eden’s Gate.
You can access the raid by finishing the new quest called “In the Middle of Nowhere” (found at the Crystarium near the main Aetheryte) and starting the follow-up quest “Deploy the Core.” Players will need an average gear level of 425 to take part in Eden’s Gate and complete its four parts Resurrection, Inundation, Descent, and Sepulture.
In the 5.01 patch notes regarding rewards for running the new dungeon raid, Square Enix gave the following details:
As for item exchange for new gear, you can go to Ghul Gul in Amh Araeng or Yhal Yal in Eulmore to trade in those early antiquity tokens for the following gear:
There are more details on completion rewards for the new raid as well:
Slight tweaks were made for a few jobs across all of FFXIV: Lancer/Dragoon ability Disembowel duration has increased for 24 seconds to 30 seconds, Scholar ability Art of War had its MP cost reduced from 800 to 600, and Astrologian ability Gravity also its MP cost reduced from 700 to 600. You can view the full patch notes for FFXIV 5.01 here.
A Nier Automata-themed 24-player alliance raid called YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse is coming in the future, and it’s being made in collaboration with series creator Yoko Taro. FFXIV director and producer Naoki Yoshida said it’ll play closer to Nier and that Yoko Taro is working on it “as if he’s creating a whole game.”
This is the third expansion for FFXIV, and GameSpot reviewer Ginny Woo awarded Shadowbringers a 9/10 praising its great storytelling, strong instanced dungeons, and new Trust system (which lets you bring the game’s characters into dungeons as AI teammates instead of real players). For a broad overview of what’s new in the expansion, check out the biggest changes made to FFXIV for Shadowbringers, or if you need help with the new jobs, be sure to use our Gunbreaker and Dancer starting guide.
A special event has been announced for Pokemon Go. Niantic’s hit Pokemon mobile game is teaming up with the popular manga series One Piece for a collaboration event next week, which will give players around the world a chance to capture a special Pikachu.
Beginning July 22, Pikachu wearing One Piece hero Luffy’s iconic straw hat will begin spawning worldwide for a limited time. A straw hat avatar item will also be available from the in-game Style Shop, while players in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan will be able to visit statues of Luffy and other One Piece characters, which will serve as new PokeStops.
One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda was born in Kumamoto Prefecture, which was devastated by an earthquake back in 2016, just a few months prior to Pokemon Go’s launch. The special Pokemon Go/One Piece event is an effort to help draw people to the area. Pokemon Go and One Piece are both also celebrating anniversaries in July, making this month a special occasion for both properties.
In the meantime, a new Legendary Pokemon is appearing in Pokemon Go. Armored Mewtwo can be found in five-star Raids from now until July 31. This version of the Legendary Psychic Pokemon is sporting the armor it wears from the new Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution movie. It also boasts different stats and can learn different moves than standard Mewtwo.
Pokemon Go’s next Community Day is also just around the corner. The monthly event returns this Sunday, July 21. The featured Pokemon this month will be Mudkip, the Water-type starter from Ruby and Sapphire. On top of increased Mudkip spawns, players can also earn triple the usual amount of XP for capturing Pokemon during the event.
Microsoft has announced even more additions to Xbox Game Pass for PC and console coming throughout the rest of July. On top of the usual suite of additions, this month will also bring access to the Gears 5 technical test.
The Gears 5 test is otherwise reserved for those who preorder Gears 5, but since the game is included with Game Pass, so is the test. It will kick off on Friday, July 19, but you can download the client starting Wednesday, July 17. This test will cover the PvP portion of multiplayer, with a separate Horde Mode test coming in August.
As usual, the other game offerings for the month are split into games appearing on PC, console, or both. The next few weeks will bring Night Call on release day for PC, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and Resident Evil 4 for Xbox One, and The Banner Saga 3, For The King, and Killer Instinct for both platforms. Check below for a breakdown of dates and platforms.
These join the previous July additions, which included Undertale, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, My Time at Portia, Timespinner, Unavowed, Lego City Undercover, Dead Rising 4, and Blazing Chrome.
Xbox Game Pass offers an all-you-can-eat subscription to a curated library of games for $10 per month on PC or Xbox One. An “Ultimate” version that includes both subscriptions along with Xbox Live Gold is also available for $15. If you’re already a Gold or Game Pass member you may be able to upgrade your membership for cheap.