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The new Avengers game from Square Enix that was revealed at E3 this year has some big names behind it. It was already confirmed that Naughty Dog veteran Shaun Escayg is the game’s creative director and longtime EA/Visceral developer Stephen Barry is game director, and now we’ve learned a few of the other names working on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC title.

Crystal Dynamics studio head Scott Amos told GI.biz that the developer also hired Dave Fifield to work on multiplayer and Vince Napoli for combat design. Fifield worked on a number of Call of Duty games at Activision, while he also contributed to the Halo series at Microsoft. Napoli, meanwhile, recently worked on Sony where he was lead systems designer for God of War; specifically, he oversaw the development of Kratos’ axe, chain blade, and shield/bare hand combat design.

“We cherry-picked the best of the best and said: ‘Let’s put this together in a new way for something bigger than we’ve ever done,'” Amos said.

Square Enix appears to be putting a lot of muscle behind the new Avengers game. It’s assembled five studios to jointly develop the title including Crystal Dynamics in Redwood Shores, California, as well as sister studio Crystal Northwest in Bellevue, Washington. Nixxes Software in the Netherlands is also contributing to The Avengers, while Eidos Montreal is also working on it. In addition, Square Enix Japan has a “tech group” contributing to the new title.

“We’ve literally had to put these five studios together and say: ‘We’re going this far. Tomb Raider, awesome. Rise of the Tomb Raider, even better. Shadow of the Tomb Raider… and it’s like no, we’re going beyond the boundaries,'” Amos said.

The new Avengers game launches in May 2020, though an Avengers beta coming to PS4 first will kick things off before release. Square Enix’s announcement also included details like cooperative gameplay, free post-release DLC, and the all-star voice cast includes Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, Nolan North, Travis Willingham, and Jeff Schine.

In other news, Marvel is bringing Avengers: Endgame back to theatres with extra content. Maybe the re-release will help the film eclipse Avatar to become the highest-grossing movie ever.

With E3 2019 wrapped, New Releases is back to its normal schedule. It’s a solid week for Nintendo Switch, as Super Mario Maker 2 and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night both come to the portable console. The PS4 gets an exclusive of its own with the investigation-filled Judgment, and there’s another mystery to solve in The Sinking City. Finally, weapon-based fighting fans can get their fix with the Samurai Shodown reboot.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night — June 25

Available on: Switch

If Bloodstained reminds you of Castlevania, there’s a good reason: this action game comes from ex-Castlevania boss Koji Igarashi. The Kickstarter-funded project takes cues from Symphony of the Night, with a big castle to explore, monsters to slay, and powerful magic to acquire. It’s already out on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but thanks to the portability of the Switch version, you can take the adventure on the go.

More Coverage:

Judgment — June 25

Available on: PS4

Much like Bloodstained, Judgment might remind you of another game. In this case, Yakuza comparisons are totally apt, since this spin-off is set in a lot of the same locations. It even uses the same combat system, letting you swap between styles during the fight. But it’s not about the Japanese mob; Judgment sees detective Takayuki Yagami solving a series of murders.

More Coverage:

Samurai Shodown — June 25

Available on: PS4, Xbox One

After nearly a decade out of the spotlight, the long-running fighting series is back with this reboot. For the uninitiated, the Shodown games have a tricky battle system wherein characters go down in a single hit. There are plenty of returning fighters plus some new contenders here, each with their own weapon style for you to master.

More Coverage:

The Sinking City — June 27

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Private investigator Charles Reed has come to the fishing town of Oakmont to look into a series of strange occurrences. The residents keep having terrifying visions, and the various city districts keep flooding. You’ll have to navigate the deep waters and battle Lovecraftian horrors as you track down the source of the madness.

More Coverage:

Super Mario Maker 2 — May 28

Available on: Switch

There’s almost too much to talk about with this Super Mario Maker sequel. You can build custom levels with a ton of new tools, and the story mode introduces some Mario mechanics you might not be familiar with, like the Angry Sun, Banzai Bills, and new level themes. What’s more, you can take on all the courses online cooperatively and competitively.

More Coverage:

Believe it or not, it’s already time to start talking about the big video games of July. Next week, New Releases will take a look at the month ahead, which is home to the likes of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and the next Final Fantasy XIV expansion, Shadowbringers.

Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson and a series of other high-ranking executives at the publisher declined their cash bonuses for the latest financial year which ended March 31. This was confirmed in a Securities & Exchange Commission filing dated June 21 and reported on by GameDaily.

“Our CEO and his staff requested that they receive no performance cash bonus award for fiscal 2019,” reads a line from the filing.

The filing mentioned that Wilson and other executives declined their cash bonuses due to EA’s poor financial results in Fiscal Year 2019, and “in order to maintain alignment with our pay-for-performance executive compensation philosophy.”

“While we are disappointed with our fiscal 2019 results, we understand the challenges we face, and we will continue to focus on how we can apply the strengths of our Company to capitalize on our opportunities,” the statement explains.

EA made $4.95 billion for fiscal 2019, which was down from $5.15 billion during the previous fiscal year. The downturn in revenue might sound surprising given EA landed a huge hit with Apex Legends during the year. However, the title was only released in February 2019, which was just ahead of the end of the fiscal year in March. EA also had a few high-profile misses during the year, including Battlefield V and Anthem, both of which underperformed.

The other EA executives who declined their cash bonuses for the year included CFO Blake Jorgensen, CTO Kenneth Moss, chief marketing officer Chris Bruzzo, and chief studios officer Laura Miele. Patrick Soderlund, who quit EA in August 2018, also reportedly gave up his bonus. EA reportedly offered Soderlund $20 million in equity bonuses to stay at the company, but even so, he left to establish Embark Studios in Sweden. At the time, it was believed that Soderlund took the $20 million with him, but GameDaily reports that he did not; the funds are instead reportedly going into a pool to help secure new hires, among other purposes.

According to GameDaily, the EA executives declined their cash bonuses and instead put the money into a bonus pool to be paid to employees. Combined, the bonuses amount to around $4.8 million to be paid to employees, and that doesn’t count the $20 million equity bonus from Soderlund, according to GameDaily.

The SEC filing also reveals that all of EA’s Named Executive Officers (NEOs) received an increase to their base salary in Fiscal 2019. Wilson now makes $1.192 million annually, while Jorgensen gets $850,000. Moss and Bruzzo make $675,000 every year. Miele, who only just started as chief studios officer, makes $675,000 annually as well. Soderlund, who left EA during fiscal 2019, made $475,572 as a base salary. All numbers are in USD.

As you can see in the chart below, base salary is just the beginning when it comes to total compensation. Wilson’s total pay package, including stock awards and other compensation, was $18.3 million for the latest fiscal year. That is just about half of what he earned the year prior. The “non-equity incentive plan compensation” is empty for all of the NEOs, and that’s because they declined their cash bonuses.

In other EA news, Wilson says he believes BioWare’s Anthem can find success in the future following its slow start earlier this year.

Pixar’s newest movie, Toy Story 4, opened in theatres this weekend–and it was a massive success. The movie made an estimated $118 million in the US and Canada, according to box office numbers from Entertainment Weekly. That’s below industry projections of as much as $165 million, but despite the lower-than-expected result, it’s still a juggernaut.

Its $118 million is above the $110.3 million that Toy Story 3 made over its opening weekend in 2010 to become the best opening-weekend in the entire Toy Story franchise.

Additionally, Toy Story 4 is one of the most successful animated movies in the history of cinema, only behind The Incredibles 2 ($182.7 million) and Finding Dory ($135.1 million) from Pixar, as well as Shrek the Third ($121.6 million) for best opening weekend for an animated movie in the US and Canada. What’s more, Toy Story 4 is the third movie so far in 2019 to open with more than $100 million over its first weekend; the other two are Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame, both of which are also Disney movies.

Toy Story 4 made an estimated $120 million from overseas markets this weekend, so globally, it’s now pulled in around $238 million after only three days in theatres. The movie also boasts an enviable A CinemaScore rating, which suggests positive word-of-mouth will help it continue to succeed in the coming weeks.

Scroll down to see a ranking of best opening weekends for Pixar movies over the years.

Toy Story 4, which is directed by Josh Cooley, brings back a lot of the original voice cast including Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear. Everyone’s favorite person right now, Keanu Reeves, also voices a new character in the film, while Jordan Peele, Keegan Michael-Key, and a long list of other huge names also have roles.

June 21-23 US/Canada Box Office

1. Toy Story 4 — $118 million
2. Child’s Play — $14.1 million
3. Aladdin — $12.2 million
4. Men In Black International — $10.8 million
5. Secret Life of Pets 2 — $10.1 million
6. Rocketman — $5.7 million
7. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum — $4.1 million
8. Godzilla: King of the Monsters — $3.7 million
9. Dark Phoenix — $3.6 million
10. Shaft — $3.6 million

Pixar Domestic Box Office Opening-Weekend Ranking:

1. Incredibles 2 — $182.7 million
2. Finding Dory — $135 million
3. Toy Story 4 — $118 million
4. Toy Story 3 — $110 million
5. Inside Out — $90.4 million
6. Monsters University — $82.4 million
7. Incredibles — $70.5 million
8. Finding Nemo — $70.3 million
9. Up — $68 million
10. Brave — $66.3 million
11. Cars 2 — $66.1 million
12. Wall-E — $63 million
13. Monsters Inc — $62.6 million
14. Cars — $60.1 million
15. Toy Story 2 — $57.4 million
16. Cars 3 — $53.7 million
17. Coco — $50.8 million
18. Ratatouille — $47 million
19. The Good Dinosaur — $39.2 million
20. A Bug’s Life — $33.3 million
21. Toy Story — $29.14 million

BioWare’s Anthem released in February this year, and it wasn’t a huge critical success. Part of the reason why the game struggled, according to EA CEO Andrew Wilson, is because it attempts to appeal to two different audiences. He talks about the game’s struggles and opportunities for future growth and success in a new interview.

“We brought together these two groups of players who were making this emotional value calculation on two different vectors,” Wilson told GameDaily. “One was traditional BioWare story-driven content, and the other was this action-adventure type content. About the 30 or 40 hour mark they really had to come together and start working in on the elder game. At that point everyone kind of went, ‘Oh, hang a minute.’ Now the calculation is off.

“It’s off because I’ve got a friend who sits in this other category of player. They want to play the game a certain way. I want to play the game a certain way. The promise was we can play together, and that’s not working very well. Oh, by the way I’m used to 100 hours of BioWare story, and that’s not what I got,'” Wilson explained. “Or, ‘I expected that this game would have meaningfully advanced the action component that we’d seen in games like Destiny before, and I don’t feel like it has.'”

While Anthem might have struggled out of the gate, Wilson said EA is committed to supporting the game in the long-run. In fact, he mentioned that Anthem could have a “7-10 year cycle.” Wilson said EA feels good about investing in Anthem in the long-run because the game has a strong foundation to build on.

“If we believed that at the very core the world wasn’t compelling people, if we believed at the very core that the characters weren’t compelling for people, or the Javelin suits weren’t compelling, or traversing the world and participating in the world wasn’t compelling then provided we hadn’t made promises to our players… we might not invest further,” Wilson said. “IP lives for generations, and runs in these seven to ten year cycles. So, if I think about Anthem on a seven to ten year cycle, it may not have had the start that many of us wanted, including our players. I feel like that team is really going to get there with something special and something great, because they’ve demonstrated that they can.”

The full interview at GameDaily is in-depth and wide-ranging, touching on a number of other subjects including loot boxes, layoffs, and a wider look at the future of EA. Go read it.

At E3 this year, Anthem lead producer Ben Irving said he believes Anthem has a “very bright future.”

“We’ve learned a lot these last few months, we really want to make the game better, we believe Anthem can be a really amazing game,” he explained. “We know we have some work to do, we just want to work with the community and build it together and make it the game that everyone wants it to be.”