Gamescom 2019 is officially underway. Following Nintendo’s indie-focused presentation on Monday, Pokemon Sword and Shield developer Game Freak has shared a new gameplay clip of the upcoming Pokemon Switch titles, giving fans a closer look at one of the first areas they’ll explore in the games.
The video, which you can watch below, gives viewers a brief tour of one of the quaint, English-inspired towns that players will visit on their journey across the Galar region. While brief, we get to see a few notable landmarks in the clip, including a Galarian Pokemon Center, the Pokemon Research Lab where Professor Magnolia conducts her studies, and a few other facilities, such as a boutique shop (where players will be able to purchase you clothing items for their avatar) and a rail station.
Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have been gradually revealing more details about Pokemon Sword and Shield in the lead up to their launch. Ahead of the Pokemon World Championships last week, we got to see a new trailer that showcased some new Pokemon Abilities and held items, such as Galarian Weezing’s Neutralizing Gas, which negates the Abilities of every other Pokemon on the field.
The Pokemon Company also shared more details about how online battling will work in Sword and Shield. The games will feature both Ranked and Casual battle modes; the former has players earning points after every battle, which will increase their standing in the different ranked tiers. The titles will also occasionally host special online competitions, like those that are run through the Pokemon Global Link website for Sun/Moon and their Ultra counterparts.
Pokemon Sword and Shield launch for Nintendo Switch on November 15. Players will need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription in order to take advantage of the games’ online features. You can see all of the new Gen 8 Pokemon revealed so far in our gallery. For more information about the titles, including where you can secure a copy, be sure to check out our Pokemon Sword and Shield pre-order guide.
Dwayne Johnson might not be appearing in the upcoming Fast & Furious 9, but the movie continues to add some impressive names. Following the news that Charlize Theron, Helen Mirren, and John Cena will all co-star, it’s been reported that Guardians of the Galaxy actor Michael Rooker has also joined the cast of the action sequel.
According to Deadline, Rooker will play a character named Buddy, and his casting is a “last minute addition” to the production, which is now underway. Rooker played Yondu in both Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and is also known for his role of Merle Dixon in The Walking Dead. He also appeared in the most recent season of True Detective and in movies such as Days of Thunder, JFK, Sea of Love, and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
The currently-untitled Fast 9 hits theaters on May 22, 2020. It’s directed by Justin Lin, who has made four of the previous movies, and stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, and Ludacris. Although Johnson has appeared in every movie since 2012’s Fast Five, as well as this year’s spin-off Hobbs and Shaw, he isn’t part of the Fast 9 cast. Johnson and Diesel had a reported falling out during the shooting of The Fate of the Furious and did not share any scenes together.
In related news, Rodriguez recently took to Twitter to blast regular series screenwriter Chris Morgan. Her tweet was in response to comments that Morgan has made about the character of Shaw, played by Jason Statham, who killed the character of Han in the Morgan-written Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift. Rodriguez declared that Morgan has “absolutely nothing to do with where [the Han] narrative is.”
Respawn CEO Vince Zampella has issued a statement apologizing for an incident in which members of the Apex Legends team were critical of the community. While he said he firmly stands behind the team when it comes to defending itself from “toxic and nasty comments” like death threats or comments directed at developers’ loved ones, he also said the team shouldn’t add to the fray.
It started with another admission of guilt, when project lead Drew McCoy announced changes to the Iron Crown event. That ongoing event has unique cosmetics that could only be earned through randomized Apex Packs, driving the cost up to more than $150 for everything together. McCoy said that making skins so expensive broke the studio’s promise to make its monetization fair, so the shop began selling the cosmetics individually.
A thread on the Apex Legends subreddit had developers engaging with the community and offering their thoughts. But things took a turn for the worse when developers criticized the community with insulting language and saying most players are “freeloaders.” After hours of tensions, Zampella issued a statement on Twitter.
“Some of our folks crossed a line with their comments, and that’s not how we want Respawn to be represented,” he said. “I apologize to any of our fans that were offended. I will always stand behind the team here at Respawn and support them on speaking out against some of the toxic and nasty comments being directed at them, including everything from death threats to comments aimed at their family and loved ones. But we shouldn’t contribute to it when we do comment, and add to the very thing we want to prevent. We need to lead by example.”
Zampella’s statement was also posted on the subreddit itself, where the top-upvoted comments seem fairly receptive to it. Some are faulting both the devs and community for being overly hostile, while others are trying to turn attention back towards more constructive criticism.
The Iron Crown event is centered around a new limited-time Solos mode, which is structured like the regular battle royale but (as you might expect) you’re going it alone.
It looks like Rockstar Games has something new in the works, as the name ‘Bonaire’ has popped up on the Australian Classification website. ‘Rockstar Games’ is listed as the publisher and production company.
What is ‘Bonaire’, exactly? It’s entirely unclear – all we know so far, as first reported by Kotaku Australia, is that it’s been refused classification in Australia. The listing is barebones, not containing any information beyond the fact that it’s from Rockstar and that it’s a game (‘computer game’ is the broad term used for all games within this system, so it does not necessarily specify that it’s a PC release).
Kotaku Australia‘s theory is that Bonaire is likely DLC for Red Dead Redemption 2, as Bonaire is the name of a Caribbean island as well. Considering that a portion of the campaign takes place on the fictional island of Guarma, it’s possible that Bonaire could be an additional section added to either the single-player or online part of the game. Why it was refused classification, though, remains a mystery – Red Dead Redemption has an MA15+ rating in Australia, restricting it from being sold to anyone under 18. Many games in the past have been refused classification in Australia at first, but have then eventually found their way onto shelves, though – just today Australia was able to buy Hotline Miami 2 for the first time.
There’s no guarantee that Bonaire is connected to Red Dead Redemption in any way, though – it could be something entirely new. An LA Noire spin-off? A Bully sequel? Hopefully we’ll find out more soon.
Marvel’s Spider-Man, Insomniac Games’ excellent take on our favourite webcrawler, looks like it’ll be getting a Game of the Year edition. A barebones listing on Amazon points towards a new retail version of the game, and although the page doesn’t explicitly say it, it’s likely that this release would contain the game’s The City That Never Sleeps DLC. There is no release date or cover art as of yet.
The combined file size of Marvel’s Spider-Man and its DLC stretches past 70GB, so it’s likely that the DLC would be available as a download code rather than being on the disc. The City That Never Sleeps was released as three parts post-launch: The Heist, Turf Wars, and Silver Linings, all of which were bundled together in a season pass. The game has received numerous updates and free costumes since launch, but it’s unclear if this Game of the Year edition will be the same version currently available or whether it will carry some of these updates.
Let’s just get this out of the way right now: I spent most of my time in the Blair Witch video game trying to pat the dog.
Believe me, you’ll want to. Your trusty canine companion Bullet is the only thing you’ll have to help you in Blair Witch, which is shaping up to be a frightening little throwback to an era where camcorders were at the cutting edge of technology. He’s as important a part of your (limited) arsenal as your camcorder, mobile phone, and flashlight, but he’s also an extremely adorable partner who you’ll want to protect against the mysterious horrors of the Black Hills Forest.
As ex-cop named Ellis on the search for 9-year-old Peter Shannon in the depths of the said forest, you’re armed with a camcorder, a walkie talkie, a flashlight, and Bullet. All have their uses, but Bullet is the most utilized, minute to minute. You can command him in several ways – Come, Seek, Reprimand (WHO WOULD CHOOSE THIS COMMAND EVER), Stay, Stay Close, and Pet, and I’m told that the way you treat him will influence his behavior later in the game. So patting him isn’t just something you’ll want to do, it’s something you should do.
Bloober Team’s upcoming Blair Witch draws strong parallels to Outlast, another first-person horror experience that’s primarily viewed through the lens of a video camera. Blair Witch has one glaringly obvious difference in its design though–and it’s something that differentiates the game from developer Bloober Team’s previous horror games as well: a dog.
“Traditionally, a Blair Witch movie involves a group of students or a group of teenagers just going into the woods and then…dying one after the other,” Bloober Team writer Basia Kciuk said in an interview with GameSpot. “But in Blair Witch, we wanted to give the player someone to connect with over the course of the game, someone to care about.” It’s rare for a horror game to give you companions. A friendly presence can provide a support system and act as a crutch that eases the dread a setting is trying to create, or prove to be an annoyance that needs to be cared for. In Blair Witch, your dog–Bullet–is neither of those.
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Blair Witch is an unsettling game that takes place in the franchise’s chilling Burkittsville, Maryland woods, and Bullet does provide a nice security blanket with his presence and playful barks. But he’s also a guide that ensures you’re moving forward instead of remaining stuck in one place or aimlessly wandering around in search of clues about how to proceed. You can command Bullet to seek things out, but he’ll also bring back items that both further flesh out the history of the woods you’re exploring and remind you of just how creepy the setting is. Though it at first appears random, his misadventures almost always seem to take place in the general direction you’re supposed to go–ensuring you’re never stuck for too long in any one place.
Bullet feels like an essential component to solving the game’s puzzles and surviving the monstrous entities you encounter. For example, during one of Blair Witch’s video camera puzzles–fascinating riddles in which you need to rewind, fast-forward, and pause tapes in order to influence your reality and change the environment–Bullet pointed us in the direction of the tape we needed to proceed. And given how dark the woods are in Blair Witch, Bullet’s keen senses are essential for figuring out what’s real and what’s an illusion. “[The witch] is more like this overpowering, otherworldly force that reshapes reality,” Kciuk said. “The creatures that attack you in the game are just one of her aspects. They aren’t her. That’s not her taking physical shape. In the game, the witch just uses everything she has against you and this includes reshaping your reality, your environment, and your mind. Sometimes that means creating monsters that hunt you.”
One of the more prominent issues for horror games like Outlast II and Bloober Team’s Observer is that their open settings occasionally create moments where you have no idea what you’re supposed to do or where you’re supposed to go next. Eventually, the monotony of aimlessly wandering around the same area begins to strip away the tension that was built through the creepiness of the setting. In our time with Blair Witch, we moved forward at a steady pace through five parts of the five to six-hour game, and a sense of dread was maintained throughout each one. Four of those five chapters were fairly open, with points where you could freely explore a space, but Bullet was there to encourage us to keep going in the right direction.
Bullet, as an animal, also opens Blair Witch up to mechanics that aren’t normally included in first-person survival horror games. Bullet can sniff out and growl in the direction of supernatural threats that you can’t see, for example. You don’t quite realize how useful he is until the game takes him away from you, and during those brief instances where he’s gone, threats you were once comfortable handling become horrifying in new ways.
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“Originally, we were thinking about adding another human being, but in the end, adding another human would be just giving you another set of hands,” Kciuk said. “Because, obviously, humans can do what humans do. But dogs have totally different skill sets. So, in the end, it gives you a lot more mechanics. Also, if you have another human, it would be an equal relationship, while here, you have a relationship where sometimes one of you is more useful than the other. Bullet can find things for you but he can’t solve puzzles, for example. So you really need to cooperate and communicate with each other to fully utilize your partnership’s potential.”
This need to rely on Bullet helps build a level of trust between you and your canine companion, one that you get to shape throughout the game. After Bullet does anything, you can choose to praise or scold him. “It’s not as easy as just petting him all the time and ensuring everything works out,” Kciuk warned. “It’s much more subtle, it’s a much more complicated system. Just petting him won’t do the trick.” If you praise Bullet every time he goes off on his own, for instance, he’ll do it more often and that might lead him into getting into trouble.
Bloober Team didn’t want Bullet’s inclusion to transform Blair Witch into a difficult escort mission though–and from what we’ve seen, the studio seems to have succeeded in steering clear of that outcome. How you treat Bullet merely shapes your relationship throughout the game, so you don’t have to worry about making the wrong choice and getting your dog killed. “An annoying partnership is exactly what we wanted to avoid,” Kciuk said. “You don’t need to always take care of Bullet. For the most part, he’s safe, and he won’t always be following you. He’s more like Elizabeth in BioShock Infinite. She was very helpful, she was there for you, she had her own personality and was a great character. You cared about her but she didn’t require your protection all the time. She was there to help you.”
Blair Witch is scheduled to release for Xbox One and PC on August 30. The game was first announced at E3 2019 during the Xbox press conference, where it was revealed to be a part of the same canon as the Blair Witch movies. Blair Witch will be available via Xbox Game Pass on day one.
