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Godzilla is one of the most famous movie monsters of all time, but after the critical and commercial failure of the 1998 movie, it took another 16 years for him to return to the big screen in the US. Thankfully Gareth Edward’s 2014 movie Godzilla was a big hit and the follow up–Godzilla: King of the Monsters–hits theaters next month. The final trailer has now been released.

This trailer sets up the movie’s big conflict, between Godzilla and his terrifying nemesis–the three-headed King Ghidorah. Ghidorah is one of several monsters who have emerged from the depths of the Earth to wreak havoc, and only the Big G can stop him. The movie looks set to deliver action on an incredible scale–check the trailer out below.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters stars Vera Farmiga (The Conjuring), Kyle Chandler (Game Night), and Millie Bobbie Brown (Stranger Things), plus Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), Ken Watanabe (Inception), and O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton). It hits theaters on May 31. For more check out everything we know about Godzilla: King of the Monsters, plus this recent trailer.

In a recent interview with Collider, director Michael Dougherty spoke about how his movie will differ from its predecessor. “I hesitate to say it, but I would call it the Aliens to Gareth’s Alien,” he said. “So it’s a bit more on an ensemble film. The first movie was really about Brody’s character kind of weaving his way through that adventure and Monarch kind of was the backdrop for that. Here Monarch is the focus, because I find that concept really fascinating. The idea that there is a secret agency that tracks giant monsters–that is a dream come true for me too. I think if the government said to me, ‘Tomorrow you have to fake your own death and abandon everyone you know to go hunt the paranormal,’ I would be gone in a heartbeat.”

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the latest entry in Legendary Pictures’ so-called MonsterVerse, following Godzilla and 2017’s Kong: Skull Island. The fourth movie in the series will be Godzilla vs Kong, which is now in production and scheduled for a May 2020 release.

Epic began teasing a Fortnite crossover event with the upcoming blockbuster Avengers: Endgame, releasing an image that showed a character donning Captain America’s iconic shield. Now another piece of famed superhero equipment has been shown off: Thor’s enchanted axe, Stormbreaker.

Like the first teaser, this one quotes the “Whatever it takes” tagline from Endgame and gives a release date of April 25, along with the #FortniteXAvengers hashtag. We see less of the figure this time around, instead just barely seeing the hand clutching the axe. It stands to reason, though, that the event will let players use equipment like Cap’s shield and Stormbreaker, likely in a special limited-time mode.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor’s hammer was broken during the events of Thor: Ragnarok. He needed a new weapon to channel his power against Thanos, so he made a special trip to a star forge and helped to craft Stormbreaker. But when it finally came time to use the powerful new weapon, he struck Thanos in the chest, leaving the villain conscious enough to fulfill his plan to decimate half the population of the universe. Whoops!

This will be the second Fortnite crossover event with the MCU. The first introduced a limited-time mode that allowed you to equip the fabled Infinity Gauntlet (which would crash into the map early in a match) and turn into Thanos. But it was so strong that it got nerfed almost immediately.

Avengers: Endgame is releasing on April 26, though some screenings will take place the evening of April 25. Spoilers have started to leak on the Internet, so be sure to follow our very practical advice on how to avoid spoilers in the meantime. Meanwhile, Fortnite is also teasing its next seasonal changeover in-game, with several runes that have begun to slot into a vault at the bottom of Loot Lake.

The hugely anticipated superhero movie Avengers: Endgame had its premiere in Hollywood tonight, and before reviews come in, people who saw the film have posted their reactions.

Here in this post we’re rounding up opinions of the film from movie critics and other people. We’ve attempted to keep the reactions to the ones that were mostly spoiler-free, but as always, especially if you’re searching Twitter with the Avengers hashtag, be careful out there.

Endgame opens in Australia on April 24 before coming to the US and other parts of the world on April 26. The movie is expected to have a massive start at the box office; it’s potentially tracking to have the best start in movie history in the US.

In other news, Fortnite has teased a new Avengers-themed crossover event–get all the details here.

Avengers: Endgame First Reactions:

The next episode of Game of Thrones will be the longest ever for the acclaimed HBO series. Season 8, Episode 3 has a run time of 82 minutes, which is 2 minutes longer than the Season 7 finale, “The Dragon and the Wolf,” which was the previous record-holder for length.

The new episode, which doesn’t have a title yet, airs Sunday, April 28. It’ll be followed up by three further episodes that are all within four minutes of the record for longest-ever. Episode 4 is 78 minutes long; Episode 5 is 80 minutes in duration; and the series final Episode 6 runs for 80 minutes. The episode runtimes were announced by HBO back in March.

Given the way things ended in Episode 2 and the first teaser for Episode 3, this new episode could be the one that shows some or all of the epic battle scene that’s been hinted at since the show started back in 2011. The Night King and his army are lined up to do battle against Jon Snow, Dany, and other fighters at Winterfell in what could be the show’s defining moment.

Episode 3 is directed by Miguel Sapochnik, who previously directed the Battle of the Bastards episode. According to a report, the upcoming Battle of Winterfell scene “longest consecutive battle sequence ever committed to film.” At 40 minutes, the Helm’s Deep battle from The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers is said to be the longest battle sequence from cinema history.

Co-executive producer Bryan Cogman spoke about the epic battle scene, calling it unprecedented for TV or film.

“What we have asked the production team and crew to do this year truly has never been done in television or in a movie,” he explained. “This final face-off between the Army of the Dead and the army of the living is completely unprecedented and relentless and a mixture of genres even within the battle. There are sequences built within sequences built within sequences. [Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss wrote] an amazing puzzle and Miguel came in and took it apart and put it together again. It’s been exhausting but I think it will blow everybody away.”

Filming the episode took 11 weeks of night shoots. According to the report, up to 750 people worked all night for almost three months in sub-freezing temperatures and enduring cold rain, mud, and heavy wind.

The actor who plays Ser Jorah Mormont, Iain Glen, said filming the battle was the “most unpleasant experience I’ve had on Thrones.”

“A real test, really miserable. You get to sleep at seven in the morning and when you wake in the midday you’re still so spent you can’t really do anything, and then you’re back,” he added. “You have no life outside it. You have an absolute f**ked bunch of actors. But without getting too method [acting] about it, on screen it bleeds through to the reality of the Thrones world.”

For lots more on this week’s episode of Game of Thrones, check out the stories below:

Will the Halo franchise follow the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield into the battle royale space? It doesn’t seem like it.

Halo franchise boss Frank O’Connor said recently that the multiplayer modes for Halo Infinite available at launch are not 100 percent locked in yet, but what he can say for sure is that battle royale will not be among them. Writing on ResetEra, O’Connor’s statement came in response to a video from noted Microsoft insider Brad Sams who said 343 was in the early development stages of a battle royale mode for Halo Infinite.

“We will not talk about the launch content of Halo Infinite until we’re ready,” O’Connor said. “I haven’t watched the video so if I am misinterpreting the headline as ‘Halo Infinite is launching with/as a Halo Battle Royale mode’ that is still not the case,” he said. “You can probably make your own Battle Royale mode in Forge even right now though. It’s a mode not a genre. And all the variants out there now are in my opinion quite radically different from my perspective. Apex vs Fortnite is chalk and cheese–one focuses on movement and map traversal and the other on building and budgeting. Like CTF. BTB Super Fiesta (for example) contains a lot of the shenanigans and emergent fun of that kind of large experience but big sandbox modes are not Battle Royale any more than Oddball is CTF.”

O’Connor joked that Halo Infinite will still have BR–the Battle Rifle, that is. And while Halo Infinite may not have a battle royale mode, O’Connor teased that 343 is looking into “big social modes with loads of organic shenanigans.”

“The launch modes for MP are not 100% defined and are subject to change till quite late in the process–but Battle Rifle will still be there,” he said. “So you can have BR. But are we interested in big social modes with loads of organic shenanigans? Yes. Specifically A blimp full of survivors heading to an Island after a (metaphorical) lecture from Beat Takeshi? No. We are NOT doing this as of now–and no plans to–but Battle Royale could be made for any of the Halo games in MCC or [Halo 5] with some content and scripting additions, because it is a mode. It would have limits based on each engine. I’m pointing that out to be clear that it’s one of the ways we think about gameplay possibilities rather than a single direction for a title.”

Brad Sams, who has accurately reported on many unannounced Xbox endeavours, may be accurate in stating Microsoft has done some work on a Halo battle royale game. Game development is highly iterative. So it might be possible that 343 experimented with battle royale and decided not to pursue it further. Given the enduring appeal of the battle royale genre, it makes sense that Microsoft would at least consider a battle royale mode for Halo Infinite.

The Call of Duty franchise added battle royale with Black Ops 4‘s Blackout mode, while Battlefield V‘s battle royale mode is called Firestorm. These are modes within the games, not standalone experiences like popular free-to-play battle royale games like Fortnite and Apex Legends.

Also in the Sams video, he claims a new trailer for Halo Infinite is being prepared for E3 this June. That would be no surprise, as Halo is one of Microsoft’s tentpole franchises, and we’ve already heard that Halo Infinite will be part of the show. He also responded to the recent claim that Halo Infinite has a $500 million budget. He said he’s heard that the actual budget is “in that region.” Given the sizeable investment, Sams added, “Careers will be made or broken on [Halo Infinite].” As Sams understands it, the reported $500 million budget would cover game development and development costs associated with the brand-new engine, Slipspace, that Microsoft created for Halo Infinite. It’s unclear if marketing costs are included.

A spokesperson for Microsoft told GameSpot about the $500 million budget, “We do not comment on speculation and rumor.”

Halo Infinite is in development for Xbox One and PC; a release date hasn’t been announced yet.

In other Halo news, it was recently announced that Orange is the New Black and American Gods actor Pablo Schreiber will play Master Chief in the Showtime Halo TV series. GameSpot and Showtime are owned by CBS.

Avengers: Endgame is almost here. Its release this week comes amid massive anticipation, and as a result, the superhero blockbuster is expected to have a huge opening at the box office.

Deadline put some projections together, and Endgame is expected to have the biggest domestic opening in the history of movies. Sources told the site that pre-sale tickets alone in the United States have reached as high as $140 million, which is uncharted territory in film.

Avengers: Infinity War holds the record for biggest domestic box office debut, coming in at $257.6 million in 2018. Deadline reports that Endgame could reach $300 million in the US for its opening, to set a new record. Endgame is a very long movie, coming in at 3 hours and 1 minute; by comparison, Infinity War was 2 hours, 29 minutes and The Force Awakens was 2 hours, 16 minutes. Box office analysts told Deadline that if the 12,000 or so US theatres have four or five showtimes for Endgame per day day at each location, with each theatre at 70 percent capacity, then Endgame might have a chance of reaching $300 million for its opening weekend.

Deadline acknowledges that tracking estimates are challenging for Endgame, considering the sample size of movies that have made more than even $200 million over their opening weekends is so small. “More realistic projections for Endgame have it beating Infinity War’s all-time domestic opening record of $257.6M last year at this time, and coming in within a range of $260M-$270M,” Deadline reported.

Also bear in mind that Deadline’s report is only for the US. The movie of course is opening around the world, but box office projections for international markets weren’t included in the report. Infinity War made $640.5 million for its opening weekend to hold the worldwide opening-weekend record.

As for Endgame’s total box office haul, that will be interesting to watch. Infinity War made $2.048 billion globally, while Avatar remains the highest-grossing movie worldwide in history with $2.78 billion.

Endgame is expected to make so much money, but it’s also been a very expensive film to produce and market. The film no doubt has a massive budget due in part to its cast of A-list talent and extensive VFX, among other things. In addition, Deadline reports that Marvel is spending an unprecedented $200 million to promote the film.

Endgame is coming on April 26, with some screenings scheduled for the evening of April 25. Spoilers have begun to leak on the Internet, making this a very perilous couple of days for fans who want to be surprised when they see the conclusion of this decade-long story. The film’s directors have politely asked everyone not to spoil the fun for others, but we’ve also put together some practical advice on how to avoid being spoiled.

In other news, Fortnite has teased a new Avengers-themed crossover event–get all the details here.

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The next big PlayStation exclusive game, Days Gone, arrives this week, and ahead of that, the action-adventure games’ official soundtrack has been released. The 25-song soundtrack features music by Nathan Whitehead, who also did the music for movies like The Purge, Keanu, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

The soundtrack also features artists like Jack Savoretti, Billy Raffoul, and Zander Reese, while singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi is featured with the song “Days Gone Quiet.”

“The ideas that define the score are the tenacity of the human spirit and the value of relationship,” Whitehead said in a release.

Whitehead worked with Sony Bend creative director John Garvin on the music. Garvin told Whitehead that the theme of Days Gone the game is not just about surviving, but also why people like main character Deacon want to survive in the first place.

“When I heard that, I was instantly excited about all the places the music could go,” Whitehead said. “I found it really interesting to be navigating the survival aspect and also this introspective aspect at the same time. The Pacific Northwest setting is absolutely beautiful and it really felt like the score needed to connect to this environment as well. Deacon and the environment seemed to call for an organic, lived-in sound with a touch of Americana.”

Days Gone follows the story of a bounty hunter named Deacon St. John, who travels through the Pacific Northwest in a world two years removed from a “global pandemic.”

Days Gone launches on April 26. Keep checking back with GameSpot for more.

The new big bad in Mortal Kombat is named Kronika, and she’s causing a ruckus by messing with time and rewriting history. Characters are getting erased or colliding with their past selves, while alliances are reverting and new ones are being made–it’s the kind of chaos that’s ripe for conflict. Nothing that happened with Mortal Kombat before really matters anymore; the series is giving itself a clean slate, and not just with the lore in the story. Netherrealm’s multifaceted fighting system has been streamlined, and comprehensive tutorials and practice functions are focussed on making sure no matter where you’re coming from, you’re well-equipped to dive deep into Mortal Kombat 11.

It’s hard not to get excited about the story mode in a Netherrealm game given the studio’s history of crafting involved narratives, and Mortal Kombat 11 unsurprisingly delivers an entertaining and polished blockbuster-style cinematic experience with its tale of Kronika’s time-bending antics. Combat is woven in with a number of cutscenes, though you’ll probably spend more time watching well-choreographed action rather than participating. But the story is a great primer for some of the series’ more popular characters nonetheless, and the joys of Kronika’s time manipulation means that even if you’re a passing fan and aren’t up-to-date with all of the wacky stuff that’s happened in the universe lately, you can still get a kick out of seeing classic versions of familiar faces, who are just as baffled as you about what’s happened to their future selves since.

Watching the character interactions between young and old selves are a highlight, and with the exception of a somewhat flat Sonya Blade, the solid performances are endearingly sincere with some unexpected moments of introspection. By the time it ended I was eager for more–more of Johnny Cage being embarrassed by his younger self, more of the bromance between Liu Kang and Kung Lao, the sappy dynamic between parents and children. But the story mode hits that perfect balance of being just enough and not overstaying its welcome. The plot conceits are regularly ridiculous, especially when family members and lovers get into fatal tiffs, but it’s a delightfully bombastic and outlandish visual spectacle if nothing else.

Mortal Kombat 11’s eclectic roster includes a solid selection of the series’ iconic fighters, along with some of the great additions from Mortal Kombat X, like gunslinger Erron Black and the grotesque insectoid D’Vorah. Three brand new characters do their best to help the lineup branch out–Geras is a tanky character with the ability to rewind and manipulate time, Cetrion is an elder god with flashy elemental powers, the Kollector has a wonderfully unsettling, six-armed demonic design–and they all add an inspired diversity to the familiar roster of magical ninjas and military hard-asses. Character variations also help to keep things diverse. A returning concept from Mortal Kombat X, each character can select between different sets of special moves that alter their playstyle. You can now customize these loadouts in MK11, but only two predetermined movesets are acceptable for serious competitive play. Even so, it means there are a few things to consider when picking which fighter to use.

Some key changes streamline the mechanics of MK11, resulting in a fighting system that somehow feels more active and aggressive than its predecessors. The special meter system has been simplified to allow for amplified offensive and defensive maneuvers to be used at almost any time–gone is the idea of needing to hold back and save up two or three bars of a meter to perform a particular kind of technique. Dedicated meters for defensive and offensive techniques, along with rapid recharge rates mean amplified techniques can be used a little more liberally. “Fatal Blows” replace MKX’s X-Ray techniques, serving as a last-ditch comeback mechanic that can be activated once per match when your health is nearly depleted, adding a heightened tension when things get down to the wire. Significant block damage discourages you from being overly defensive, while learning the perfect-timing demands of the “flawless block” system is encouraged to mitigate some damage and open up turnabout opportunities. Running and stamina meters have been removed and dash distances feel shorter, honing MK11’s focus on always being within striking distance of your opponent. All of these tweaks mean there is rarely a low moment in a Mortal Kombat 11 fight.

If you’re new to the series, learning all those intricacies of the fighting system, special moves, and combo strings for characters can be intimidating. Fortunately, Mortal Kombat 11 does a lot to help onboard you to almost all of its concepts. Following the good work seen in Injustice 2, Mortal Kombat 11 features a comprehensive series of fantastic practical tutorials, with everything from teaching you basic attacks to more advanced lessons on managing the ebb and flow of a match, strategies on how to change or maintain the dynamic of a fight (like dealing with corners or projectile spam), and how to approach building your own combos. What’s more, there are also a series of tutorials that succinctly break down expert-level concepts, such as one that shows you what frame data is and how it works in clear, visual terms. Not only that, there are lessons on how to interpret that information and use it in a practical scenario–it’ll teach you what makes a move “safe” or “unsafe,” how to create pressure in a fight, and even how to perform frame traps. It’s an impressive resource that doesn’t just give you a better understanding of Mortal Kombat 11’s systems, but a deeper understanding of fighting game mechanics in general–knowledge that you can take to any other title.

Character-specific tutorials exist, too, and are more than just a simple rundown of all available techniques. These helpful lessons focus on the most useful and practical abilities and combos for a particular character and give you suggestions on when to use them, the pros and cons of doing so, and what you could follow up with. Furthermore, the in-game move lists are incredibly comprehensive, providing all sorts of helpful data for each move’s properties, so you can easily discern something like which of your character’s moves has the quickest startup. It’s valuable information and knowledge which Netherrealm has been building upon in its last few games and is presented at its best in MK11. Of course, if you’re the kind of player that couldn’t care less about the advanced stuff and just wants to jump in and see blood spilled, Mortal Kombat 11 can certainly be just as entertaining. Predetermined combo strings, flashy special moves, and humorously over-the-top barbarity means that the game is a joy to watch and participate in, whether the players are just messing around or taking it seriously.

In addition to the game’s story mode, MK11 sees the return of Klassic Towers, a more straightforward single-player mode where you fight a series of opponents before eventually facing big boss Kronika. But the real meat of the single-player offering is the Towers Of Time, MK11’s version of the limited-time ladders seen in other Netherrealm games, which feature unique modifiers that can affect the playing field, combatants, and mechanics. The idea is that the Towers Of Time provide you with an ever-rotating palette of different single-player challenges to take on for various rewards, but the downside is that here, the odds are nearly always stacked against you.

Some modifiers in the Towers Of Time can affect both you and your opponent equally, like a tilting stage that drains the health of whoever is lower. But more often, the challenges I took on featured negative modifiers that solely affected me, which means they felt horribly cruel and unbalanced. No matter how good you think you are at Mortal Kombat (or how bad you think I am), trying to fight an opponent where you’re constantly being targeted and shot and frozen in place by devastating lasers from the sky, or being chased by missiles that turn your screen pitch black if one hits you, is a rotten experience. Being the loner in a 2vs1 match, or fighting a much hardier opponent whose attacks can’t be interrupted, is more of an exercise in frustration than it is a hearty challenge.

To overcome the more challenging Towers Of Time, MK11 encourages that you make liberal use of “Konsumables,” a large variety of limited-use items that you can equip and activate during a fight. These have their own individual properties, whether it be countering a particular modifier effect, or giving you access to an additional ability. The catch is, the way that you obtain these Konsumables is through luck, perhaps earning one through completing other towers, or spending “Koins” you’ve accumulated from the game’s activities to open one of hundreds of randomized chests in the Krypt, MK11’s third-person quasi-puzzle-adventure mode designed for unlocking collectables like cosmetics, concept art, and countless other bits and pieces.

So, there’s no guarantee you’ll have the right item to help you out on a particular tower, and if you don’t, it’s going to be a steep uphill battle. But in my experience, even if I did have a suitable item, using it really didn’t feel like evening the odds. In the example of the aforementioned blinding missiles, using the item to counter the effects of darkness modifiers meant I could only mitigate one or two missiles before the effect wore off, at which point I would have to wait for the item to come off a long cooldown timer and then manually reactivate it in the middle of the fight, which opens me up to severe punishment from my opponent.

I’ve only seen four days worth of Towers during the pre-release review period, so their behavior and difficulty may well change in the future. I’ll continue to monitor the challenge varieties in the Towers Of Time during the week of launch to see whether the feeling of overwhelmingly unbalanced odds continues. While MK11’s “Premium” microtransaction store wasn’t live during the review period, the reliance on Konsumables to help even the odds in Towers Of Time, as well as the random nature of their acquisition, certainly makes me curious as to how you’ll be able to spend the game’s virtual currency, “Time Krystals,” when the store goes live.

(Editor’s note: On the day this review-in-progress was published, Netherrealm representatives acknowledged the balancing issues with the Towers Of Time on their Kombat Kast livestream. They announced a fix would be made available ASAP, and we’ll be considering any changes over the next week in our final review.)

There’s another issue in the way that the game handles its customizable gear for each character. Taking cues from Netherrealm’s previous release, Injustice 2, each fighter in Mortal Kombat 11 has three interchangeable pieces of equipment that you’re able to receive as a reward, level up, and equip with “augments” once you’ve done so. The problem is, there’s not a lot of motivation to care about that stuff at all. With a few exceptions, gear parts are usually small and aren’t a focal point of your character model. You’re changing out weapons and pieces of flair rather than entire costume pieces–alternate costumes are predetermined and are unlocked through performing activities like Towers Of Time–so there’s little motivation to change them up early on, especially when you’ll likely have been earning experience on the default set you’ve already got equipped. Accruing experience to level up gear for specific characters is a slow process, especially if you like to use multiple fighters; the augments you can equip drop rarely, and the buffs they add for single-player activities are mostly meager. In Injustice 2, even if you didn’t really care about the abilities a piece of gear had, they were at least interesting cosmetic parts that you could mix and match to customize a character in your own way for competitive play. Gear in MK11 by comparison just doesn’t feel as interesting or meaningful to toy around with.

MK11 also features a range of online multiplayer modes, including ranked and casual matchmaking, as well as private options like lobbies and the ability to practice with a friend. I’ll be testing the performance of these modes over the next week once the game is widely available to the public. Additionally, GameSpot was not provided copies of Mortal Kombat 11 on PC or Nintendo Switch during the review period, and I’ll be aiming to spend some time with those versions of the game–the PC release of Mortal Kombat X was certainly not without issues, and I’m curious to see how the game performs in the Switch’s handheld mode. This review will remain in-progress until I’ve had adequate time to get a feel of these aspects, on top of keeping an eye on the Towers Of Time.

MK11 isn’t just a sequel for series fans and Netherrealm devotees, it’s a gateway into the realm of fighting games for anyone who has a passing interest in watching ruthless warriors beat each other silly. Streamlined mechanics keep the act of fighting furiously exciting no matter what your skill level, and comprehensive tutorials encourage you to dig into the nitty-gritty. There’s a diverse roster of interesting characters and playstyles, and the story mode is an entertaining romp. The unfulfilling approaches to the game’s dynamic single-player content and progression may feel like they’ve totally whiffed (at least at this early stage), but Mortal Kombat 11 hits where it matters.