The upcoming Joker film starring Joaquin Phoenix is set to include depictions of both Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth.
Per The Hollywood Reporter (via Comicbook.com), Dante Pereira-Olson has been cast as a young Bruce Wayne, long before donning the black cowl and becoming Batman. Pereira-Olson and Joaquin Phoenix both starred in the recent film, You Were Never Really Here.
Dante Pereira-Olson in Happy! Credit: SYFY
When something comes along that as thoroughly exceeds my expectations in so many areas as Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, it reminds me why I got into video games in the first place. Far, far from a mere single player afterthought slapped onto a multiplayer collectible card game, CD Projekt Red has given us a sweeping, complex, emotional story with memorable characters, excellent voice acting, and varied, exciting card battles all along the way.
I was most blown away by the writing. Set just before the Witcher RPG trilogy during the Second Nilfgaard War, you take on the role of the dauntless, dynamic, many-layered Queen Meve of Lyria and Rivia. Every step of her journey is complicated by an overwhelming enemy, abundant political intrigue, and the kind of gut-twisting, no-right-answer moral choices the Witcher series has become known for. Are you willing to sacrifice your personal honor to preserve your basic, human decency? Are you willing to do what’s best for your soldiers at the expense of a possibly instrumental alliance? This tale recognizes no distinction between good and evil – only tough, emotional, imperfect compromises that stuck with me hours after I’d made them.
Every month, Netflix releases an enormous amount of content to its subscribers, and it can be a daunting task to figure out what to watch every week. It’s the end of October now, and the streaming giant has plenty of original movies and series for you to check out.
On Tuesday, October 23, Adam Sandler returns to his roots with 100% Fresh. The title obviously takes aims at his ratings from Rotten Tomatoes, as critics haven’t been incredibly kind to his film work, but the special itself veers away from addressing that, for the most part. 100% Fresh mixes jokes and songs that will remind fans of his classic 1996 HBO special What The Hell Happened To Me?
Netflix is doubling-down on horror series on Friday, October 26 with the second season of Castlevania. In our review of Castlevania, GameSpot’s Mike Rougeau said “With eight episodes instead of just four, there was hope that Castlevania Season 2 would feel like more of a complete thing. Instead, it feels more like Season 1 was the first act, and this is simply a continuation, and the extra room has been spent developing new characters while the old ones tread water.”
Also coming Friday is Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a darker take on the character than fans may be accustomed to. In our review, Chris Hayner said, “It’s hard to find something to dislike about Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. There’s a moment or two that might seem like the show is trying too hard to channel the teen angst and melodrama of Riverdale, but given they come from the same creative force, that’s not surprising. And if you’re going into it expecting incredibly cinematic visuals, you might be disappointed, as the inspiration for the show’s looks is clearly older horror films.”
For a full look at what’s coming to Netflix this week, take a look at the list below.
So you’ve finished your Daredevil binge. You’ve sat through 13 episodes and come out the other side feeling hopefully a little victorious, and probably a little confused. Don’t panic. We’re here to break down exactly what was going on in that final scene for you, and to explain just what it means in the increasingly uncertain future of the Netflix Marvel Universe.
Needless to say: spoilers abound after this, so please read with care if you haven’t finished this season!
As a result of his final confrontation with both Daredevil and Kingpin, Dex winds up paralyzed–specifically after Fisk breaks his spine over a wall corner, a move that Dex should probably be thankful didn’t just full on kill him. Instead, he’s left mumbling that he can’t move as the NYPD storms onto the scene. That very well could have been the end of things for poor Benjamin Poindexter–but it wasn’t.
After Fisk is put away and Matt, Foggy, and Karen begin regrouping, we’re treated to a scene of Dex laying face down on an operating table with his entire back slit open right down the middle. A team of doctors are working on his spine, speaking to one another about the risks of such an experimental procedure, and its less-than-optimistic odds of success. If that wasn’t weird enough, just before the final credits roll, we see Dex’s eyes are open, his pupils haloed with an irridescent bullseye shape.
The target symbol is the easy part. Like Fisk before this season, no one ever called Dex by any codename or call sign–the name “Bullseye” was never uttered in Daredevil Season 3, despite the obvious trajectory of the character. Dex may have completed his arc and wound up a full-on criminal by the end of the season, but his time as a costumed supervillain is presumably still to come (that is, if Daredevil doesn’t get canceled like Luke Cage and Iron Fist). Whether he’s going to assign the name to himself or get it from somewhere else like Fisk’s FBI agents naming him “Kingpin” in secret is still up for debate, but definitely something to keep an eye out for.
But what, exactly, is up with the surgery?
To really understand what’s happening, you’ll need to know a little bit about Bullseye’s comic book history. After a particularly nasty encounter with Daredevil that ended with Matt literally throwing him off of a telephone wire from several stories up, Bullseye was paralyzed and hospitalized. But things didn’t end there. Rather than let things go, Matt repeatedly broke into Bullseye’s hospital room and tortured him with a rigged game of Russian Roulette using a gun that was secretly unloaded, just to terrify and humiliate Bullseye as much as possible.
Of course, that cruelty comes back to haunt Matt in the end, after Bullseye is sprung from his hospital cell by a mysterious man named Lord Dark Wind, the scientist who invented the adamantium-based procedures that created heroes and villains like Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike. Dark Wind promises Bullseye his mobility if he undergoes the same procedure, lacing his bones with adamantium in exchange for becoming Dark Wind’s personal assassin.
The procedure actually goes according to plan, but Bullseye promptly betrays Dark Wind and returns to Hell’s Kitchen to work with Kingpin instead, complete with his new adamantium bones. They don’t help too much, however, and Daredevil is able to best him again and again. Bullseye retained his mobility for years, until he was killed and resurrected by The Hand in a botched ceremony that left him alive but completely paralyzed and confined to an iron lung. His second round with paralysis didn’t completely stop Bullseye’s quest to destroy Daredevil, however, and he spent his time confined in his own body engineering schemes where other people would end up doing his dirty work for him.
So, where does that leave Dex in the show? Well, Lord Dark Wind may not literally be in play for the Netflix MCU, but we do hear the name “Dr. Oyama” used during Dex’s surgery, a reference to the name Kenji Oyama, Dark Wind’s civilian alter ego. Additionally, the word “adamantium” is never used (probably something to do with the rights, considering it’s X-Men connotations) but the doctors do say that they’re repairing Dex’s spine with “cognium steel,” another, less known imaginary metal from the Marvel universe.
One thing that’s simply unclear is how Dex got to this operating table in the first place. We never actually see him transported from the scene, so we don’t know if he was arrested or convicted of the murders he committed while in the Daredevil suit, or if he was just sent directly to a hospital. We also don’t know whether or not Dr. Oyama reached out to Dex or if Dex reached out to him. There are a lot of variables left up in the air that could potentially inform the way a hypothetical fourth season pans out.
It’s important to note that even with the adamantium enhancements, the comics incarnation of Bullseye doesn’t actually have any superpowers beyond his uncanny marksmanship, so even if Dex’s experimental surgery is a success, he probably won’t become all that different than he was. If anything, he’ll just get much harder to hurt. But that definitely keeps with the Netflix MCU’s efforts to remain as “grounded” as possible while dealing with the most supernatural elements of superheroics. And Dex certainly does have a deep enough personal grudge against both Daredevil and Fisk to really push him over the edge once he’s back on his feet.
That, or it could be a complete failure and the next time we see Dex he could be encased in a tomb-like iron lung. Somehow, for a character like Bullseye, that seems just as terrifying.
With Halloween nearly upon us, we’re seeing spooky events showing up in lots of games this month. Among them is the online shooter Destiny 2, a game that’s seen a significant uptick in fresh content since the launch of the Forsaken expansion. The latest update is the Festival of the Lost event, which runs between now and November 6 and introduces lots of new gear and cosmetics. The most sought-after reward in the whole event is a new auto rifle called Horror Story.
Horror Story is a fully-Masterworked Legendary auto rifle that comes with Zen Moment and Rampage. It’s also locked at 600 Light, which will give a nice Power boost to lower-level players. You can buy Horror Story from Amanda Holliday in the Tower, but to do so you’ll need to save up 120 Fragmented Souls, a new currency that was introduced in the Festival of the Lost. And the only way to get Fragmented Souls is to participate in a new PvE event called the Haunted Forest. Here’s everything you’ll need to do.
(If you’ve already unlocked the Haunted Forest, you can check out these 10 tips for surviving the Haunted Forest as well as a trick for escaping the scary pit at the end of each run.)
The first thing you’ll need to do after downloading the latest Destiny 2 update is head to the hangar in the east end of the Tower and talk to Amanda Holliday. She’ll give you a Master Rahool mask and assign you a mission to investigate Lost Sectors on Io. Drop in at The Rupture on Io and complete the mission. Once you do, head back to the Tower and talk to Amanda, who will ask you to investigate the Haunted Forest.
As luck would have it, you can find the Haunted Forest right on the map of the Tower. Before you launch, equip your mask and apply one of the three mods available for it. Also make sure to equip a favorable loadout before launching, because for some reason your gear is locked for the duration of this quest step.
The Haunted Forest is a darker, spookier version of the Infinite Forest, but your goal is simple. All you have to do here is clear out the enemies in each area until the text on the screen reads, “Branch clear 100%.” At this point, you’ll be teleported to a battle against a Nightmare version of a boss.
Defeat it, and you’ll be returned to the Tower, where you’ll have to talk to Amanda one more time. She’ll give you a nice reward for your trouble: the Fighting Lion grenade launcher, along with its catalyst. Now the Haunted Forest is open for business, which means you can begin collecting Fragmented Souls.
Regular trips through the Haunted Forest will net you a handful of Fragmented Souls, but collecting the 120 you’ll need to buy Horror Story requires a good deal of grinding, so you’ll want to maximize your time by getting all the advantages you can.
To get additional Souls, you can pick up all of the bounties Amanda Holliday has on offer. She sells five daily bounties that grant you one Soul each, plus one weekly bounty that gets you 40 Souls. To complete the weekly one you’ll need to do 15 Festival bounties, which is worthwhile, considering the weekly bounty gets you a third of the Souls you’ll need to buy the weapon.
Once you have the bounties, it’s time to head back to the Haunted Forest. You have two options for entering it: Haunted Forest and Firewalled Haunted Forest. The only difference is that Haunted Forest has matchmaking, while the Firewalled one does not. To maximize your Souls you’ll need a team of three players, so make sure to launch into the standard Haunted Forest option unless you’re already in a three-person Fireteam.
Each Haunted Forest run is similar to the one you did to unlock the area, except you and your partners have 15 minutes to clear as many branches as possible. When the timer runs out, you’ll be able to finish the branch you’re currently on, unless your team wipes. When it’s over, you’ll be transported near a loot chest that contains the Fragmented Souls you’ve earned. Don’t worry if you fail to collect the Souls for whatever reason–they’ll be waiting at the Postmaster.
As you collect Fragmented Souls, you might be tempted to spend them on masks and other items Holliday is selling, but you’ll probably want to wait until you get your hands on Horror Show before buying up the rest of her inventory. In any case, just make sure you save up 120 Souls before the Festival of the Lost goes away on November 6.
It seems Sony loves nothing more than springing a surprise sale on PS4 owners. Right now, in addition to the regular weekly PlayStation Store sale, you can save up to 50% on a mountain of mostly spooky games to play during the lead-up to Halloween and beyond. As usual, PS Plus members get an extra discount on top of these deals. It’s the Sale of the Dead, and it runs between now and November 2. Let’s take a look at what deals are available.
If bang for your buck is what you’re after, you can pick up BioShock: The Collection for $26. These creepy games tell some of the best and most out-there stories you’ll find in any shooter on the market. And if you’d like to spend time trying to avoid death-by-xenoomorph, grab Alien: Isolation for $15.
With Devil May Cry 5 scheduled for March 2019, now is a great time to catch up on the series. You can pick up the first three games in Devil May Cry HD Collection for $18 and finish it off with Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition for $10.
Some early PS4 games are on sale for deep discounts right now, including The Order: 1886 for $5 and Until Dawn for $6. Both are cinematic horror stories. Speaking of, What Remains of Edith Finch ($20) is basically a playable collection of short stories that all revolve around death. One of them even takes place on Halloween.
What connection, exactly, Street Fighter has to horror is unclear; nevertheless, you can pick up Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition on sale for $28. Hitman: Game of the Year Edition might not seem like it has a Halloween connection, but in fact it does: you can grab the Halloween Pack for free right now. The full game is also discounted to $30 right now.
We have more selections below, or you can head to the PlayStation Store to see the full list of sale items.
A new week means you can find a new set of video game deals at Best Buy, available both in-store and online. This week’s sale sees temporary price drops on a handful of PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch games, as well as discounts on accessories and $10 rewards for specific purchases and pre-orders. Let’s take a look at what deals are available between now and October 27.
For PS4 owners, select DualShock 4 controllers are $5 off this week, bringing them down to $60 each. They come in a variety of colors, which is great for anyone looking to expand beyond the traditional black. Pre-order Fallout 76 this week, and you’ll get a special steelbook edition, plus access to the beta. The beta begins October 23 on Xbox One and October 30 on PS4 and PC.
If you trade in select games between now and December 1, you’ll get a $10 coupon toward the purchase of Battlefield V in addition to the game’s trade value. That’s on top of the $10 reward credit you can get for pre-ordering Battlefield V. Speaking of credit, if you pre-order Just Cause 4, which comes out December 4, you’ll also get a $10 reward. And buying Dragon Ball FighterZ for Nintendo Switch gets you a free $10 Best Buy gift card.
There aren’t that many games on sale this week at Best Buy, but you can same some cash on a few fine titles. Sports fans can grab NHL 19 or NBA 2K19 for $40 each. The open-world shooter Far Cry 5 is on sale for $30, the cheapest we’ve seen it drop yet on console. And Xbox One owners can pick up Minecraft: Explorer’s Pack for $20.
You can find more video game discounts at Best Buy right here.
If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Xbox One X, you might want to do it soon. Between now and October 28, GameStop is running a promotion that gets you a sizable bonus on the trade-in value of other current-gen consoles–provided that you put the credit toward the purchase of an Xbox One X.
How much trade credit you get depends, of course, on which console you trade in. If you have a PS4 Pro lying around that you’re ready to part with, you can get $300 toward an Xbox One X at GameStop. That’s $50 more than you’d get for trading it in for regular GameStop credit.
In perhaps a more likely scenario, you can get $250 toward an Xbox One X for trading in a Nintendo Switch, PS4 Slim, original PS4, or Xbox One S. An original PS4 normally nets you $150 in trade credit, so that’s a nice $100 bonus. And if you’re looking to upgrade to an X from an original Xbox One, you’ll get $200 credit, which is also $100 more than you’d normally get. Seeing as an Xbox One X costs $500, this trade-in deal lets you get one by parting with just $200 to $300 in cash.
The Xbox One X is Microsoft’s mid-generation upgrade model that offers a boost in both power and features over the original Xbox One or Xbox One S. It plays all the same games, but it can render many of them natively in 4K, with HDR for more accurate colors, shorter load times, and improved framerates.
In our Xbox One X review, Jimmy Thang wrote, “While the Xbox One X is an expensive box, from a hardware standpoint, you’re getting a very powerful and capable machine. You’ll be hard pressed to build a comparably powerful PC for $500. On top of that, you get a 4K HDR Blu-ray player, which can cost several hundred dollars on its own.” For more information, you can check out our comparison of all Xbox One models.
Any game as big as Red Dead Redemption 2 is probably going to be a system-seller. And if you’re in the market for an Xbox One S or Xbox One X, you can save $100 if you buy Red Dead Redemption 2 from GameStop between October 25 and November 3. That’s a killer deal for anyone who’s looking to buy both of those items anyway. Better yet, you can pick up your copy of the game at GameStop starting at 9 PM local time, three hours earlier than it goes live on digital stores.
If you need help choosing between the two console models, you can check out our Xbox One S and Xbox One X reviews to get the full rundown on what features each one includes. We’ve also done an in-depth comparison of the models. It’s worth noting that Red Dead Redemption 2 is an Xbox One X-enhanced game, meaning it runs in 4K and supports HDR when played on an Xbox One X connected to a TV with the corresponding features. (The S also supports HDR, but not native 4K–it’s confusing).
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a prequel to the 2010 original. It takes place in 1899 and finds the Van der Linde gang on a crime spree in the Old West. You play as a man named Arthur Morgan this time around, though the previous game’s protagonist, John Marston, also makes an appearance. The game comes out October 26 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
You can check out our Red Dead Redemption story recap to get yourself up to speed from a narrative perspective. We’ve also gone hands-on with the game, so you can see our thoughts on 90 minutes of playtime. And if you’re ready to place your pre-order, we have everything you need to know about the pre-order bonuses, as well as what comes in each edition and how much it costs in our Red Dead Redemption 2 pre-order guide.
There’s no shortage of ways to get your hands on a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2 when it launches on October 26 for PS4 and Xbox One (you can check out our Red Dead Redemption 2 pre-order guide for details). The only problem is, you’ll have to wait until October 26 before you can play it. If you want to get it a little earlier, it turns out there’s a way to do so. Both Best Buy and GameStop have announced they’ll begin selling copies of the game at 9 PM local time on October 25–the day before it launches elsewhere.
That gives you a three-hour head start on everyone who ordered it digitally. You’ll still have to go home and install the game to your console’s hard drive before you can play it, of course–and it’s an enormous game. But because the data is installed on your hard drive from the disc instead of downloaded from the internet, it’s quite possible you’ll be up and running before midnight. (Then again, it’s also possible there will be a download on top of the disc install).
You can pre-order Red Dead Redemption 2 from GameStop here or from Best Buy here. All pre-orders come with a download code for the Ardennes War Horse and Outlaw Survival Kit.
Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place in 1899, at the tale end of the era when outlaw gangs were running amuck in the Wild West. Rather than taking control of John Marston like in the previous game, you play as Arthur Morgan, another member of Dutch Van der Linde’s gang. To refresh your memory about the story of the previous game, you can take a look at our Red Dead Redemption recap or watch the video above. Also be sure to check out our Red Dead Redemption 2 impressions for more information.