Amazon Prime Day 2021 is coming on June 21 and 22. Though plenty of Prime Day phone deals are surely coming on those exact dates, Amazon isn’t waiting for the big day to roll out its discounts, and some of its competitors have joined in. The retailer is already discounting prices on a few Android phone models, especially in last year’s Samsung Galaxy line. Just like last year, most of the early Prime Day phone deals this year aren’t on the latest models, but you can get rewarded for your patience with a hefty discount on a model that’s only about a year old. You can, however, save $100 on an unlocked 2021 Samsung Galaxy S21 5G.
The Google Pixel 3XL is well-regarded, so even though Google no longer carries the device you may still want to pick one up at a bargain. This water-resistant phone features a great camera that can manage low-light and wide shots. It also supports wireless charging.
If you’re shopping for a 5G phone, the Galaxy S21 is a great model. It sports a high-quality camera with 8K video, an “intelligent” power system that manages your usage to maximize battery life, and of course, 5G speeds.
The Galaxy 20 Fan Edition (aka “FE”) is a less expensive version of last year’s Galaxy 20 Ultra that packs a lot of the same features. You’ll get a nice triple camera, waterproofing, and 5G. The price is already lower than a higher-end new Galaxy, and now you can save another $100.
The polar opposite of the Galaxy FE, the S20 Ultra is the most expensive Galaxy model released last year. It sports a huge battery so you can use it all day, and its camera features a whopping 108-megapixel sensor and 100x zoom lens. It’s pricey compared to some other Galaxy models, but it’s also gotten a deeper discount at $200.
Watch live streams, videos, and more from GameSpot’s summer event. Check it out
If you’re like us, you probably rushed to subscribe to Disney+ thanks to its wealth of Star Wars and MCU content–it’s just so much easier to have those movies collected up in one convenient spot, finally. But of course, there’s more than just Jedi and superheroes on the platform, and thanks to Disney’s acquisition of studios like Fox and Sony, some of the service’s offerings might surprise you.
We’ve combed through all of Disney+ to find our favorite picks for movies you can stream right now–some of which you’ll definitely expect, but others you may not have realized were available at all. Everything from animated classics like Snow White, the first Disney princess film ever made, to Nic Cage’s frequently memed historical heist movie, National Treasure, is available on Disney+ right now.
This 1937 film is a piece of both Disney and animation history as the studio’s first ever feature length movie. It was initially assumed to be a terrible mistake on Walt’s part, but immediately proved to be a critical darling that struck a chord with audiences and went on to pave the way for the Disney princess canon we all know today.
A Goofy Movie has gained cult classic status among Disney fans and ’90s kids alike, and for good reason. There’s absolutely no reason a movie about Goofy and his teenage son, Max, bonding over concerts and camping trips should be this good, yet here we are.
Pixar knows exactly how to crank out tearjerkers, but even knowing that, Coco stands above the rest when it comes to the waterworks. It’s a gorgeous animated story of a young boy in Mexico learning about his heritage through music and the Day of the Dead celebration.
What is there to say about the Marvel Cinematic Universe? This series has been going strong for over a decade, from the humble origins of Tony Stark building a mech suit in a cave, to the galaxy-spanning battle with Thanos. Things may have slowed down post-Avengers Endgame, but with almost every MCU movie available on Disney+, now is the perfect time to revisit them.
The most iconic sci-fi series of all time has found its home on Disney+, whether you love the bombastic newest trilogy or prefer the classics. We know what the right answer is, but you do you.
This documentary is a comprehensive look into the late-’80s/early-’90s era of Disney Animation, as everything the studio produced floundered before finding success with The Little Mermaid. It is an honest look at the drama that unfolded behind-the-scenes as studio executives bickered about the future of the studio before, ultimately, the animators created the films that defined a generation.
Arguably one of the best holiday movies of all time, A Muppet Christmas Carol has everything you could possibly want, including Gonzo playing literary giant Charles Dickens and Michael Caine singing and dancing with puppets as Scrooge.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s explosively popular musical is streaming on Disney+, so you don’t even need to head to a theater to experience it anymore. This version features the original cast, including Miranda’s iconic performance as Hamilton himself, making it a must-see.
National Treasure follows in the footsteps of adventure classics like Indiana Jones, but starring Nicholas Cage, which lends it a unique feel all its own. The story of secrets, ciphers, and maps hidden in the historical artifacts of the founding of the United States is hard to resist, even if it is incredibly silly.
Return to Oz is the little known sequel to The Wizard of Oz, and one look at it will confirm to you just why it failed to gain the cultural traction of its predecessor. This movie is a horrific, surreal fever dream–and that’s exactly why we love it. From the jump, we have young Dorothy being sent to an asylum and subjected to electroshock therapy for her “delusions” of visiting the fantasy world of Oz, and from there it just gets weirder. It really has to be seen to be believed.
Looking for something superhero-flavored that isn’t Marvel? Check out The Rocketeer. This early ’90s cult classic is the story of Cliff Secord, a man who finds a top secret, experimental jet pack and faces off against spies and villains.
Beyond being a pop culture staple thanks to characters like Jessica Rabbit, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is also a watershed moment in film making technology. Blending live action with hand drawn animation in an age before modern CGI and green screens, the movie is still holds up today.
Disney+ is home to every Muppet movie, and we recommend you watch them all–multiple times, of course–but if you’ve got to pick somewhere to start, why not go with the first? The original Muppet Movie from 1979 is hilarious, heart warming, and the perfect way to spend an afternoon.
If you enjoy live-action Wes Anderson movies like The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, and The Grand Budapest Hotel, you’ll love Fantastic Mr. Fox, the director’s first animated film. It has a similar storybook feel, but Anderson uses the animated format to amp up the fun antics. And the voice cast includes many of his frequent collaborators.
Watch live streams, videos, and more from GameSpot’s summer event. Check it out
Disney+ is a bit of an odd duck when it comes to stream services. It boasts an impressive amount of nostalgic content, thanks to Disney’s massive claim on various studios, but it is also home to the first ever live action Star Wars and Marvel TV shows. The mix of old and new makes for a complicated, sometimes even overwhelming menu of possibilities to navigate through–especially if you’re just looking for something to toss on and watch while you work or cook.
But don’t despair–we’re here to make those choices easier for you! GameSpot has collected a list of the best TV shows to stream on Disney+ right now, from bizarre puppet-based sitcoms like Dinosaurs to feel-good walks down memory lane like DuckTales (both the classic and the rebooted versions are here!).
This list will help you make your tricky Disney+ choices through June 2021–and don’t forget, Loki will be premiering on June 9 and run weekly on Wednesdays, so factor that into your calculations as well.
We all know that keeping track of the MCU and its many characters can get tricky, especially after an unexpected year-long hiatus–but Disney has a solution for that. Marvel Legends is a series full of roughly 10-minute character refreshers for everyone making their way to the Disney+ TV show lineup. Think of it like superhero cliff notes.
This sitcom starring puppet Dinosaurs from The Jim Henson Company isn’t just another take on the Muppets. Using the traditional sitcom format, Dinosaurs told the story of a prehistoric family and managed to tackle some fairly serious issues, including sexual harassment, body image, and steroid abuse. In fact, the entire series culminates in a sobering look at climate change and how it can destroy all living things. Even with weighty issues like those, it still managed to be one of the funniest sitcoms of the ’90s, which is impressive.
The first season of Game Changers finds that the Mighty Ducks have lost their way. The youth hockey team is now about winning at all costs, regardless of whether the kids are happy. That leads one parent to team with a disgraced Coach Bombay to form a new team and give them a run for their money. It’s a heartwarming family show, so don’t expect anything too drastic. But it’s fun and you’ll see some of the original Ducks pop up in Season 1 for a very fun reunion episode.
You’d be hard pressed to find a better time capsule of life and pop culture in the ’90s than Boy Meets World, a sitcom revolving around the life of teenage Corey Matthews, his brother Eric, best friend Shawn, on-again-off-again love interest Topanga, and their strict but lovable school teacher, Mr. Feeny.
The animated adventures of Doug Funnie, his dog Porkchop, his angst-ridden sister Judy, his best friend Skeeter, and his bully Roger have earned a beloved place in the hearts of anyone who happened to be growing up in the mid-’90s.
These 5-minute long Mickey Mouse shorts updated Disney’s most beloved and recognizable characters like Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy for modern audiences. They were quick, stylish, and oftentimes surprisingly hilarious–they even gained enough popularity to have a theme park attraction modeled after them. Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway features these designs and versions of the characters.
Life is like a hurricane! Both the original and the rebooted DuckTales are available to stream on Disney+, giving you a total of 6 seasons of Huey, Dewey, and Louie messing around with their rich Uncle Scrooge.
While the cinematic arm of the X-Men franchise may leave something to be desired for many fans, the animated series still holds up today. One of the most beloved animated superhero shows of all time, X-Men took on the adventures of Marvel’s mutants in a way that the movies never quite managed to capture.
If the most recent trilogy of Star Wars movies didn’t land for you, The Mandalorian might be more your speed. The series follows the titular bounty hunter, played mostly in a face-obscuring helmet by Game of Thrones’ Pedro Pascal, as he meets up with Star Wars characters from all corners of the galaxy far, far away. Oh, and Baby Yoda is there too.
Who doesn’t love a good buddy cop story? Bucky and Sam have had a hilarious back and forth going in the background of their mainline MCU movies for years, and in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, it’s finally brought into the spotlight, complete with some major implications for the future of Phase 4.
In recent years, the MCU has leaned hard into experimental styles and genre benders, but WandaVision stands alone as one of the weirdest Marvel artifacts yet. Part superhero adventure, part love letter to American sitcom history, WandaVision kicked off Disney+’s MCU TV show run with a bang.
The title might be a bit of a mouthful, but don’t worry about it. HSMTMTS, as it’s known, is a shockingly funny mockumentary style show about a high school attempting to put on a performance of the musical version of High School Musical and while that may seem like an invitation for deepcut lore into the High School Musical movie franchise, you don’t actually need to know anything about it to appreciate the show.
The vintage Muppet Show is a must-watch for Muppet fans of any age. After its debut in 1976, the puppet-hosted variety hour featured massive guest stars like Vincent Price, Twiggy, Steve Martin, and Elton John.
There are a number of Star Wars movies on Disney+, but don’t forget about the animated series. The most notable are The Clone Wars, Rebels, and the newest addition The Bad Batch, which follows the final season of Clone Wars. The various Star Wars shows have filled in a lot of the blanks regarding what happens outside of the main movies and sometimes even help the films make more sense. After all, if you’d watched Clone Wars and Rebels, you would have been less confused by Darth Maul’s appearance in Solo.
The Simpsons is one of the most popular shows of all time for good reason. The antics of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, and the rest of the misfits in Springfield are fixtures of pop culture in ways that few other shows have managed. Whether you’re watching for the first time or re-watching for the first time in years, you can’t go wrong with The Simpsons.
This behind-the-scenes documentary series takes a first hand look at the past, present, and future of Disney’s “imagineering” department, responsible for developing the lands, rides, and characters that populate the various Disney theme parks around the world.
Though it may be a relic of the ’70s, animated educational series Schoolhouse Rock graced the classrooms of many a school through the ’90s and ’00s, and while singing jaunty little songs about how bills become laws in America may not be the coolest or most relevant way to learn about governmental process today, it’s definitely going to get stuck in your head.
Watch live streams, videos, and more from GameSpot’s summer event. Check it out
VR isn’t going anywhere. At least not when it comes to PlayStation’s PSVR games. PlayStation presented several new trailers and updates on previously announced PSVR games during Thursday’s Spotlight stream.
PlayStation didn’t have any news about VR games on PS5, so set expectations accordingly. The official E3 2021 schedule was also released today if you want to see more games on the horizon.
Here’s everything we saw at the PSVR Spotlight.
Sniper Elite VR
Release date: July 8
The Sniper Elite franchise finally hits VR, complete with all the Nazi skull-shattering you can shake a Move controller at. As an Italian Partisan, you’ll stealth and shoot your way through villas, beachside fortifications, and bunkers with your trusty sniper rifle, along with some less sneaky weapons. The infamous X-ray camera returns, letting you witness all the internal carnage a single shot can wreak.
Travel through time, meet some of history’s most infamous names, and do everything from race an RC car on the moon, play in a 60’s psychedelic band, or solve ancient Mayan puzzles. Despite those silly diversions, Wanderer’s story seems to swing pretty serious, with a character narrating that some things, like a world ravaged by nature following some sort of cataclysm, are inevitable.
Stealth your way through the castles of feudal-era Japan in a quest for vengeance, all with the help of a grappling hook, ninja stars, your sword, and a faithful wolf. Yes, you can pet the dog. When you’re not dueling samurai to the death or laying traps for their soldiers, that is.
The puzzle-solving side of the classic Bobble franchise gets a makeover in this beachside VR game. You’ll aim your cannon to blow up bubbles, which now take on 3D shapes instead of flat 2D walls, adding an extra layer of strategy to the mix. There’s a story mode with 100 puzzles, plus an infinite mode and a 1 vs. 1 “Duel Mode” that quick matches across PS4, PS5, and PSVR.
A colorful story-driven shooter with a wider range of movement, an emphasis on verticality (on and below a single Alaskan mountain), and a pair of deployable skis. VR players might be curious to learn there’s no teleportation mechanic like other VR games tend to have, with developer nDreams focusing on fluid movement between cover.
Regrow a blighted landscape into a lush ecosystem using tree seeds and your time-traveling powers. To fully restore the land, you’ll use your green thumb to experiment with seed types, grow gardens, and contend with changing weather patterns.
This 4-player co-op shooter puts you in the shoes of a Harvest Runner, one of the few survivors brave enough to enter a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles that’s been ravaged by wintery weather and undead creatures known as “Snowbreeds.” Different kinds of Snowbreeds will keep you on your toes, including the explosive “Eater” or the lumbering one-hit killer “Juggernaut.” You’ll level the playing field with upgradeable firearms.
FX has announced its release dates for a slew of news shows premiering this summer, including a release date for the Y: The Last Man adaptation.
Y: The Last Man, which has been in development since at least 2015, will finally premiere on September 13, exclusively on FX on Hulu. In addition, FX has announced dates for several other shows coming this summer, which you can check out below.
American Horror Stories – July 15 exclusively on FX on Hulu
Reservation Dogs – August 9 exclusively on FX on Hulu
American Horror Story: Double Feature – August 25 on FX
Archer Season 12 – August 25 on FXX
What We Do in the Shadows Season 3 – September 2 on FX
Impeachment: American Crime Story – September 7 on FX
Y: The Last Man – September 13 exclusively on FX on Hulu
Untitled B.J. Novak Anthology Series – September 16 exclusively on FX on Hulu
Based on the Hugo Award-winning DC comic by Brian K. Vaughan, Y: The Last Man is set in a world where the only man left alive after a plague wiped out the Y Chromosome, is Yorick Brown and his pet monkey.
In 2018 it was announced that Barry Keoghan was cast as Y, but had to drop out in 2020. Ben Schnetzer replaced Keoghan as Yorick and will join a cast that includes Diane Lane as Congresswoman Jennifer Brown, Diana Bang as Dr. Allison Mann, Ashley Romans as Agent 355, and more.
Other shows included in today’s announcement see the return of favorites like Archer, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, and What We Do in the Shadows. Plus, the announcement of a new anthology series from The Office star B.J. Novak.
In 2018, Bethesda delivered a shock to fans of its games at E3: it announced a new game that wasn’t part of its existing series. That was a huge move since Bethesda hadn’t released any new intellectual property in 25 years. The game was Starfield, but while Bethesda showed a brief trailer when it announced the game, it hasn’t shown anything else since then.
While Bethesda hasn’t shown any of the game or explained exactly what it is or will be about, a few clues have been dropped along the way that hint at what we can expect from the studio’s new IP. With E3 looming, there’s another chance that Bethesda might be about to drop a bunch of new Starfield information on us. So here’s everything we know about Starfield so far.
The bit of information most wished for when it comes to Starfield is also the one that’s most obscure. Bethesda hasn’t said when Starfield will be released or even given an idea of when we can expect it. Part of this is taking a “when it’s ready” approach to the game–we’ve learned almost nothing about the game so far, and most of the hype around it derives from Bethesda’s reputation as an RPG developer. Since we’ve seen almost nothing about it, it’s a fair bet that Starfield is still a long way out; sometime in 2022 seems possible, but even that speculation is a shot in the dark.
It’s worth noting, however, that Bethesda does occasionally like to drop a big game reveal on the public that begins a very short run-up to release. We saw that with Fallout 4, which Bethesda announced in June 2015 and released in November of that same year. So it’s possible we’ll suddenly find Starfield bearing down on us out of nowhere. And hey…it’s June.
So Will Starfield Be At E3?
Another big, open question about which we have only rumor and speculation. Bethesda has often had a very big presence at E3, where it likes to put together showcases for all its games. That situation is somewhat different now that Bethesda is under the Microsoft umbrella, with Bethesda joining the Xbox Showcase (now the Xbox & Bethesda Showcase) on June 13. We haven’t heard anything official yet about whether Starfield will be shown off there, but some think there might be a hint that we’ll see something new from the game this month.
That hint is in the Showcase logo that Microsoft shared on its announcement for the event. It includes some Halo characters, including Master Chief, set against a spacey background. The bottom of the logo is a planet in space, and it sure does look like the desert planet shown off in Starfield’s teaser trailer from 2018. In fact, as PC Gamer noted, comparisons have already been made on Twitter that are very interesting.
What’s more, there are reports that Bethesda intends to show off Starfield at E3, with the announcement of a release date. That date won’t be anytime soon, however–according to reports, the game is slated to come out in late 2022.
Platforms
Starfield has no confirmed platforms. When it was first announced, Bethesda director and executive producer Todd Howard mentioned that Bethesda wouldn’t compromise on its vision just to get the game to work on older-generation consoles, and leaving them behind in favor of newer hardware is “not out of the question.” However, it has since been rumored that Starfield could be exclusive to Xbox platforms and PC. We’ll be sure to update this feature once we know more.
The 2018 Teaser Trailer
We haven’t actually seen anything of Starfield in action. Back at E3 2018, Bethesda teased the game for the first time with a very brief trailer that gives only the barest sense of what it might be like.
The trailer shows the sun flaring over a planet before also revealing a space station with a very current-technology look. A second later, a rip in space appears that seems to suck everything in. It has the look of a bright Star Trek-like warp field, but it could be anything–a singularity, a wormhole, a space anomaly, or a cool special effect to end your trailer on. At this point, who knows.
Click To Unmute
Starfield – Official Announcement Trailer | E3 2018
Size:
Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?
It’s An Open-World, Single-Player RPG Of Some Kind
While we haven’t heard almost anything about Starfield, we have a bit of a broad-strokes idea of what it’ll eventually become. Bethesda is known for its expansive open-world RPGs, like The Elder Scrolls series and the Fallout series, and it sounds like Starfield will also exist in that wheelhouse. During a Bethesda/Microsoft briefing back in March, Bethesda Game Studios managing director Ashley Cheng noted that the experience of the development team working on the game. She noted that many people on the team sported a great deal of experience working on open-world RPGs–heavily implying that Starfield is also one of those games.
“Today, the team working on Starfield have all worked on several open-world RPGs together. This shared experience and chemistry doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a long time and it’s a lot of hard work,” Cheng said.
So at the very least, we can expect that Starfield won’t deviate too much from what people already like about Bethesda games. But that’s a wide (star)field. Back in a 2018 interview with Eurogamer, Howard was reticent to say that Starfield would be like either an Elder Scrolls or Fallout game.
“I don’t want to say yes or no to that because I don’t know what that means to you or whoever’s going to read that,” Howard said in the interview. “It’s different, but if you sit down and play it you would recognise it as something we made if that makes sense? It has our DNA in it. It has things that we like. But it has a lot of new systems we’ve been thinking about for a while that fit that kind of game really well.”
And even among what are considered “Bethesda games,” there’s a fair amount of variety. While they deliver story and conversations in similar ways, The Elder Scrolls games are high fantasy titles that have you wielding melee weapons, bows, and magic, while the Fallout games are all about cool guns. Fallout 4 added a whole lot more crafting and base-building to the formula, further differentiating it from, say, Skyrim. So there’s definitely latitude for Starfield to be pretty different from Bethesda’s other titles, even if it does have a lot of the same open-world RPG elements, like branching stories and massive worlds to explore.
Bethesda’s Engine Got An Overhaul For Starfield
In September 2020, Bethesda released a statement about how much the acquisition by Microsoft and the release of its new Xbox Series X and S were impacting the work the studio was doing on its games. In that statement, Howard said the new technology had led to “our largest engine overhaul since Oblivion.”
“With each new console cycle, we evolved together. From bringing mods to consoles with Fallout 4, now over a billion downloads, to the latest technologies fueling Xbox Series X/S,” Howard said. “These new systems are optimized for the vast worlds we love to create, with generational leaps not just in graphics, but CPU and data streaming as well. It’s led to our largest engine overhaul since Oblivion, with all new technologies powering our first new IP in 25 years, Starfield, as well as The Elder Scrolls VI.”
For years now, Bethesda has powered its games with its Creation engine, which is the technology behind The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, as mentioned, as well as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76. So this makes it pretty clear that Starfield also uses the Creation engine–albeit an overhauled version that takes into account a whole lot of new technology and hardware capabilities. Generally, though, we can likely expect Starfield to have the same sort of visual and gameplay feel of Bethesda’s other games.
Starfield Will Be On Xbox Game Pass
This is a bit of an obvious one, but it bears repeating. With Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda, the publisher announced that new Bethesda games would appear on Xbox Game Pass at release–and that includes Starfield. So while we don’t know exactly when Starfield will come out, we do know that if you’re a Game Pass subscriber, you’ll very likely have instant access to it on either PC or Xbox Series X|S, and possibly both.
Preorder
Starfield is currently not available for preorder. However, we’ll be sure to update this feature once listings are available.
Actor John Boyega has reportedly left the Netflix movie Rebel Ridge mid-production due to unspecified “family reasons,” according to Deadline. The movie’s major plot details still haven’t been announced, but Rebel Ridge is expected to be a “high-velocity thriller that explores systemic American injustices through bone-breaking action sequences, suspense, and dark humor” and continue with a new actor in his stead.
“Rebel Ridge is pausing temporarily as we look to re-cast John Boyega,” said a Netflix spokesperson in a statement. “We remain committed to [director] Jeremy Saulnier’s extraordinary film and look forward to resuming production. We look forward to continuing our partnership with John Boyega’s UpperRoom Productions, in addition to our upcoming film They Cloned Tyrone in which he also stars.”
Filming for Rebel Ridge began in early May 2021 after pandemic delays pushed back plans to originally start production in April 2020. Boyega was part of an impressive ensemble that includes James Cromwell, AnnaSophia Robb, Emory Cohen, Don Johnson, James Badge Dale, Zsane Jhe, and Al Vicente.
Twitter has officially announced Twitter Blue, a paid subscription that gives users access to an enhanced suite of features, including the ability to undo tweets and to view threads in something called “Reader Mode.” The service costs $3.49 CAD in Canada and $4.49 AUD in Australia per month.
As The Verge notes, we had a pretty decent idea of Twitter Blue’s functionality thanks to some details uncovered by app research Jane Manchun Wong. Wong’s research also suggests that Twitter Blue may cost $3 a month when it comes to the US, but there’s currently no word on when the service might roll out to the US.
In addition to the undo tweet feature, Twitter Blue will allow users to set a timer for undoing tweets up to 30 seconds. Reader Mode apparently turns threads into “easy-to-read text,” as well as mashing together different tweets in an attempt to make them more legible. The service also includes a new color theme, as well as offering an expedited timeframe for resolving customer support issues, such as posts you report.
Twitter Blue represents a major move for the tech company, but the company has introduced a few new features recently to compete with other social media platforms. For example, Twitter recently added a Tip Jar that allows users to send payments to their favorite accounts.
Watch live streams, videos, and more from GameSpot’s summer event. Check it out
They may not be superheroes in the literal sense, but Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga’s take on Ed and Lorraine Warren might be the horror genre’s next best thing. And with eight movies, including this year’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, their shared universe is turning into a web of continuity and overlapping timelines where we meet different characters (some human, some very much not human) at different points in their lives across different movies.
Thankfully, The Conjuring movies proper are pretty linear in and of themselves. They’re a bit like the Avengers titles, if we’re going to keep the superhero simile going, and they unfold in a way that can be understood totally independent of the other spin-off movies.
The Devil Made Me Do It is the third Conjuring film, and takes place–surprise!–after the second Conjuring film. The timeline for these movies looks something like this.
The Conjuring (1971)
The Conjuring 2 (1977)
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (1981)
The dates here are concrete thanks to the fact that the main line Conjuring films are all “based on true stories,” in that they’re direct references to cases that the real Ed and Lorraine Warren wrote about while they were active. Of course, like any horror movie inspired by real events the “true” part is loose at best and afforded the franchise to embellish not only the events themselves but to add whole new characters and monsters to the mix. That’s when things begin to get a little bit tricky.
Factoring in the Conjuring spin-offs, you get something that looks more like this:
The Nun (1952)
Annabelle: Creation (~1952, with flashbacks to 1943 and flashforwards to 1967)
Annabelle (1967)
The Conjuring (1971)
Annabelle Comes Home (somewhere between ~1969-1970)
The Curse of La Llorona (1973)
The Conjuring 2 (1977)
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (1981)
Of this list, the Annabelle branch is probably the most chronologically tricky, featuring multiple flashbacks and flashforwards–and the fact that Annabelle proper is a prequel to The Conjuring while Annabelle: Creation is a prequel to Annabelle doesn’t particularly help either. Meanwhile, Annabelle Comes Home’s only direct timestamps are the age of the Warren’s daughter, Judy, and the references to the events of the first Conjuring and Annabelle movies.
Meanwhile, The Nun’s solo film is directly connected to The Conjuring 2 and also includes a retcon/Easter egg to one of the earlier scenes of The Conjuring.
The Curse of La Llorona briefly nods to Annabelle as a character that exists out in the shared universe, but is otherwise disconnected.
If you’re just looking for a spooky movie to enjoy and don’t want to worry about the demon-filled continuity web, that’s more than okay. The Devil Made Me Do It makes some loose references (mostly in the form of Easter eggs and set dressing) to the other films, but otherwise stands entirely on its own.
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It hits theaters and HBO Max on June 4.
Watch live streams, videos, and more from GameSpot’s summer event. Check it out
Call of Duty Warzone developer Raven has revamped the location of the game’s accessibility options to make them easier to find. In a recent tweet, Raven said that the accessibility features can now be found through the main menu or through the options menu itself.
Warzone offers quite a few different accessibility options, giving players the freedom to determine if they prefer to tap or hold buttons for various functions, including reloading and sliding. Players can also enable an option that automatically moves them forward without the press of a button.
Raven remains committed to making #Warzone accessible for everyone because we believe that games are for everyone. In an effort to make the Accessibility Options more visible and easier to access, you can now find them right when you open Warzone or in the in-game Options. pic.twitter.com/YGU2oZY72K
Generally speaking, game developers have become more cognizant of the importance of accessibility options to disabled players over the years. (The days of mandatory button-mashing sequences are long over, and we’re better for it.) Microsoft recently released new guidelines for developers to follow to help make their games more accessibility friendly, and the company created the Xbox Adaptive Controller years ago to help disabled gamers create setups that work for them.
