Since time immemorial, mankind has looked to the stars and wondered, “Who would win in a fight—cats or vampires?” Well, wonder no more because Magic: The Gathering is putting this age-old conflict front and center in their new Foundations set.

Set to release on November 15, 2024, Magic: The Gathering Foundations isn’t just meant to appeal to the statistically horniest corners of the internet; rather, it’s designed with beginners in mind. As the name suggests, Foundations is intended to serve as the core of casual and competitive Magic: The Gathering play for the next 5 years—at least as far as Standard is concerned. The set is roughly a 50-50 split between new cards and older cards that will give players the, you guessed it, foundation they need for their collection moving forward.

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While in Indianapolis at Gen Con, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Magic: The Gathering executive producer Max McCall, who gave us a detailed breakdown of the thought process behind Foundations, the biggest challenges in bringing it to life, and why it’s the perfect way to get beginners into the game.

I also tried out the Foundations Beginner Box, a package that includes basically everything that you and a friend need to start playing Magic. The box contains 10 themed Jumpstart packs that are predetermined to facilitate beginner play. The deck contains a guided learn-to-play experience with two 20-card decks (Cats and Vampires) that takes you through the first 6 or so rounds and introduces key concepts in an easily digestible manner.

Although I’ve been playing since Ice Age, I was impressed by how thoroughly the Beginner Box eases players into the rhythm of gameplay. Considering this is a game where you can have infinite combos or literally make your cards into a computer, ease of accessibility is paramount for attracting new players.

While the set is certainly geared towards newcomers with products like the Beginner’s Box, McCall is keenly aware that they need to provide value for veteran players as well. “Teaching aides become less useful over time,” McCall said. After graduating from the Beginner Box, players can move on to Starter Collection, which contains 350 cards that will help them continue to build upon the foundations a never-ending war between cats and vampires instilled in them.

Another way they’re hoping to ensure the longevity of this set is by making Foundations legal in Standard play through 2029—approximately double the usual amount of time. When designing a new set like Foundations, McCall said the key questions they ask themselves is “How should we think about how the cards in this experience can be relevant for a long time?” The idea of building for longevity makes sense, especially considering that McCall said sets like Foundations typically spend three to four years in development, going from concept to completion.

While Foundations was clearly meant to be a set with broad appeal to a wide range of skill levels, the design process is more often than not motivated by the setting rather than a desire to explore specific mechanics. In the case of Innistrad, McCall noted, it’s a world inspired by Gothic fiction, which lead them to vampires and bite mechanics.

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As for McCall’s favorite card in Foundations? A self-confessed cat person, he immediately pointed to Helpful Hunter, a 1/1 cat who lets you draw a card when it enters the field of play. The artwork by Xabi Gaztelua features an adorable kitten with a feather in its mouth.

McCall said he likes it not only because of the adorable artwork but because it’s an efficient, low-cost card that facilitates drawing from your deck, giving it a wide array of uses for players.

Foundations will available in your friendly local game store on November 15 as well as Magic: The Gathering Arena, the digital version of the game. Does knowing that these cards will be used for both table play and virtual play have an influence on how McCall and company approach their designs?

Yes, but perhaps in subtler ways than one might think. “The power of tabletop is you’re playing with someone [face-to-face],” McCall said. In effect, it’s easier to speed things along in person than when you’re playing a stranger online. So, McCall noted, the team tends to “avoid elements that slow down pace of play.”

Of course, part of the joy of Magic: The Gathering is the genuinely bonkers combos that its players manage to assemble. Despite rotating what cards are legal in Standard play, it is impossible for designers to know exactly what kooky combinations people will cook up. “We must design systems where we don’t know all possible outcomes,” McCall explained.

As for what Magic players will cook up in the cardboard lab with Foundations, only time will tell. We will find out together when it comes to stores on November 15.

The post MAGIC: THE GATHERING’s New FOUNDATIONS Set Is Cats vs. Vampires appeared first on Nerdist.

Before you ask, yes, they finally gave cats darkvision, folks! However, by opening this article, you accidentally triggered a trap. You hear a pressure plate sliding beneath your feet as a metric ton of brand new information about Dungeons & Dragons begins to emit from slits in the walls. Roll for initiative, adventurers, and prepare yourselves for what may potentially be a lot of psychic damage depending on how well you deal with change!

In early August, Wizards of the Coast opened a portal to Avernus in Indianapolis, IN. Not simply to summon a horde of demons – we presume – but to give press and Gen Con attendees a look at everything they’re working on for Dungeons & Dragons.

Big Anniversary, Big Changes

The world’s most popular tabletop role-playing game is celebrating its 50^th anniversary this year. I have been playing it for at least 25 years, which makes my bones hurt more than a CR 0 skeleton on the wrong end of a paladin’s greatsword.

But wait, there’s more — this also marks the 10th anniversary of Fifth Edition, the game’s current ruleset. And like a hill giant in the distance, there are some big changes on the horizon. Beginning in September, Wizards of the Coast are rolling up sprawling updates to Dungeons & Dragons‘ three core rulebooks, the Player’s Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Monster Manual. Each of these tomes will clock in at a whopping 384 pages and offer significant updates to a game system enjoyed by more than 64 million players worldwide.

So should players be scrambling to make an intelligence check? What does the future of Dungeons & Dragons hold? While at Gen Con, I spoke with Dungeons & Dragons game architect Chris Perkins. A 20-year veteran of Wizards of the Coast, Perkins has had in everything from Dungeon magazine to D&D Fourth Edition to serving as the longtime Dungeon Master for Acquisitions Incorporated games at Penny Arcade Expo and beyond.

Perkins is keenly aware of the scrutiny placed on Wizards of the Coast, especially in light of 2023’s contentious handling of the Open Gaming License. However, he and the rest of the team are focused more on making sure they’re giving the players what they want.

“This is a game with a long and storied legacy, and we are just the current stewards,” Perkins explained. “Our role is really to be listening to what the community wants, trying to gauge what is the best play experience for the most people possible, and not losing sight of the fact that we’re not building it in a vacuum.”

When it comes to redesigning Fifth Edition, Perkins said, “We have to be very mindful about the choices we make about what we present, how the rules are framed, and everything to make it as welcoming and accessible to as many people as possible, and with the understanding that it’s the community that really shapes the game, not the people who work on the game.”

A Decade in the Making

The process of designing and developing this massive update to Fifth Edition started long before the 50th anniversary. According to Perkins, it began “literally the day after we sent the 2014 books to the printer.”

For Perkins, this is the culmination of a design philosophy and passion sparked decades prior by the eye-catching artwork of a little game called Dungeons & Dragons. Specifically, the first edition Monster Manual, the game’s beastly bestiary full of all manner of ferocious fiends.

“I picked it up, started flipping through,” Perkins said. “I was totally captivated by the monster illustrations inside of it and the numbers or the statistics that were next to each monster. I said, ‘Oh, I have have no idea what this is, but I love the pictures. I’m going to buy it with my allowance and take it home,’ and [had] no concept that this was part of some greater game. So I just sat and read it cover to cover.”

In the beginning, Perkins had no idea how to play the game, opting instead to memorize the stats and stage epic monster battles. Months after buying the Monster Manual, he discovered it was actually part of a larger game system and began playing with his next-door neighbor.

“I was the DM, and he played all the characters, and so, for us, it was the joy of just rolling up quick characters,” Perkins said. “I can’t remember which adventure I used, but it was great, because it was liberating. I don’t think either of us really still understood the game very well, so we were just kind of making it up, and I was killing characters and he was killing monsters, and we had a great time.”

While many rules lawyers out there are probably grinding their teeth into a fine powder, this is the beauty of D&D. There is no wrong way to play; the sourcebooks are there to help provide guardrails and structure to the collaborative story you tell.

“There was never any concern that we were doing it wrong, and I think that stuck with me,” Perkins explained. “Even all these years later, I feel like everybody kind of makes the game their own.”

Those childhood games and the sense of anything being possible inform Perkins’ design philosophy to this day. It’s a philosophy that carries over into the highly anticipated updates to Dungeons & Dragons‘ core rulebooks.

Isn’t This Sixth Edition?

Like many fans out there, I was curious why these new sourcebooks are being positioned as an update to Fifth Edition rather than Sixth Edition or something brand new. Perkins acknowledged that they had conversations about potentially making an entire new edition of the game to coincide with its golden anniversary, but ultimately went a different way.

“And I think about maybe three years before the 50th, we’re like, ‘You know what? Fifth Edition is so popular. People love it. The sales of the game are still incredibly strong, year over year. We’re seeing even more sales from the previous year. It would be insanity, in a way, to burn it all down.'”

While the team at WOTC wants to create a comprehensive update to D&D, they don’t want to alienate players who have spent a lot of time, energy, and money on previous products. The Fifth Edition update is designed to be backwards compatible with much of the Fifth Edition material published between 2014 and present day. In a press conference at Gen Con, D&D lead designer Jeremy Crawford confirmed that “The new core books can be used on day 1 with the adventures and supplements you already have for Fifth Edition. The new core books replace the old books but not the other supplements you own.”

With that said, there are some considerable differences. One of the most discussed is a system coming in the Dungeon Master’s Guide known as Bastion Rules. This is an optional system DMs can use to allow players to build strongholds of their very own. While that isn’t exactly a brand new idea to D&D, the gamification is: Perkins and the team built a robust system of mechanics that will enable your player’s Bastion to have tangible effects on the campaign.

“First edition even had mechanics for [Bastions], but I think one of the things that was missing out was the idea of building a stronghold that is actually giving you something back, that is helping your character in some way, and also building a system whereby it doesn’t interfere with your character’s role as an adventurer,” Perkins said.

The key question for Perkins and his fellow designers to solve was “What can we do that’s meaningful to players, that would be a fun engagement activity for them, as engaging as making a character, basically, that they can own and it can be theirs?”

According to Perkins, “[We hit] upon this idea that there has to be an in-game payoff. In addition to the joy of just building something on your own, there has to be something that makes your character better, makes the party better. The other trick, of course, was we knew that this would be something that DMs would have to unlock.”

The system has previously been released in prototype form on D&D Beyond, the game’s digital marketplace, as part of their Unearthed Arcana collection, a series of playtest mechanics and materials for adventurous players to beta tests in their home games. The response was so positive that Perkins and the team were confident the structure was okay.

But what proved to be the biggest challenge from a design perspective? According to Perkins, they were threefold. The first was thinking of all three sourcebooks as one massive 1,000 page grimoire that works seamlessly together. The second was finding ways to make the Dungeon Master’s Guide feel more indispensable. The third was one that will likely have the biggest impact on players: class and subclass design.

A Class Act

The Player’s Handbook will boast 12 classes, each with 4 subclasses of their own, bringing that to a whopping 48 subclasses in total.

“We have very detailed information about what people are playing, and we have a lot of information about how popular, not only classes and subclasses are, but individual features within subclasses and classes,” Perkins said. “Some of the classes were basically falling way behind, In terms of their popularity and figuring out a way to level them up to make them as popular as some of the more popular ones. We know that the Rangers struggled, the Monks struggled, and the Druids struggled, and the biggest design challenge was how far can you basically blow up something or uplevel something and still have it be familiar?”

Many of these subclasses have been effectively rebuilt from the ground up so they feel more satisfying for players and enticing for people to actually run at their tables. As for which class Perkins is most excited for players to get their hands on? “I am very excited for people to start playing the new version of the Monk,” he said. “People have sort of kicked it around a lot and said, ‘This is not as awesome as it could be.’ And I just feel like the team killed it, just killed it with the Monk, so I’m looking forward to it. I hope that our belief is affirmed, that this is going to be one of the, no pun intended, most kick-ass classes.”

Back to the Beginning

While Dungeons & Dragons as a system serves as a blank canvas upon which players and DMs can paint the story that serves them the best, the Fifth Edition Update will also feature a complete campaign seting for players to use. And not just any campaign setting; they’re returning to Greyhawk, the first ever published campaign setting for D&D.

According to Perkins, “We had a lot of other things to put in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, so the combination of wanting something that was kind of lean and mean and skeletal, but also felt like it was a beautiful creative springboard.”

It’s a bold choice considering how dominant settings like Forgotten Realms have become in pop culture and the consciousness of many players. Created by Ed Greenwood in 1987, Forgotten Realms is the backdrop for mega-popular games like Baldur’s Gate 3, as well as movies like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. But fortune favors the bold and the connection to D&D‘s origins was too tempting for the design team to ignore.

“This also being releasing in the 50th anniversary year when we’re celebrating the legacy of D&D, it made sense,” Perkins explained. “Because we haven’t done anything with Greyhawk in the whole life of Fifth Edition to bring that back, to hit the nostalgia hammer. At the same time, we’re saying, ‘This is a platform from which you can now launch a new campaign and keep it true to the original Greyhawk that it is very spare, that it’s meant to be a skeleton upon which you now built.'”

Did they really give cats darkvision?

Meowth, that’s right.

Anyway, folks, that’s all the news coming out of Greyhawk so far. We will keep you posted on any other major developments in the world of D&D…unless we fail our perception checks. Speaking of which, make sure you turn all of your Beholder-like eyestalks over to Geek & Sundry, which is relaunching this September with a brand new actual play tabletop role-playing series, Sagas of Sundry: Goblin Mode!

Editor’s note: This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

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Thanks to Playmates Toys for sponsoring this video! Learn more about their Godzilla x Kong toys and collectibles here: https://playmatestoys.com/brand/godzilla-x-kong-the-new-empire/

The sleeper has awakened, Dune fans! The epic conclusion to Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune is finally here, and Nerdist’s resident Dunatic Matt Caron is breaking down all the spicy changes from the book to the big screen and what they could mean for future sequels.

Editor’s note: Nerdist is a subsidiary of Legendary Digital Networks

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Are you ready to go Plus Ultra, My Hero Academia fans? Because we have some news that will make you cry tears of joy like Deku watching All Might do literally anything. Legendary has announced that it will produce a live-action feature film adaptation of Shueisha’s mega-popular manga series, My Hero Academia (or Boku no Hero Academia). Created by Kohei Horikoshi in 2014 and published by Shueisha in Weekly Shonen Jump, My Hero Academia has sold over 50 million copies worldwide, generating five seasons of anime as well as an animated feature film, too. This marks the first live-action adaptation of My Hero Academia. And, most recently, reports share that this My Hero Academia movie will head to Netflix. Obi-Wan Kenobi writer Joby Harold will pen the screenplay. Harold recently noted that the project is still a go and is something that he is “actively working on.”

Funimation

The film will be produced by Legendary, with Mary Parent and Alex Garcia overseeing on their behalf, and Ryosuke Yoritomi shepherding the project for Shueisha. Toho will distribute the film in Japan. The film has also found its director in Shinsuke Sato. Sato has directed many anime adaptations over the years. His work includes I Am a Hero, Bleach, Death Note: New Generation, and Death Note: Light Up the New World. He also directed Alice in Borderland for Netflix.

Although specific details of the live-action My Hero Academia project remain unknown, Joby Harold recently confirmed that it is definitely happening. He shared with Collider, “Yes, it is… Absolutely. It is something I’m working on and loving working on. I’m excited to do it and get it out there. It’s a big one.” And he further noted “Yeah,” when asked if it is a project he is “actively working on.”

For those not in the know, My Hero Academia is a wildly popular story about a world in which approximately 80% of humanity has developed superhuman abilities of some kind. These powers–known as quirks–have led to the rise of superheroes and supervillains alike. Some powers are great like possessing super-speed or superhuman strength. Others, however, are more questionable in their utility… For example, the power to shoot out a super-sticky tape from one’s elbows or to shoot a laser beam from your belly button.

Our story focuses on Izuku Midoriya, a young boy obsessed with superheroes despite having no quirk of his own. But all of that changes one day after a chance encounter with his idol, the barrel-chested avatar of justice, All-Might. Izuku finally inherits a quirk of his own and enrolls at U.A. High School, one of the most prestigious hero academies in the world. And with that, Izuku’s quest to become the world’s greatest hero truly begins.

The sixth season of My Hero Academia‘s anime adaptation aired this year and a seventh is upcoming. Those wanting to catch up on its episodes can stream the anime online. Like many shounen anime, it is full of epic battles, outsized characters, and unbridled earnestness. It makes for an incredibly addictive combination that will have you watching into the wee hours of the morning. In 2018, the franchise also released an animated feature film, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes. It made more than $5.7 million at the box office and secured a spot on the top 10 highest-grossing domestic anime films of all time, at the time of its release.

In addition to My Hero Academia, Legendary has released several other films based on highly anticipated Japanese properties. In 2019, Legendary launched both Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Detective Pikachu, followed by Godzilla vs. Kong in March 2021 as well as the recent Monarch: Legacy of Monsters series. In other words, it’s a great time to be a fan of kaiju, tokusatsu, and anime making their way to the big screen.

Originally published on October 24, 2018.

Editor’s note: Nerdist is a subsidiary of Legendary Pictures.

The post MY HERO ACADEMIA Live-Action Movie Heads to Netflix, Adds OBI-WAN KENOBI Writer appeared first on Nerdist.

In Assassin’s Creed Mirage, you will transform from cunning street thief into a Master Assassin. But how easy would that be in real life? To find out, Nerdist sent Erika Ishii and Yoshi Sudarso to Assassin Academy. Their instructor, Travis Wong, will teach them the fine arts of Movement, Stealth, and Combat before giving them the ultimate challenge to prove they have what it takes to join the Hidden Ones!

This video is presented by Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Prepare to journey back in time to 9th century Baghdad and become a Master Assassin when Assassin’s Creed Mirage comes to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, EPIC, PC, and Amazon Luna on October 5th!

Learn more about Assassin’s Creed Mirage: https://bit.ly/3LCWGbD

#AssassinsCreed #AssassinsCreedMirage #Games #VideoGames #Ubisoft #Sponsored

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Original Reporting by Dan Casey

Gladiator 2 has been in the works for many years now. In the past, Australian musician Nick Cave, of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds fame, even penned a sequel screenplay for the acclaimed film. Ridley Scott has spoken about it before as well. And now, it seems, it is finally happening. And, in big news, Deadline reports that Pedro Pascal is in final negotiations to join the cast of Gladiator 2. There is no word yet on what role Pascal will play in the movie. Here’s what we know about the movie so far.

According to Deadline, Paramount has set a November 22, 2024, release date for Gladiator 2. The publication also reports that the movie is circling Paul Mescal to be its star, Lucius.

At one point, reports indicated Barry Keoghan was in talks to join the cast of Gladiator 2 as Emperor Geta. Now Fred Hechinger is in talks for the role. Geta was a real emperor in Roman times; however, the movie is unlikely to have a historical basis. That said, reports indicate that Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn will join Gladiator 2 as Emperor Caracalla. Historically, Caracalla, Geta’s older brother, ultimately stabs his younger sibling instead of attempting to share power with him peacefully. He, in fact, kills his brother in their mother’s arms.

Djimon Hounsou is also slated to return as Juba. Additionally, Connie Nielsen will reprise her Gladiator role of Lucilla, the mother of Maximus; the mother and son relationship will be central to the sequel. Deadline reports May Calamawy, Lior Raz, Derek Jacobi, Peter Mensah, and Matt Lucas have joined the film too.

Additionally, per Deadline, Denzel Washington is in final negotiations to reunite with Ridley Scott on Gladiator 2. The two worked together on American Gangster nearly 20 years ago, and this reunion would feel a long time coming. This is an exciting twist for fans of the director and the actor.

This goes along with comments Scott has made in more recent times. According to Slashfilm, Scott told The Zoey Ball Breakfast Show that Gladiator 2 was “ready to go” after his current Apple TV+ project, Kitbag. Scott didn’t mention too much more about the film. Except he had the following to say about making a sequel to Gladiator. But he shared, “How could I not do that? It would be critically stupid of me not to do that, wouldn’t it?”

However, in previous, Scott has elaborated more about his plan for a Gladiator sequel. So how exactly would Scott have continued a story in which the main character–spoiler alert–dies at the end? According to a 2018 report from Deadline, he planned a story about Lucius. Lucius is the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and the nephew of the murderous and conniving Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix).

While avenging the deaths of his own family, Maximus saved both Lucius and Lucilla, and apparently left quite the impression on the youth. Perhaps enough of an impression to inspire Lucius to someday extend his arms and shout to a crowd of people, “Are you not entertained all over again?” Whether this remains Scott’s vision, we couldn’t say.

Of course, Scott could always pull a bit from Nick Cave’s script. This version of Gladiator 2 had the tentative subtitle, Christ Killer. Cave’s script featured the deceased warrior Maximus Decimus Meridius getting sent back to Earth by the Roman gods to murder Jesus Christ and his followers. The Christians, of course, were stealing popularity from the old gods. What follows is Maximus becoming a weird immortal warrior who winds up fighting in basically every major conflict over the ages, including World War I, World War II, and Vietnam before an epic finale at the Pentagon. Cave wrote the script at the request of his close, personal friend Russell Crowe.

Ultimately, of course, the script was rejected. Still, we think it has some merit. Scott does make some strange films, after all. His original conception of the story also sounds interesting, as well. Mainly, now that Gladiator 2 has emerged again, we sincerely hope we will get to have it in this life.

Originally published on November 1, 2018.

The post GLADIATOR 2 Reportedly Sets a Release Date, Finds Cast appeared first on Nerdist.

Soon, The Flash will give us something that superhero cinema has never shown us before: the multiverse! Kidding aside, the Andy Muschietti-directed movie will give audiences a fresh twist on DC’s iconic Flashpoint storyline. The 2011 saga from Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert saw Barry Allen going back in time to try and prevent his mother’s murder. But he ended up breaking the past and the future in the process. And while The Flash will bring in many faces from DC Comics stories, some cameos did not make the cut.

The Flash will serve as the swan song for the current iteration of the DC Extended Universe. Newly minted DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran have been candid about their plans to make a new unified DC Universe.

With The Flash serving as the end of an era, a lot is riding on its shoulders. Fortunately, the movie is pretty great, at least in the version that Nerdist screened at a special event. Director Andy Muschietti and producer Barbara Muschietti were on hand to introduce what they called not quite the final cut of the film.

While we’ll save our super spoiler thoughts for after the film’s release, the filmmaking siblings shared some juicy details with the audience. With trailers confirming the return of Michael Keaton as Batman, Ben Affleck as Batman, Michael Shannon as General Zod, and the introduction of Sasha Calle as Supergirl, The Flash has plenty of iconic DC characters. 

And yes, the movie has even more cameos, guest appearances, and surprises for diehard fans of superhero cinema and comics. Andy Muschietti confirmed his initial assembly was four hours long. Therefore some choice cameos were left on the cutting room floor. When Q&A moderator Grae Drake asked the Muschiettis what characters or moments they couldn’t fit in the film, they obliged with a small sampling. The Flash cameos that unfortunately didn’t work out include Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman from the ‘70s TV series, Marlon Brando’s Jor-El from 1978’s Superman, as well as Burgess Meredith’s Penguin and Cesar Romero’s Joker from the 1960s Batman TV series. 

During the reception after the screening, Nerdist spoke to Andy Muschietti with a few other reporters. In response to a question from Dorian Parks from Geeks of Color, he confirmed that Grant Gustin almost had a cameo in the film as Barry Allen from The CW’s The Flash. Muschietti was very complimentary about what The Flash series accomplished. But unfortunately, there wasn’t room to include Gustin’s take on Barry Allen. Muschietti said, “Of course, as I said before the list of cameos…was huge. So obviously we played with the idea of including DC characters from TV, but we just had to pick.”

Sadly it won’t be Oops, All Barrys.

Nerdist also asked how Muschietti felt on his first day on set compared to the last day after such a long journey with this film with 120 shooting days. According to Muschietti, “It’s funny because the sense of accomplishment at the end is like, you feel like such a relief. At the beginning, you’re a ball of stress. Of course, it defuses after a few days. Every day is like an accomplishment. Then you relax and just keep going and going. It was a lot of fun.”

As for The Flash, the fun for audiences begins on June 16. Whether or not any of those cameos make their way back into the final cut, only time—or time travel—will tell.

The post THE FLASH Almost Included Lynda Carter, Grant Gustin, and Other Cameos appeared first on Nerdist.

Aho, young warriors! FX’s Reservation Dogs is back and better than ever. To celebrate the return of the hilarious, heartfelt series created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, Nerdist teamed up with FX to assemble a panel of some of the funniest Native comedians we know and talk about all things Reservation Dogs. Host Joey Clift (comedian, TV writer, Cowlitz Indian Tribe) leads a wide-ranging conversation with Adrianne Chalepah (writer, comedian, actor, Kiowa & Apache Tribes of Oklahoma), Aiko Little (actor, TV writer, Oglala Lakota Tribe), and Jim Ruel (comedian, filmmaker, Bay Mills Band of Ojibwe) about their favorite moments from the first season of Reservation Dogs, how it has changed the television landscape, and much more. So kick back, relax, grab a bag of definitely not stolen Flaming Flamers hot chips, and join us as we nerd out about all things FX’s Reservation Dogs!

This video is presented in paid partnership with FX. Watch Reservation Dogs. Only on Hulu. https://bit.ly/3OKQQUw

—

CREDITS

CAST
Joey Clift
Adrianne Chalepah
Aiko Little
Jim Ruel

CREW

Producers: Joey Clift, Eric Armando Ibarra, Dan Casey
Director: Eric Armando Ibarra
Director of Photography: Natalia Moscoso
Camera Operators: Leeann Leonard, Anthony Chase-In-Winter
Editor: Jim Ruel
Production Manager: Adam Murray
Director of Post-Production: Matt Caron
Gaffer: M. Sebastian Kolderup
Sound Mixer: Evan Freeman
Key Grip: Sultan Mars
Hair & Makeup: Martha Phelan
Wardrobe/Grooming: Susie Rufty
Set Design: Sheila Chalakee
Production Assistants: Sage Palacios, JohnTom Knight, Sienna Camille, Audrialice Evans

With special thanks to Urban Native Era

The post The Impact of FX’s Reservation Dogs: A Native Comedy Roundtable appeared first on Nerdist.

The Sleeper has awoken! The highly anticipated feature film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Friday to critical acclaim and very positive first reactions. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the sweeping sci-fi saga tells the story of a young man, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), who discovers a great and terrible destiny awaiting him on the desert planet Arrakis against the backdrop of warring houses, political machinations, and murders most foul.

In advance of the Venice Film Festival, Nerdist and a small group of journalists caught up with Denis Villeneuve to pick his brain about tackling one of the most iconic sci-fi stories in history that has influenced so much modern pop culture. Although we had neither The Voice nor the Emperor’s Truthsayer, both proved unnecessary as the director was effusive in his answers about his inspirations for the film, his deep-seated love of Frank Herbert’s world, and his plans for the future.

Warner Bros.

Many fans know that Dune is a dense novel, full of plots within plots and story arcs within story arcs. Villeneuve’s adaptation is intended to be split into two parts in order to avoid overstuffing a single film and oversimplifying Herbert’s story. Dune’s initial theatrical release was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and there is no current release date for Dune Part II, which has yet to enter production.

iO9‘s Germain Lussier asked Villeneuve about what the timeline for production would look like if Dune Part II were to get a greenlight from Warner Bros. and Legendary sooner rather than later.

“The thing I will say is when you make a movie in two parts, necessarily when you do the first part, you have to know what you’re going to do in the second part,” Villeneuve explained. “I mean, it has been the structure. It has been dreamed. … So I would say that I would be fairly ready to go quite quickly.”

Warner Bros.

When it comes to movies of Dune‘s scale and scope, though, “quickly” is a relative term.

“We are talking about months,” Villeneuve added. “[If] there’s enthusiasm and the movie is greenlit sooner [rather] than later, I will say that I will be ready to shoot in 2022 for sure. 2022, for sure. I would love [to] because I am ready to go. And I will say that I would love to bring it to the screen as soon as possible, but we know [with] the first film, I really had time to make sure that it was exactly the way I wanted it to be. And I would love to have the same feeling when I make the second part. So that would be the priority. More quality will be the priority.”

Villeneuve revealed that he has envisioned not just a two-part adaptation of Dune, but its sequel novel Dune Messiah as well. In response to question by Screen Rant‘s Ash Crossan, Villeneuve said, “The thing I envision, the adaptation of two books, Dune and Dune Messiah. We decided to split the first novel in two, so now we are at three movies. Those movies are very long to make. For my mental sanity, I decided to just dream about three movies.”

Warner Bros.

However, if you’re already foaming at the mouth thinking about Bijaz, the Ghola, and stone burners, pump the brakes, pal. Although a third part is on Villeneuve’s mind, he remains firmly focused on finishing his adaptation of Dune.

“But, by the way, I’m not dreaming about Dune Messiah right now,” Villeneuve continued. “I’m focusing on launching Dune Part I, hoping that will be a Part II. That’s enough. I mean, doing the first one was by far the most challenging thing I ever done. I think that we were able to bring it to life because we all, me and the team, just did that for two and a half years, full-time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We were dreaming about Dune Part I. That’s the way I can make cinema. I cannot start to have a long term. I need to be there now and not think too much about the future.”

As for Dune Part II, Villeneuve promises that it will be even bolder and wilder than what audiences will see in the first film. In response to a question about the sequel’s scope from ComicBook.com‘s Brandon Davis, Villeneuve explained the unique challenge of adapting this story.

Warner Bros.

“The tough task here was to do introduce you guys to the world, to the ideas, to this world, to the codes, the cultures, the different families, the different planets,” Villeneuve said. “Now once this is done, it becomes an insane playground. So it will allow me to go berserk and really create… I should not say that, but I will say that, for me, Dune Part I is like an appetizer and Dune Part II is the main meal. … As much as Dune Part I was by far my most exciting project ever, Dune Part II is already getting me more, even more excited. That’s all I will say.”

Dune opens in theaters in the United States on October 22, 2021.

Editor’s note: Nerdist is a subsidiary of Legendary Digital Networks.

Dan Casey makes deeply silly videos at Nerdist and is the author of books about the Avengers and Star Wars. Talk to him on Twitter about the spice melange.

The post DUNE Director Denis Villeneuve Teases Trilogy Plans appeared first on Nerdist.

In the world of Army of the Dead, shambling horrors rip and tear at flesh, devouring any unfortunate soul foolish enough to journey into their newly minted undead kingdom of Las Vegas. With millions of dollars trapped in a high-tech casino vault, the score of a lifetime is too tantalizing to pass up for a group of mercenaries led by burger-flipping dad with a tortured past Scott Ward (played to perfection by Dave Bautista). Directed and co-written by Zack Snyder, the premise of Dawn of the Dead-meets-Ocean’s Eleven is too delectable to pass up. Even for the most jaded of zombie movie fans who likely feel numb to the genre after The Walking Dead‘s dominance over the last decade plus. Snyder’s hyper-stylized action, eye for spectacle, and an incredibly charismatic cast make Army of the Dead one of the first great blockbusters of the summer… even if you’ll most likely be watching it at home on your couch on Netflix.

Much like the undead murder monsters that try to turn our heroes into gyros, the journey of Army of the Dead from script to screen almost defies the imagination. First announced back in 2007, capitalizing on the success of Dawn of the Dead, Snyder’s directorial debut, Army of the Dead found itself trapped in development hell, lying dormant for over a decade before lurching back to life. Although the project completed filming before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most of the world’s productions and soundstages, the beleaguered monster movie had another problem: in June 2020, one of its stars, Chris D’Elia, faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

A month later, Snyder and company announced they would digitally erase D’Elia from the film and recast his role with Tig Notaro, leading to the deadpan comedian and Star Trek: Discovery actor becoming the most elaborate visual effect in the entire film.  As detailed by Vulture, Snyder and his visual effects team recreated all of the shots and scenes with Notaro on a green-screened soundstage in Simi Valley, California, matching dialogue and physical blocking beat-for-beat so as to synchronize with the other characters’ dialogue and responses. The results are stunning in that Notaro feels like a seamless part of the production and if you hadn’t read the headlines, you would likely be none the wiser.

Now, with Army of the Dead officially streaming on Netflix, the film’s journey to the screen has come to an end and finally, audiences can relish Zack Snyder’s return to the genre where he first made a name for himself. Catching up over Zoom, Nerdist sat down with Snyder to talk about the complicated process of bringing this story to the big screen, keeping the zombie genre fresh in a marketplace teeming with zombie stories, sequels, and tater tots (naturally).

Nerdist: Army of the Dead has been in the works for quite some time. How has this project changed from the original concept to completion?

Zack Snyder: There’s little differences like Scott lived in LA. So most of the team was being assembled in LA, not really out in Barstow. I think that how they got into the city was different. There was a slightly different version of the height of the alphas, but they’re pretty much the same. I can’t really… I’ll be honest, I haven’t read [original Army of the Dead co-writer Joby Harold]’s script in a while. The way that [Army of the Dead screenwriter Shay Hatten] and I did it was like I said, “Shay, I’m just going to tell you the story and we’re going to write it from scratch.”

I mean, I love Joby and he did a great job, but I think if I’m going to direct it now I need to just make it my own.

Nerdist: This was obviously a long-anticipated return for you into the world of the undead. How did your first day on Dawn of the Dead compare to your first day on Army of the Dead?

Zack Snyder: I’m trying to think about what my first day on Dawn was… I think we shot in the hospital. I think it was that first scene with Sarah [Polley] where she’s the doctor. So it went pretty good I think. I mean, it was pretty low-key. I was nervous, really super nervous, and slightly sketched out. And I think our first day on Army was a little small day, like a quarter of a day with Tanaka up at his house where he gets the call from Scott. We did that because we had to drive up to Flagstaff to shoot it. So we did that first. But then the next day was going to be… The first real full day was Scott flipping patties in the Lucky Boy. That was a great day because those two actors were amazing. It was fun.

Clay Enos/Netflix

Nerdist: In the time since Dawn of the Dead came out, the zombie genre kind of exploded, but then people pulled back a little bit because there was this sense of fatigue. How do you combat that sense of genre fatigue with a movie like Army of the Dead? How do you try to reinvigorate your approach to something like zombie fiction, which has so many entries?

Zack Snyder: I love Walking Dead, I’ve seen the [zombie] movies. Clearly, zombies hit the zeitgeist correctly because people want to see zombies and they’re into it. I was analyzing and, of course, I think it’s because it’s a monster movie, but the monster is us so that feels relatable. Us without our humanity… What kind of a horrible monster is that? I was just trying to make the movie exciting for me. Because I had seen all those other zombie movies and because I was where I was with the genre, I needed to think of something or make myself feel something. It was a cool experience. It was an uptown problem, frankly, to say like, “Okay, how are you going to make the zombie movie cooler?” I was like, “Okay, I get the assignment. It’s fine.”

Nerdist: In movies like this, especially, you want those “Oh shit” moments for lack of a better term, and there were quite a few in this for me. Obviously, the zombie tiger comes to mind, as does when the lead alpha zombie puts on the helmet. It didn’t quite click what its purpose was beyond looking badass until I saw it in action.

Zack Snyder: Yeah. I love that. For me, a zombie putting on a ballistic helmet is kind of a worst-case scenario for everybody because his only vulnerability is getting shot in the head. And right now you can’t shoot him in the head. So what are you going to do? I thought that was a cool little wrinkle that we had. For me, it was always about… when you make a movie like this, there are all these tropes that you, the audience, will take. The old trick of the tropes is how you deal them out. And at what point are you going to give them “the nukes moved up 24 hours?” At what point are you going to give them “The zombie has a ballistic helmet?” At what point are you going to pull the head out of the bag and it’s still alive? And it’s cool. And that’s fun.

The great thing about genre that I was sort of exploring was that these are not only accepted by the audience, they’re expected by the audience. The audience is not challenging those moments; they’re encouraging those moments. It’s an interesting relationship to say a movie where you’re like, “I didn’t buy it.” And then you’re like, “Well, what didn’t you buy?” “I didn’t buy that he made it home for the wedding. It just didn’t make sense to me.” And you’re like, “Okay, you’re right.” “That took me out of the movie.” And I’m like, “Okay, but what about Army of the Dead?” “No, that all seemed normal to me. That was fine.” That notion that “I’m not at all concerned with pulling a head out of a bag and it’s still biting.” You’re like, “Yeah, it’s a zombie. You didn’t shoot the head so of course it’s still alive.”

That intrigues me a lot as a filmmaker, the conversation that’s happening between the filmmaker and the audience in moments like that when they just let that happen.

And by the way, we graphed all of those things. We were constantly modulating the time between them. I had all these tropes designed: nuking the city, the actual nuke coming, the threat. I said, “Okay, if we’re going to threaten to nuke Vegas, we have to nuke it.”

Clay Enos/Netflix

Nerdist: You can’t dangle Chekhov’s warhead and not pay it off.

Zack Snyder: You can’t have it get averted at the last second. If you want to get mad, that’s what you would get mad about.

Nerdist: One of the things that I was really struck by seeing behind-the-scenes photos is that in addition to directing you were also the director of photography. You’re right in there in the mix. There was this shot I saw of you standing over Dave Bautista when he’s fending off a bunch of zombies in the casino. How does that draw you further into the process as a filmmaker?

Zack Snyder: Well, and also I operated a camera in the movie. Almost every setup I was operating too. Not every one, but 90%. That one was one camera so John [Clothier] was getting… John’s the A camera operator and he’s amazing. I’ve worked with him since Watchmen. He’s one of my best buddies and amazing camera operator. But yeah, it does. The whole process becomes a single thing. For me, making a movie is an entirely singular activity from camera, to acting, to the makeup, to where we’re shooting to the lighting and all of that. Performance, keeping an eye on the storyboards, the edit, will that cut? All that stuff. It makes me more aware of everything. I’m not distracted by it; I’m encouraged by it. I have a great crew and I’m incredibly well supported by everybody.

Clay Enos/Netflix

Nerdist: Now shifting gears slightly, we know Scott’s plan for his ideal future food truck, but what would the Zack Snyder’s Snack Rider food truck serve and why?

Zack Snyder: Well, let’s not forget I wrote that script. So all the things… Lobster rolls, huge fan. Artisan grilled cheese sandwich, huge fan. Dave ad-libbed tofu, which I thought was appropriate for him because you know he’s a veggie. So those would be two winners… Tater tots might see an appearance. Big tot fan. What else? Because that’s got to be just like straight comfort food. Right?

Nerdist: You can even put them together, make a lobster grilled cheese and you have the best of both worlds right there.

Zack Snyder: And then just sprinkle some tots on the top. That sounds like that just feels like you just won some Gordon Ramsay shit with that.

Nerdist: I think probably lie face down and then take a nap afterward, but it will be worthwhile.

Zack Snyder: Still cool.

Nerdist: Last question for you. Obviously, we have a prequel and an anime series in the works, but you folks leave the door open for more. What other aspects of this universe would you like to explore?

Zack Snyder: Let me just say, tip of the iceberg on this universe. There’s a lot of insanity that we have up our sleeves. Shay and I have known from the moment I wrote that last line where we were going to go. It’s pretty fun. I think you learn a lot about it in the animated series. You will learn the origin of the zombie outbreak and you will learn how insane it is. Christian Slater is hilarious in our animated series. It’d be great to see him in live-action doing that role. And Joe Manganiello, he’s the main guy. So that’s cool too. It’s cool to put him and Bautista together, even in an animated movie, because they are in the series.

Army of the Dead is now streaming on Netflix.

Editor’s note: Parts of this interview have been condensed and edited for clarity.

Dan Casey makes deeply silly videos at Nerdist and is the author of books about the Avengers and Star Wars. Talk to him on Twitter about the undead.

The post How Zack Snyder Brought ARMY OF THE DEAD Back to Life appeared first on Nerdist.

Mambo. Element. Jackson. These are undeniably some of the most famous number fives in the world. But now there’s a new contender: The PlayStation 5. Sony’s latest video game console is vying to be the biggest, baddest, and boldest mamma jamma around and go toe to toe with the Xbox Series X to be the king of next gen consoles. But how does the PlayStation 5 stack up to the competition? Is it worth your money and time spent in the virtual thunderdomes of pre-orders and Black Friday sales? Is it quieter than standing next to several jet engines at once?

The answer to these questions is a resounding yes, especially if you’re an existing PlayStation user and you’re looking for improved performance across the board. From its futuristic design to its mostly whisper-quiet performance to its blazingly fast load times, the PlayStation 5 is a dazzling piece of hardware that raises the bar for what we’ve come to expect from Sony. With a solid lineup of launch titles, gorgeous graphics, and a little bit of backward compatibility as a treat, the PS5 is a huge upgrade over the PlayStation 4 in ways that might not seem immediately apparent.

The Hardware

Sony

Before we get to those sweet, sweet games, let’s talk about the console itself. This review is for the PS5 Standard Edition, which has a disc drive. The Digital Edition, as its name suggests, does not.

Now, there’s no good way to put this: the PlayStation 5 is a certified freak. This thing is gigantic, uniquely shaped, and will likely require some rejiggering of your entertainment center. As I learned during our unboxing video, it is a substantial piece of equipment, thanks to the powerful hardware beneath its considerable hood.

While we’ve all had a good time comparing it to EVE from Wall-E, Seto Kaiba’s jacket, and Portal turrets, I appreciate Sony swinging for the fences and trying to make this console look and feel truly “next-gen.” Whereas the Xbox Series X is just a larger, X-er box, the PlayStation 5 feels like it walked out of ‘70s sci-fi concept art, but in a good way. It’ll be an even better way if they allow customers to purchase alternate faceplates, but I appreciate the design nonetheless.

That same design sensibility extends to the DualSense controller, which is a much weightier proposition than its predecessor. It just feels expensive, which is probably a trick of the design, like how they allegedly put metal weights in Beats by Dre headphones to make them feel more premium. There is a sense of heaviness and heft to the DualSense but not in a way that would adversely affect your performance or wear you out, unless you’re like the last of the Habsburg in which case a gust of wind could probably knock you over. If so, you have bigger problems.

Is it Loud as Hell?

Sony

One of the questions we’ve been asked the most about the PlayStation 5 is “how loud is it?” On the decibel scale, the PlayStation 4 could fall somewhere between the primal scream of a banshee shrieking across the Irish countryside and Hans Zimmer’s Inception noise played through a chorus of 100 tugboats.

As we learned in Sony’s PS5 teardown, to fix this complaint, Sony’s engineering team put a massive emphasis on cooling solutions. From using liquid metal on the CPU to a 120mm fan to dust collection ports that you can vacuum to a heatsink the size of Rhode Island, the PlayStation 5 is determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

And the PlayStation 5, I’m proud to report, is whisper-quiet 99% of the time. When I put a PlayStation 4 disc into it to test backward compatibility, which I’ll get to in a little bit, I experienced an Apocalypse Now-style flashback as I heard the disc whirring inside of the machine. But unlike the PS4, after about 15-20 seconds, it stopped and the sweet sounds of silence returned.

Whether this is from how I have it horizontally positioned in my media cabinet or some other airflow related factor in my setup, I’m not sure, but it was a minor complaint in what has largely been an extremely welcome upgrade over the PS4.

Lightning-fast load times

Insomniac Games

The biggest innovation of this console generation, though, is the adoption of solid-state drives (SSD) in lieu of mechanical hard disk drives (HDD). As PlayStation lead system architect Mark Cerny explained in excruciating detail at the Game Developer’s Conference, the PS5’s SSD is quite literally a game-changer.

It is 100 times faster than the PlayStation 4’s speeds, according to Cerny. Load times are a thing of the past and fast-traveling in games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales takes place in the span of seconds. Literally, you could press X and be halfway across Marvel’s New York in the blink of an eye.

While it doesn’t have the same Quick Resume feature as the Xbox Series X, the PlayStation 5 is capable of suspending games, which means that you can get back into the action faster than ever and pick up where you left off with little to no delay. For anyone who has played a game like The Witcher 3 or Monster Hunter World, the lack of load times, smooth framerate, and ability to leap right into the action will breath new life into familiar favorites.

But what about the graphics?

In terms of graphics, the PlayStation 5 is simply stunning. The system is engineered to run all of your favorite games in 4K at steady framerates up to 120 FPS. Keywords there being “up to.” It’s capable of 8K as well, but that’s not a realistic function for most consumers unless you hate having several thousand dollars and own an 8K TV. But it’s that ability to run next-gen games and optimized current-gen games at a steady 60FPS in 4K that makes the PS5 a tremendous step up in quality over the PS4.

With advanced raytracing capabilities, the PS5 makes your favorite games look better than ever. While Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a blast and a half to play, part of the joy is stopping to admire the way sunlight reflects off of buildings or watching something small like how a character’s hair realistically blows in the wind. Suffice to say, the PS5 is a powerhouse of a system and I can’t wait to see what developers are able to do with it.

As with the Xbox Series X, we won’t get a sense of the full potential of the console’s capabilities until developers are able to put the pedal to the metal, but everything I’ve played so far looks, feels, and plays like what I want from a so-called “next-gen” console at least as a starting point. I’m also looking forward to seeing how certain PlayStation 4 games perform once they’ve been optimized for the PS5.

But what about the games?

Insomniac; Square Enix; Santa Monica Studios

Speaking of games, let’s face it: you aren’t getting a next-gen console just to watch Netflix; you’re theoretically getting a PlayStation 5 to play games—especially console exclusive titles like Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Demon’s Souls, and Bugsnax which will be available at launch. That’s to say nothing of console exclusives and timed exclusives like Horizon Forbidden West, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Final Fantasy XVI coming in the months ahead.

While the PlayStation 5’s library of launch titles is comparatively smaller when stacked up against the Xbox Series X and Game Pass’ considerable offerings, the PS5 lineup is no slouch. Through the PlayStation Plus Collection, you can play a wide variety of PS4 titles from Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios like Bloodborne, Days Gone, Detroit: Become Human, and God of War, as well as third party offerings like Batman: Arkham Knight, Fallout 4, and Persona 5. These games will benefit from increased loading speed and improved framerates thanks to PS5’s Game Boost.

You’ll also have nearly the full library of PlayStation 4 titles you own available too through the PS5’s backward compatibility functionality. Unfortunately, if you were hoping to play anything from the PS3, PS2, or PS1, well you’re out of luck for the time being unless they decide to offer ports of these games through the PlayStation Store. While this may seem like a small complaint, it’s particularly glaring in light of the fact that the new Xbox consoles can play basically any game from every Xbox console generation.

If Sony didn’t prioritize this technology, that’d be one thing, but given that they were able to do so with the PS3 and chose not to with future consoles smacks of greed as they clearly want gamers to re-purchase digital versions of familiar favorites from the PlayStation Store, even if they already own physical versions of the same games. As far as backward compatibility policies go, it’s just plain backward and disappointing for people like me who just want to play Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete on the most modern device possible in the year of our lord 2020.

The $499 question: should you buy it?

Sony

So the big question here—the $499 question—is should you buy the PlayStation 5? The answer is yes, but with a few caveats. If you’re looking for a categorical upgrade to your console gaming experience, the PlayStation 5 is a no brainer. If you have an extensive PlayStation 4 library and you’re in the market to upgrade your console, you should definitely buy it. Every game you’re playing now will play smoother, look nicer, and run better on the PS5.

As I advised with the Xbox Series X, if you don’t upgrade to the PS5, your life is not going to be noticeably worse. But it can be substantially better from a user perspective if you make the leap to the PlayStation 5. It’s a truly next generation console that looks the part. It’s a machine bursting with potential and I cannot wait to see what developers are able to do with it.

If you bleed Xbox green, then you’re better off going with the Series X and playing whatever makes you happiest. If you want to know more about that, check out our review on Nerdist.com. At $499, The PlayStation 5 is well worth the price of admission, especially if you have a large library of physical media like PS4 games and Blu-rays.

If you prefer to go disc-less, the PS5 Digital Edition is $399, a full $100 more expensive than its Xbox counterpart. But unlike the Series S, the PS5 Digital Edition didn’t sacrifice performance for form factor, so you’ll be getting effectively the same console with the difference of a disc drive if you go the Sony route. But considering how some major media companies rule that you don’t actually own the digital media you purchase, I’m glad I went with this colossal console taking up considerable real estate in my living room.

Featured Image: Sony

Editor’s note: The PlayStation 5 review unit was provided by Sony for the purposes of this review.

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about the Avengers and Star Wars. Talk to him on Twitter about video games.

The post PlayStation 5 Review: Huge Console, Huge Performance appeared first on Nerdist.

Console war…console war never changes, but thankfully the consoles do. On Tuesday, November 10, the second-most significant Tuesday this month, the next generation of console gaming officially begins with the release of the Xbox Series X and its discless sibling, the Xbox Series S. This teraflop-filled bad boy will help usher in a new era of console gaming, which is basically becoming PC gaming but with less RGB and more sitting on couches.

That said, let’s cut to the chase: the Xbox Series X is an incredibly powerful, surprisingly thick console that feels and plays like the next generation of video gaming even if it looks like it’s a mini-fridge cosplaying as the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The leap may not seem as gigantic at first glance as the jump from the Xbox 360 to the Xbox One, but from lightning-fast load times to incredible graphical fidelity, the Xbox Series X is well worth your hard-earned money if you’re in a position to upgrade your console. Especially if you have a sickness for thickness and an appropriately sized entertainment center.

What’s the SSDifference?

Xbox

The most striking feature of the Xbox Series X isn’t how good everything looks or how the subtle changes to the controller make it feel better in your hand; it’s how quickly everything runs and loads. The Xbox Series X’s much-touted Velocity Architecture and solid-state drive reduce load times, which lets you get right into gaming. It’s also going to effectively mean the death of loading screen tooltips unless you’re really, really good at speed-reading.

While the speed with which individual games load is dependent on the software itself, every title I tested—from next-gen games like Yakuza: Like a Dragon to optimized current-gen games like Gears 5 to Xbox 360 titles like Mass Effect—they all loaded incredibly fast. Even titles like Grand Theft Auto V, which has load times long enough for you to cook a three-course meal, loaded from the home screen to in-game significantly faster than I’d ever experienced on a console.

Equally impressive, though, is the Xbox Series X’s Quick Resume feature, which lets you run multiple games at the same time and switch between them in a matter of seconds. Even after turning the console off, going to bed, and starting it fresh in the morning, Quick Resume let me continue turning my enemies in Gears 5 into a fine, red mist as though nothing had happened. I did run into some issues on occasion where the feature would not load back into a particular game or I had to restart my console, but those were far and few between. As with any newer technology, your mileage may vary, but for the most part, it worked seamlessly.

Storage?

The biggest limiting factor will likely be storage. Even with a native 1TB of storage space, next-gen games are awfully big, which means that you’ll likely need to drop some extra scratch on an Expansion Card for additional, high-speed SSD storage if you like having a large gaming library at your fingertips. Like previous consoles, you can plug an external hard drive into the console’s USB port but it won’t benefit from the same crazy fast load times as the built-in SSD or the expansion card slot will. It may seem like a minor quibble in the grand scheme of things, but worth nothing for people who aren’t fans of constantly playing “Sophie’s Choice” with your game library.

How are the graphics?

Xbox

The hardware beneath the Xbox Series X is undeniably powerful. It’s a beast of a machine capable of running 60FPS at 4K and other games up to 120FPS. Everything I’ve played so far looks absolutely stunning. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty about teraflops, check out what the folks at places like Digital Foundry put together, but everything looks gorgeous and plays fantastically so far. From the way light reflects off of water to shadows dancing on the walls to breathtaking little details like the way a character’s hair is rendered, the Xbox Series X is closing the graphical gap between PC gaming and console gaming in a big way.

But the problem, thus far, and I use “problem” loosely, is that it will be difficult to truly assess just how powerful the Xbox Series X is until game developers push the hardware to its limits. Hotly anticipated games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Halo Infinite seem like they’ll be better indicators of what the machine can truly do, but they are unfortunately delayed while the devs crunch to the finish line. That said, the difference in nearly every game I have played so far is night and day, especially in titles like Sea of Thieves or Forza Horizon 4, which are optimized for the Xbox Series X.

What about backwards compatibility?

Xbox

The Xbox.

The Xbox 360.

The Xbox One.

The Xbox One X.

Long ago, the four console generations…well, three and a half console generations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Xbox Series X attacked…our antiquated notions of backwards compatibility for older consoles. One of the single biggest selling points of the Xbox Series X for me is the fact that it can play practically any game from every previous console generation. In addition to loading older titles faster than ever, the Series X automatically adds HDR support to games created well before the existence of HDR. Even better, it does so without adversely impacting your CPU or GPU’s workload.

This feature mostly works well. When I tested it on Mass Effect, for example, it gave the game a film grain quality almost, which made the cut scenes feel even more cinematic. However, the Auto-HDR blew out certain lighting effects and resulted in a weird motion blur that made me question whether or not it was a technical error or if I had so much coffee and anxiety in my body that I was vibrating through the fabric of space and time itself. Anyway, my point is that while the feature is definitely a net positive, it might not be a perfect 1:1 fit for every game in the sprawling backwards compatible library.

What games can we actually play though?

Speaking of games libraries, let’s talk about one of the biggest criticisms of the Xbox Series X that I’ve seen so far: it doesn’t have as many exclusives as the PlayStation 5. But considering that Microsoft keeps dropping significant chunks of change on studios like Bethesda to become a part of Xbox Game Studios, that is a minor complaint. As next-gen games continue to roll out, we’ll have a better sense of which console’s game library reigns supreme, but if you’re the kind of person who wants to play a wide variety of titles at launch, well, you can basically play any previous generation game you own or you can sign up for Xbox Game Pass, which at the Ultimate tier will let you play 100+ games on your console, Android phone or tablet, and select titles on PC too.

Still, pour one out for no Halo Infinite at launch. Best of luck to all the devs. Can’t wait to play it when it’s finally out.

The $499 question: Should you buy it?

Xbox

The answer is yes, yes you should if you’re in a position to upgrade your console and spend the money, and if having the latest and greatest technology is important to you. Your life will not be markedly worse if you keep using your Xbox One, but your user experience will be markedly better if you upgrade to the Xbox Series X.

As with all next-gen console releases, you might be better served by waiting until there are more next-gen games, optimized last-gen titles, and more user data. But if you are looking for a top-tier video game console that will let you experience the best of next-generation gaming while playing basically any game that came before it, then you can’t go wrong with the Xbox Series X.

Bottom Line

If you’re a diehard PlayStation fan, then this probably isn’t going to sway you, but the good news is that you can always just buy a PS5 instead. Stay tuned for our coverage of that console too. But for $499 for the Xbox Series X and $299 for the Xbox Series S, Microsoft has created a worthy successor to the Xbox One that raises the bar in all the ways that matter.

Featured Image: Xbox

Editor’s note: The Xbox Series X review unit was provided by Microsoft for the purposes of this review.

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about the Avengers and Star Wars. Talk to him on Twitter about video games

The post Xbox Series X Review: Should You Buy It? appeared first on Nerdist.

After months and months of naught but weird lectures about solid state drives and raytracing demos, PlayStation fans finally got their day in the sun during Sony’s PlayStation 5 showcase on Wednesday. While the video gaming giant revealed the first look at their next-gen console earlier this year, they stayed suspiciously silent as to when fans could buy it and how much it would actually cost. Well, now know that beginning on November 12, fans can pick up the regular version of the console for $499 and the disc-less digital edition for $399, but what will they actually be able to play on it? Don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. Here’s a list of everything Sony announced during their PS5 Showcase.

Final Fantasy XVI

Considering Final Fantasy VII was the reason I bought a PlayStation back in the day, this sent chills up my spine. The latest entry in the venerable JRPG series debuted a brutal, blood-soaked trailer that brings the saga back to its medieval roots and called to mind modern action RPGs like The Witcher 3. Don’t worry though—there are still chocobos, massive summons like Ifrit and Bahamut, and shenanigans involving crystals to satisfy longtime fans. No word yet on when it will launch on the PS5

Spider-Man: Miles Morales

The Spider-Verse gets even larger on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 with Insomniac’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Set roughly a year after the event’s of Marvel’s Spider-Man, Miles Morales finds our hero caught in the middle of a battle between the Roxxon Corporation and the Underground, a high-tech army led by the Tinkerer. The PlayStation exclusive will launch at a TBD date in “Holiday 2020.”

Hogwarts Legacy

While many Harry Potter fans—myself included—are expelliarmus-ing the increasingly problematic, transphobic J.K. Rowling from their lives, Hogwarts Legacy looks to let you write your own magical story in a sprawling, open-world RPG that puts you in the shoes of a Hogwarts student in the 1800s. No word yet on whether they’ll model how wizards canonically relieved themselves, but we’ll keep you posted. While not a PS5 exclusive, it comes to the console in spring 2o21.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

The Cold War has never been hotter thanks to the latest iteration of Call of Duty: Black Ops. You know the drill here: you play the campaign, you grind the online multiplayer, a teenager says something rude about your mom, you log off. The game launches on PS4 on November 13 and comes to PS5 holiday 2020.

Resident Evil Village

Something spooky this way comes in 2021! Seriously, this trailer looks deeply unsettling and not just because Chris Redfield is thicker than ever.

Deathloop

Arkane’s time-looping assassin game Deathloop looks just as visceral, frenetic, and wildly fun as the Dishonored series, but with a much more outsized sense of humor. The game, which is exclusive to PlayStation 5 and PC, drops Q2 2021.

Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition

You’ll hack, you’ll slash, you’ll have blast as you slice and dice your way through this souped-up version of Devil May Cry 5, which is available digitally at launch.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach

What if Arcade from the X-Men ran a theme park based around a popular pizza chain with murderous animatronic animals? Well, you’d get this waking nightmare, which is a 3-month timed PS5 console exclusive.

Oddworld: Soulstorm

If you’ve never played one of the delightfully demented Oddworld games, you haven’t truly lived. This modern platformer looks like a breath of fresh air. No word yet on when this PS5 console exclusive will release.

Demon’s Souls

Dying repeatedly at the hands of stygian creatures and eldritch horrors never looked so good. The remaster of this fan-favorite game will bring gamers back to a better-looking Boletaria than anyone ever imagined possible. Maybe that will discourage gamers from throwing their controllers at the screen when the demonic Vanguard slaughters them for the umpteenth time. But probably not. Anyway, this will be a PS5 launch title and retail at a steep $70.

PlayStation Plus Collection

While it might not exactly be the answer to Xbox Game Pass that PlayStation fans were hoping for, the PlayStation Plus Collection will give PS5 users access to a plethora of classic PS4 titles including God of War, Persona 5, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and many more at launch.

God of War: Ragnarok

BOY howdy, I cannot wait for this game. While a sequel felt inevitable, the fact that God of War: Ragnarok launches in 2021 feels like a light at the end of this horrible 2020 tunnel.

We’ll continue to keep you posted on what other PS5 games are on the way. In the meantime, let us know which one of these you most want to play in the comments below.

Featured Image: Sony

The post Every PlayStation 5 Game Sony Just Announced appeared first on Nerdist.

Our long national nightmare is over.

No, not that one.

Or that one.

You know what? That might have been a poor choice of words. I’m referring to the fact that, until now, we had no idea how much Sony’s next-gen console, the PlayStation 5, would cost or when it would actually hit store shelves. Finally, during Wednesday’s much-hyped PlayStation 5 showcase, Sony revealed that both models of the PlayStation 5 console will be available on November 12, 2020 in the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. Everyone else will have to wait until November 19 for the next-gen consoles to be available in the rest of the world. As for gamers in China, Sony notes the PS5 launch there is still “under exploration” and will be announced at a future date.

Image: Sony

While we still have relatively little information on what’s under the hood of the PlayStation 5, we know that much like the Xbox Series X, the PlayStation 5 will have a disc-less version available at retail too. The PlayStation 5 will retail for $499.99 and the Digital Edition will retail for $399.99. While the price point for the “regular” PlayStation 5 is the same as the Xbox Series X, the PS5 Digital Edition is a full $100 more than its counterpart, the Xbox Series S. Whether this disc-less dynamo can warrant the additional Benjamin during a time when so many consumers are facing unprecedented financial burdens remains to be seen.

In addition to announcing the PS5’s release date and price point, Sony also showcased a number of exclusive titles like Final Fantasy XVI, God of War 2, Hogwarts Legacy, and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, as well as a number of PlayStation 4 titles that will be optimized for next-gen consoles too. Pre-orders for the PlayStation 5 will be available at select retailers beginning on Thursday, September 17, according to a tweet from Sony. Will you be picking up the PS5 at launch? Will you be buying an Xbox Series X instead? Let us know in the comments below and give us your best guess as to how many teraflops are inside Sony’s homage to Seto Kaiba.

Featured Image: Sony

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about the Avengers and Star Wars. Talk to him on Twitter about video games.

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On Thursday, 343 Industries revealed the first look at Halo Infinite‘s campaign mode, featuring a Westworld-esque trailer and an eight-minute gameplay demo set on a sprawling Ringworld. And you know what? Their plan is working. To needlessly paraphrase the late, great Marcel Proust, “No sooner had the Spartan armor mixed with the cries of murderous gun-toting aliens graced my screen than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me.”

That extraordinary thing was a sense of wonder, excitement, and anticipation—the kind I haven’t exactly felt for a Halo game in quite some time. I felt it once more on Thursday afternoon when Nerdist joined a small group of journalists for a virtual Q&A with the game’s developers to dive deeper into the ambitious, open-world game set to launch on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC later this year.

Microsoft/343 Industries

The game is gigantic

Halo has always harbored a sense of grandeur and nowhere is that more apparent than in Infinite. According to a post on Halo Waypoint, “The scale of the environment accessible to players [in Halo Infinite] is several times larger than that of the last two Halo games combined.”

Those sprawling vistas in the gameplay demo weren’t just for show, it seems. You may have also noticed the presence of a tactical map full of different discoverable locations. According to Halo Infinite Studio Head Chris Lee, in addition to the main storyline, there will be “opportunities to discover hidden rewards and assault Banished fortifications in brand new ways.”

Lee told us, “For the open, expansive experience and campaign, we really wanted to create an experience that delivered on that promise that players had when they first set foot on the Halo ring in [Halo: Combat Evolved]. You’re filled with this sense of mystery and wonder and there’s this new universe to explore and discover secrets that the Forerunners held in different aspects.”

Halo Infinite associate creative director Paul Crocker added, “It takes place in a huge world that is open and expansive. We have a storyline that pulls you through it, which is effectively unlocking certain areas. But once you progress through it, you have the ability to backtrack and explore. There’s a lot to find out in the world.”

Lee continued, “So for Infinite we really wanted to create this ring and fully realize it for players to explore. Infinite will be the most open and expansive campaign. It gives players the freedom to experience this rich Master Chief story, but deviate and find a lot of things that are on the ring. Players will be rewarded for that exploration with upgrades and different equipment that can give you more strategies and tactics to take the fight to the Banished.”

Microsoft/343 Industries

Halo Infinite is the last Halo for a while

Speaking with IGN in advance of the Halo Infinite gameplay reveal, Chris Lee revealed that this could be the last standalone Halo release for quite some time.

“Halo Infinite is the start of our platform for the future,” Lee said. “We want Infinite to grow over time, versus going to those numbered titles and having all that segmentation that we had before. It’s really about creating Halo Infinite as the start of the next ten years for Halo and then building that as we go with our fans and community.”

“For content for the future, Halo Infinite continues Master Chief’s saga from Halo 4 and 5, and it’s really the start of the next series, the next generation of gaming for Halo,” Lee said when asked about these plans for the future during our session. “We look at this as a platform that will grow over time, and we’ll continue to bring new stories into it. It’s important that each story is self-contained and that it will tell a complete story. You won’t have a need to have multiple releases to have a full story of beginning, middle, and end. We don’t have specifics that we’re sharing today around how it will unfold, but we are thinking about how we do that for years to come.”

Microsoft/343 Industries

History is in Infinite’s DNA

If you felt a wave of nostalgia watching the gameplay demo earlier, that was a conscious choice. From the color palette to the way weapons and items are designed, Halo Infinite is a love letter to the Halo series designed to make you remember that same visceral thrill you felt way back in 2001.

“This really speaks to the spiritual reboot concept that we started this project with,” said Lee when asked about the game’s brighter color palette. “We really wanted to take the learnings from Halo 4 and Halo 5 and then take that really look across the history of the Halo franchise, and embrace the most iconic elements, and bring those forward for gamers today. We really want to make sure this is a game that feels great to our longtime fans that have been playing Halo games, as well as a great entry point for new players.”

“The visual language hearkens back to some of those iconic looks we’ve had in Halo, and I think Master Chief’s design, that we’ve talked about previously, really is a great example of that from the past,” Lee added. “Looking in the world today, you can see it’s a world that’s filled with hope, that’s filled with wonder and mystery, and that was really important to be able to embrace that and bring it forward for fans today.”

Microsoft/343 Industries

Choice is your greatest weapon

If you’re anything like me, you went absolutely hog-wild when Master Chief busted out a grappling hook in the gameplay demo, using it as both a traversal tool to access higher ground and as a weapon to propel himself towards enemies like a meat rocket. As it turns out, items like the Grappleshot and that nifty deployable shield wall are just the tip of the iceberg for Master Chief’s arsenal in Halo Infinite, and they’re representative of a core design ethos based around giving players the freedom to play the game exactly how they choose to play, according to Halo Infinite head of design Jerry Hook.

“Our sandbox is something that we spent a lot of time on, and we absolutely spent a lot of time on the style of the art and that went to our weapons and the slickness of the weapons that the original iconic Halo brought to the franchise,” Hook told us. “It also went to the iconic way in which the weapons feel.”

“What you’re going to find is, as [Master Chief] explores the ring, you’re gonna find a lot more equipment,” Hook added. “You’re also going to find upgrades for the equipment. All of it not about power, but about options for the player. That’s critical to what we wanted to provide. It’s about ensuring players are able to make the choices that they wanted to both in the moment, as well as throughout the game world to be successful in the way they want to play the game. That is critical for us and also critical for how the legacy of Halo has really been brought to the forefront for Halo Infinite.”

Microsoft/343 Industries

The Pilot does have a name

As we saw in the game’s trailers and Thursday’s gameplay demo, Master Chief isn’t alone on this massive ringworld. He is accompanied by an extremely stressed out pilot, who seems to play a major role in the game’s story. Well, we can proudly confirm that the pilot does, in fact, have a name.

“Yes, the Pilot has a name, and yes you will learn what it is. His name is actually not that important in the grand scheme of things. But it was an amazing moment for us because we had a bunch of different names for him through the development of the game, but the actual character’s name was actually named by our actor who plays the Pilot. He was ’round my house at our last sessions and we were talking through what his name was, and he was like, ‘I don’t want to call him that! We should call him this.’ So we were like, ‘That’s cool, let’s do it!’ So yes, he has a name.”

I guess some secrets will just have to wait until we actually play the game…

Microsoft/343 Industries

There will be couch co-op

For many gamers—myself included—it released a wave of nostalgia for late nights spent playing couch co-op in this incredible sci-fi series. Thankfully, Halo Infinite sounds like it will include local, split-screen co-op as well, according to Jerry Hook.

“Classic Halo—my son and I sat down and played all the [Halo] games on the couch,” Hook enthused. “We have spent a lot of time not only in split-screen, but doing co-op as well. Halo Infinite is going to bring co-op to you. You’re going to be able to explore the ring absolutely with your Fireteam. Keep them together, have a blast, make it your ring, and defeat the Banished.”

While we’re still champing at the bit to see the multiplayer in action, at least we can take solace that co-op lives on.

Halo Infinite is available for the Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC on Steam this holiday season.

Featured Image: Microsoft/343 Industries

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If your patience is understandably thin these days, then let’s make one thing perfectly clear: The Last of Us Part II is a modern-day masterpiece, a haunting and beautiful story that will grab hold of something deep inside of you until long after the credits roll. Not only is it a worthy successor to the original, but it’s one of the finest sequels I’ve played. The hype is real. It’s that good.

That’s the short review. Here’s a slightly longer one if you’re into that sort of thing. While I will endeavor to avoid any and all spoilers, please proceed at your own peril because lord only knows what people consider to be a spoiler nowadays.

Following up a critically acclaimed game like The Last of Us is no easy task. When you consider that for many gamers—myself included—it ranks highly on the Best Games of All Time list, making a sequel begins to feel downright Sisyphean. But the developers and storytellers at Naughty Dog are used to the crushing weight of lofty expectations, and once again they have made something truly special. It not only stands on its own but enhances the original work too. Impeccable gameplay, gripping storytelling, astonishing graphics, and fastidious attention to detail make this one of the defining works of the PlayStation 4 era. One of the biggest reasons, though, is that Naughty Dog uses The Last of Us Part II to explore deeply human experiences and push them to their logical and emotional extremes.

Grief is a paradox, simultaneously a powerful, catalyzing force for change and stasis. It sinks deep into your body, wrapping its icy claws around your heart, alternately numbing you to the world around you and tearing your soul asunder as you try to grapple with your new reality. Sometimes it causes us to retreat inwards, withdrawing from our loved ones as we lumber around like a depression golem, merely drifting from moment to moment.

Other times it fills us with righteous anger, which can take the form of a perfectly crafted invective against someone like LAPD chief Michael Moore. But worst of all is when that grief fills you with the kind of unbridled rage that seemingly can’t be quelled by anything other than violence. The Last of Us Part II plumbs the depths of this particular raw emotional state—that inescapable feeling of seeing red—better than any other piece of media I have encountered.

As I learned last September when my father passed away, you cannot control when these feelings strike you, and I found myself reacting viscerally to the beautiful, tragic, and harrowing saga of Ellie and Joel in The Last of Us Part II. Multiple moments in this staggeringly good game reduced me to a weepy pile of tears on my couch. Not only because of its poignant, frequently shocking narrative, but because of the elemental experience to which it speaks. Whereas the original The Last of Us dissected the morality of unconditional love and the incredible lengths we would go to for our friends and family, The Last of Us Part II asks what lengths we’re willing to go to for hate, anger, and revenge. This is a story of unconditional hate and the consequences of allows it to consume us.

“I want to talk about this idea of rage and anger and hate, and how close it can be actually to love,” said co-director Neil Druckmann during a hands-on preview event last September. “What happens if something bad happens to someone you love? A significant other, a family member, a best friend … How far would you go to make the people responsible for that [pay]? What are the costs of that? What are the costs of an eye for an eye?”

That was two weeks after my father passed away and Druckmann’s words really sunk in. I found myself thinking about them often in the days and weeks that followed, but especially so as I played through The Last of Us Part II‘s twisting, turning, non-linear narrative. While the primary events of Part II take place over roughly a three-day span of time, the game often jumps back and forward in time, giving you fresh insights and perspectives from unexpected characters that give previous moments new meaning and profound resonance. It’s a bold experiment that could derail a game without as clear-eyed a vision as Naughty Dog’s, but it manages to keep you on tenterhooks even when you feel like you know what is coming.

Set 25 years after Infection Day, Ellie (Ashley Johnson) is no longer a child. After Joel (Troy Baker) and she survived endless horrors in the first game, Ellie, now 19 years old, has achieved something resembling normalcy in a world where a fungal infection ravaged the planet, turning much of humanity into blood-thirsty, mutated monsters. Living in a bustling community of survivors in Jackson County, Colorado, Ellie and Joel have drifted apart in the way that many teenagers do from their parents as they try to carve out an identity for themselves. New friends like Jesse (Stephen A. Chang) and Dina (Shannon Woodward)—as well as mentions of others in Ellie’s journal—paint a picture of a life that is full of potential, a flower blooming in the ruins of the old world.

But all of that potential and hope is obliterated when the unthinkable happens. An unspeakable act of violence irrevocably changes the course of Ellie’s life and sets her on a course towards Seattle where she seeks vengeance and winds up embroiled in a much larger conflict between a radical paramilitary group and a mysterious cult. What follows fundamentally changes Ellie as we see the emotional, spiritual, and physical toll it takes on her over the course of her brutal, relentless odyssey into the heart of darkness.

That isn’t to say that The Last of Us Part II is a hopeless game. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the game has quite a bit to say about what we do in our darkest moments and the impulses to which we succumb. Despite these pervasive moments of despair, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and a cause for serious introspection as you, the player, must guide Ellie along this precipice of self-destruction.

The Last of Us Part II, much like its predecessor, deftly darts back and forth between action-adventure and survival horror as you navigate the world’s many horrors, both human and monstrous. The game’s vastly improved AI and new enemy types—like guard dogs, which track your scent, and fleshy abominations like the Shambler, which spew clouds of noxious, sight-obscuring smoke—will keep you constantly on your toes and your pulse racing as you survive another encounter by the skin of your teeth. But where the game truly shines is in the details, the seamless and almost invisible ways in which Naughty Dog creates a living, breathing ruined world.

From the haunting sound design of Clickers blindly screaming in the distance to the crunch of snow beneath your feet, from the way light diffuses through the trees of a lush forest to the apocalyptic glare of a raging inferno, from the 60+ accessibility options to make this experience available to as wide a range of people as possible to the endless little collectibles and discoveries waiting around every corner, from the abandoned game of Dungeons & Dragons in a dilapidated apartment to the silly dad jokes Ellie cracks along the way to lighten the mood, The Last of Us is a towering achievement.

This is, of course, to say nothing of the incredible performances not only returning favorites like Ashley Johnson as Ellie and Troy Baker as Joel, but series newcomers Shannon Woodward as Dina, Stephen A. Chang as Jesse, Laura Bailey as Abby, and Patrick Fugit as Owen, whose performances are as good if not better than what you’d see in any prestige TV series. There’s so much more I want to say about this game, especially about Laura Bailey’s performance as Abby, but this is a journey best taken unspoiled.

The Last of Us Part II, by its director’s own admission, is not for everyone. You may not like it as much as I did. It may not make you cry as it made me. And you may not be as consistently awestruck over the course of its journey. But I urge you to give it a chance because if nothing else, you will appreciate how much love, care, and incredible craftsmanship went into making. And just know that I am jealous of you because to play this game for the first time is a gift in and of itself.

Rating: 5 out of 5

The Last of Us Part II is available on June 19, 2020 on PlayStation 4.

Images: Sony / Naughty Dog

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about the Avengers and Star Wars. Talk to him on Twitter about video games

The post THE LAST OF US PART II Made Me Cry Like a Giant Baby (Review) appeared first on Nerdist.

Good things come to those who wait, and Artemis Fowl fans have been waiting for nearly two decades to see Eoin Colfer’s sci-fi/fantasy book series turned into a movie. Now, at long last, their wish is coming true when the Kenneth Branagh-directed film comes exclusively to Disney+ on June 12. The series follows the eponymous Artemis Fowl II, a 12-year-old boy genius and budding criminal mastermind whose efforts to restore his family’s fortune gets him embroiled in a hidden world of fairies, goblins, trolls, and all manner of mythical creatures.

Two years ago, I journeyed across the pond to Longcross Film Studios, located approximately an hour outside of London, where I spent a rainy afternoon on the set of Artemis Fowl. In addition to interviewing director Kenneth Branagh and the talented artisans who brought Haven City and Fowl Manor to life, we sat down with two of the film’s stars, Josh Gad (“Mulch Diggums”) and Nonso Anozie (“Butler”) to pick their brains about what to expect from the hotly anticipated feature film adaptation of Artemis Fowl. Here are seven of the wildest details we gleaned during our time in this magical world.

Don’t let Butler’s name fool you

Despite his name, Butler isn’t some Fowl family servant tasked with cleaning the manor and serving Artemis fine foods; he is Alfred and Batman in one hulking package. With a shock of silvery hair and a muscular build, Nonso Anozie’s Butler stands in stark contrast to his diminutive ward, Artemis. According to Anozie, Butler is “in charge of their security, their wellbeing, and general running of the household.” As we’ve seen in the trailers, Butler can more than handle himself when the going gets tough. “Butler’s relationship to Artemis is that of a father figure, an authoritative keeper or guardian, I would say, someone who looks after him,” Anozie continued. “They can have a joke, but after, when it’s time to be serious, it’s time to be serious.”

While Anozie is excited for audiences to see the film’s epic action sequences, he’s grateful for his stunt double. “There’s this stunt where I get catapulted, shot out of a window, and I’ve done the first bit when I’m just about to hit the window, and the bit where I land, but then my stunt double is going to go through the window,” Anozie told us with a laugh.

They did some serious stunt training

Imagine enduring grueling training and performing demanding workouts for months on end for something that only lasts 15 seconds when all is said and done. Such is the life of an actor with an action sequence and that is especially true for Nonso Anozie in Artemis Fowl.

“We trained for quite a long period. I’m doing a lot of physical training, fitness training, and we trained for about a month and a half before we started shooting,” Anozie told us. “I don’t know if you saw a [kendo] fight? But there’s a [kendo] fight with Juliet Butler and I. It’s very much a tradition that we pass down through the generations, and she’s going to be the next Butler, so…I’m training her in self-defense and training her in martial arts. We had to train for that, for one scene, for like a millennia, to shoot something that only lasts 15 seconds [laughs], but that’s the level of dedication that everybody’s putting into this.”

Disney

Josh Gad will serenade a troll

When Josh Gad isn’t busy reuniting the casts of Back to the Future and The Lord of the Rings, he can usually be found belting tunes in Broadway plays like The Book of Mormon and other Disney movies like Frozen and Beauty and the Beast. While Artemis Fowl is sadly not a musical, Gad will in fact show off his musical prowess in the film in a particularly silly sequence we watched in which he serenades a troll. One the day of our set visit, we heard Gad’s mellifluous tones singing a Foreigner tune because, according to Gad, it was the troll’s favorite.

“Yes, we had at one point ‘Despacito,’ which was a very different approach,” Gad explained when asked if they spitballed other songs for his character Mulch Diggums to sing. “Yesterday we did David Bowie’s ‘Starman.’ But it felt like the troll responded best to Foreigner, so that’s what we stuck with. What a weird first scene for you guys.”

While the idea of singing to a troll wasn’t Gad’s idea, he is responsible for incorporating a decidedly more modern tune into the mix. “Well, initially they had ‘Hush Little Baby’ in the script and it felt a little unspecific,” Gad told us. “And I started spitballing ideas with the writer…There’s this common refrain in the movie, where beings like Holly and Mulch listen to contraband human music. Which I thought is such a fun little detail, because you’re not allowed to listen to human music in the fairy world. And so, the idea that we see Mulch listening to human music in Haven City at the beginning. And then carry that into this, and singing such a specific song to calm and relax a troll, just made me laugh so hard. Because it’s so absurd. That you have this giant beast and the one thing he’ll respond to are the beautiful lyrics of this song.”

Disney

Becoming Mulch Diggums is…a process

Transforming into the kleptomaniacal dwarf Mulch Diggums isn’t as simple as putting on a costume for Josh Gad. The actor has to don extensive prosthetics, including a massive jaw attachment to facilitate the way the dwarven character lives up to his surname by tunneling underground. If you’re raising an eyebrow as to why Gad would need a giant jaw prosthetic for a task like that, well, then you’re going to be in for a surprise when you learn how Mulch digs. He does so by eating the dirt and then excreting it. Yes, you read that right.

“Oh, that giant jaw… it reminds me of Beetlejuice,” Gad mused. “No, it’s great. Definitely not something I’m going to show my kids for a little while because, [in falsetto] ‘Daddy what’s going on?’ But it’s pretty amazing. That effect is going to be incredible.”

But the jaw prosthetic is only a part of the process of becoming Mulch Diggums. For Gad, transforming into his character is an hours-long process from start to finish. “I have a lot of leather and hair on my body,” Gad explained. “There’s actually hair… You guys can see. There’s hair inside of my [ears]. So it’s a process. Every day it’s a two-hour process to get into this. And a one-hour process to get out of this. And a half-an-hour process of crying myself to sleep, reminding myself that I have to do it again tomorrow.”

Disney

This isn’t just sci-fi Harry Potter

Artemis Fowl first came out in 2001 during the height of the Harry Potter craze. Given that it was a YA novel by an author from across the pond involving a precocious young man and all sorts of fantasy creatures, the comparisons between the two were inevitable. But those expecting it to be the exact same thing are in for a surprise, according to Josh Gad.

“I’m obsessed with Harry Potter,” Gad told us. “I grew up with the books, I grew up with the movies. There hasn’t been a Harry Potter in a long time. A new Harry Potter. This feels like the answer to that. I can’t tell you how many people come up to me, who tell me how important the Artemis Fowl books were to them as a kid. In many ways, I think Artemis is almost the antithesis to Harry. Whereas Harry is an empty vessel who’s going on this journey of discovery. And there’s an innocence that along the way becomes a little bit darkened by his experiences. Artemis starts almost at the end of Harry’s journey. And Artemis is wise beyond his years, doesn’t have the magical abilities of Harry. So he has to compensate for it with an intellect that allows him to tap into magic. And at the same time, he’s very manipulative. And he uses that manipulation in order to amass this incredible plot. The writer once described this book as, ‘Die Hard with fairies.’ Well, the Alan Rickman character, [Hans Gruber], in many ways, is Artemis Fowl himself.”

Artemis Fowl premieres on Disney+ on June 12.

Featured Image: Disney

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post Josh Gad and Nonso Anozie Reveal ARTEMIS FOWL Secrets appeared first on Nerdist.

Nineteen years after it first hit bookstore shelves, Eoin Colfer’s sci-fi/fantasy saga Artemis Fowl is finally hitting theaters. Or at least, it was supposed to before the COVID-19 pandemic made seeing movies on the big screen feel like a distant memory. Much like the denizens of Fowl Manor, the long-gestating Artemis Fowl movie has been seemingly dislodged from time itself, sliding into that entropic Hollywood state of “development hell” for nearly two decades. Nevertheless, at long last, Artemis Fowl will make its triumphant debut on June 12, exclusively on the Disney+ streaming service.

Two years ago (!), I was fortunate enough to spend a rainy afternoon on the set of Artemis Fowl at Longcross Film Studios, located roughly an hour outside of London. In addition to interviewing director Kenneth Branagh—whose insights we shared last year—we spent the day exploring Haven City, Fowl Manor, and all manner of workshops where we spoke with the talented artisans and craftspeople who brought Eoin Colfer’s vision to life. Here are seven of the wildest details we gleaned during our time in this magical world.

Disney

They built Fowl Manor from the ground up

The first Artemis Fowl novel has been described as “Die Hard with fairies.” The stand-in for Nakatomi Plaza is Fowl Manor, the ancestral home of Artemis Fowl’s family. However, in order to bring this iconic location to life, they couldn’t depend on simply finding a comparable house in the real world; they had to build it themselves, according to production designer Jim Clay.

“We originally looked at locations,” Clay said. “We scoured around Ireland, we scoured around parts of Europe, and obviously the U.K. It was apparent very quickly that the action we had to carry out and the damage we had to do to the house once the troll [enters]. When a 50-foot troll enters your house there’s going to be a bit of collateral damage. We were going to build it fairly obviously. Traditionally we would build the exterior with the interior on a stage.”

However, that wasn’t an option for Fowl Manor, which the filmmakers and the studio hope will be the beginning of a long-running film franchise to match its source material.

“That led us to the decision to combine the interior with the exterior,” Clay continued. “So in effect, we were building a real house. I’ve been asked to make this house last for a number of years. So we’re building a real house in the open. We have to keep the rain out. We’ve had to insulate it, we’ve had to heat it. And we’ve had to accommodate all the shooting.”

Disney

Artemis’ room is full of Fowl play

You can tell a lot about someone by looking at what they have in their bedroom, and that goes doubly so for a precocious child, whether they’re a criminal mastermind or not. In Artemis’ case, his room in Fowl Manor speaks to his innate curiosity, astounding intellect, and predilection towards high-tech tinkering.

“Artemis’ room [gives] again the feeling that the house has been in the family for years, and so they are a family of collectors of things and so, [it contains] butterflies, moths from previous generations,” explained set decorator Celia Bobak.

In addition, Artemis has a collection of LEGO bricks, a Raspberry Pi computer kit, “and lots of things bought from the science museum,” Bobak added. “They are trying to make this room imaginative and something that would catch the imagination of the young audience, something that will really amuse them and so we got a lovely old train set up there with tunnels, which is just a nod to Ken. Then I found this amazing auto man, which was also broken and I’ve had it rebuilt by amazing prop makers and it’s the light source, like a chandelier but it has a little boy up there. He’s dressed in Donegal tweed because we’re in Ireland. He’s a ’30s French mannequin boy and he’s on this magnificent flying machine, which he actually cycles when it’s turned on, and you have the lights and everything else. And I decided, you cannot possibly not have a pair of skis and a box on the back with your things in it. And the Irish flag, so we needed that.”

Suffice to say, the devil is in the details, and there will be plenty of details for diehard fans to uncover. Just don’t expect another famous fantasy novel to make an appearance.

“Any Harry Potter books on the shelves?” one reporter asked. “Mmm, no I don’t think so,” Bobak replied matter-of-factly.

Disney

The LEPrecon costumes are insanely detailed

When it comes to bringing the fairies of Artemis Fowl to life, costume designer Sammy Sheldon Differ and her team went absolutely ham, combing through the book for inspiration, as well as looking to the natural world to give the officers of the Lower Elements Police a techno-organic feel.

“[The LEP] had to have a uniform, and we didn’t want them to look like they have a superhero uniform as such.” Differ said. “So we didn’t want to get into Spandex or into too military. I wanted it to try and fall somewhere in the middle and pull all the organic things that we were researching into… We all were using this juxtaposition of nature and geometry. So, the sacred geometry that comes from the fairy world and the natural geometry that we were researching within nature. We tried to pull it all together.”

That collision of mystical and natural can be seen in the textures of the costumes, which you can see in the photograph above. “We also looked at insects and then the bioluminescence of fish and other creatures in the sea and the iridescence of small insects and how to use that,” Differ revealed.

She continued, “And there’s a line in the first book that says that the LEP had a mesh over their uniform to protect them from the heat and the cold and stuff when they were flying. So, that was a key element in our development of these. They had to have a mesh and we researched into whether we could have it lighting up and that entailed batteries and wires, and it was tricky. So we decided that we would spend quite a bit of time, probably five months developing this print, which is basically a hex. What I wanted was to convey an iridescence, but also when you move around the body, they look green. So the print itself is a layered print of about… I think it’s 17 layers or something… built up. So we get a slightly three-dimensional field and an iridescence. So we’ve got a light-up suit without it having any batteries.”

The International Space Station inspired the fairy wings

In order to balance the mystical nature of fairies with the high-tech trappings of the Lower Elements Police force’s reconnaissance unit (LEPrecon for short), costume designer Sammy Sheldon Differ drew inspiration from unlikely sources: insects and the International Space Station.

“A big challenge was how to design the wings for this, because they had to be mechanical,” Differ said. “They have to be carry-able. We have to be able to put them on their backs. And so we looked at the ladybird and how a ladybird holds its wings, which is very different than many other insects. And so these are inspired originally by ladybird.”

“This is absolutely nothing to do with me, but what I can say on her behalf, [Sammy Sheldon Differ] tried to to work out how something so delicate, so beautiful, and practical could be so small,” added props master Barry Gibbs. “So I know she started to look into variations of origami patterns, and also she started to look into NASA and look at how the solar panels work on the International Space Station.”

“We looked at NASA, how they open their solar panels in space, and other things that,” Differ added. “The challenge was to try and create something that was big enough to carry a person when it’s opened, but small enough to fit inside the backpack that isn’t too big. So that’s why they relate to each other, in that… There’s a bit of magic involved as well, actually.”

Disney

The weapons have been radically reimagined

In the world of Artemis Fowl, high-tech weapons are par for the course, but don’t expect them to look exactly like you might have imagined in the books. For this version of Artemis Fowl, the filmmakers and designers wanted to give the appearance of highly advanced weaponry without giving off the appearance of something like guns and firearms. Case in point, the Neutrino guns, which in books are powered by nuclear batteries and fire punishing laser blasts.

“We’ve steered away from that, and we’ve also tried to be really careful in not having things as guns,” Gibbs revealed. “So we wanted devices or weapons, but having a little bit more fun to it, and make it, in a way, a little bit more simplistic. They’re complex but simple, in the way that they don’t fire ballistic rounds. They don’t fire anything that you see as being harmful. There’s no explosions, as such, at present.”

That said, Gibbs teased everything from katanas to bows and arrows, so the LEPrecon officers are going to come prepared when they lay siege to Fowl Manor.

Disney

They had to build a catapult big enough to launch a troll

While most big-budget sci-fi and fantasy films tend to rely heavily on green-screen and CGI to accomplish their larger-than-life goals, Artemis Fowl is doing things the old-fashioned way: practically. That isn’t to say that visual effects won’t play a major part in the finished product, but among the staggering physical props that Barry Gibbs and his team of artisans had to make was a massive catapult capable of launching a gigantic troll at Fowl Manor.

“We’ve had to build this huge catapult, which fires a troll at the house,” Gibbs told us. “And the challenge is the scale of it. Because we’ve got a troll that’s three-and-a-half, four meters high. Then we’ve got to try and think of a device that restrains and fires him into a house. So special effects made this steel structure, which we then had to turn into something. If you see it, you’re looking at it like, “That’s not a catapult, it’s more like a plane,” because it’s got a part that resembles a crossbow attached to it. And then it looks like a tail. So that’s been a challenge. Time is the challenge. The fun side is making it.”

Disney

No, we won’t see Josh Gad’s butt

Sorry, folks, but Josh Gad‘s butt will remain tastefully out of frame. I know that the number one question on book readers minds concerning Gad’s character, the kleptomaniac dwarf Mulch Diggums, centers on the unorthodox manner in which he digs holes, but when it comes to staying true to the source material, there will be no butts about it.

“So, the bum flap [on Mulch Diggums’ costume]. Because of the process by which Mulch digs, do we see at all his butt?” asked one intrepid reporter on set.

“Bottom? No, we won’t see his bottom,” Sammy Sheldon Differ answered. “Obviously we have to shoot around those things, because everybody knows he digs and he poos soil. But, yeah, we’ll shoot around those things and we are… Yeah, I am working closely with CG on this.”

Artemis Fowl will premiere on June 12 on Disney+.

Images: Disney

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post 7 ARTEMIS FOWL Facts We Learned on the Film’s Set appeared first on Nerdist.

Remember the 1990s? It seems like a lifetime ago, but it was an era marked by a cacophony of dial-up modem noises when you tried to use your 1,000 free hours of AOL for the very first time, the sweet sensation of stabbing straws through precariously produced juice pouches, and the rise of Toonami, Cartoon Network’s programming block dedicated to putting anime directly into my eyeballs. While we, thankfully, cannot go back to the ’90s and stop ourselves from spending a truly preposterous amount of money on Pogs and Beanie Babies, we can relive the glory days of ’90s anime thanks to the plethora of streaming services that have them for our binge-watching pleasure.

Considering we’re all trapped inside for the foreseeable future as we flatten the curve of COVID-19 and we can only rewatch The Office so many times, take a walk down memory lane with me as we round up the very best ’90s anime that you can watch right now no matter what mood you’re in.

For when you need giant robots

 Image: Sunrise/Nozomi Entertainment

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

A staple of Toonami’s lineup, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is about as 90s as it gets, especially when it comes to the fashion. That’s weird to think about considering we all live on a clothing spectrum that ranges from “acceptable Zoom call athleisure” to “oops I just fell out of a laundry basket.” But its story of five teenage boys sent to Earth in extremely powerful mechs is full of enough intrigue, skullduggery, and wild-ass robot fights to lure you into its weird, wonderful world full of birthday party death threats and giant robots doing righteous battle. Plus, the theme song absolutely slaps. I listened to it on a midday walk around my neighborhood and it made me unreasonably pumped. (Hulu)

For when you’re missing live sports

Image: Toei Animation

Slam Dunk

With everything from professional sports to the Olympics being canceled and postponed, fans are champing at the bit to scratch that competitive itch. While pro athletes are increasingly turning to esports as a substitute for the real thing, sometimes you want to experience the thrill of competition without any heated gamer moments. That’s why Slam Dunk is exactly what the doctor ordered. This endlessly bingeable story of a delinquent student turned high school basketball phenom is full of all the best sports anime tropes: overwrought inner monologues, high-stakes drama, and ridiculous moves. (Crunchyroll)

For when you’re in the mood to watch a True Classic™

Image: Funimation

Cowboy Bebop

What can you say about Cowboy Bebop that hasn’t already been said (or echoed in the countless shows and movies inspired by it)? This relentlessly stylish series has perhaps the greatest soundtrack in anime and its memorable cast of characters will stay with you long after the credits roll. Equal parts spaghetti western, crime noir, and cyberpunk drama, Cowboy Bebop is a unique vision of dystopia and a grounded cyberpunk saga about a group of bounty hunters living on the fringes of society trying to eke out a living. The show doles out violence, heartfelt emotion, and high drama in equal measure. There’s a damn good reason that Cowboy Bebop ranks so on people’s all-time anime lists, and there has never been a better time for your first, second, or thirtieth viewing. (Hulu)

For when you’re missing your classmates

Image: Discotek Media

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka

Whether you’re wishing you could just finish out your senior year or homeschooling your kids and wondering why teachers aren’t paid a million dollars per year, GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka takes you back to a simpler time when we all left our homes to do our learning. GTO tells the story of Onizuka, a former biker gang leader who sets out to become the world’s greatest teacher… and probably get a much younger girlfriend.

What follows though is far more than its lecherous premise would suggest. As Onizuka butts heads with straitlaced administrators and obstinate students, his tough-guy facade begins to slip, revealing the giant dork within. Well, a dork with a violent streak and some unorthodox teaching methods, but a dork nonetheless. But as the series unfolds, he begins to connect with his students on a human level and that’s when the show becomes something truly special. It runs the gamut from slapstick comedy to CW drama in the blink of an eye, but always leaves you with a smile on your face. (Amazon Prime Video)

For when you want to lean into your depression

Image: Netflix

Neon Genesis Evangelion

For some reason, during this pandemic, I’ve been steering clear of feel-good stories and embracing the darkness. Few stories do this better than Neon Genesis Evangelion, which on paper is a story about a group of teenagers tasked with piloting giant robots to fight massive monsters who are attacking their city. But as anyone who has seen Evangelion knows, that is truly the tip of the iceberg. Delving into everything from childhood trauma to sexual awakenings to existential quandaries, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a psychological thriller masquerading as a mecha anime that will take your mind off of the horrors of the real world as you ponder the deep philosophical questions about whether or not Shinji should just get in the damn robot already. (Netflix)

For when you’re uncomfortable in your body

Image: Discotek Media

Key the Metal Idol

Without the ability to go lift weights at the gym and the sudden spike in Extra Toasty Cheez-Its entering my body at a medically alarming rate, I have found myself spiraling about my body image moreso than usual. But that visceral discomfort is nothing compared to the feeling of being trapped within a body that could be so much more. This happens in the classic series Key the Metal Idol. The show follows a young woman named Tokiko Mima, a.k.a. Key, who learns she is a robot that her grandfather created. However, when Key’s grandfather is on his deathbed, she learns she can finally become human with the aid of 30,000 friends.

What follows is a dark reimagining of Pinocchio as filtered through Japanese conceptions of sci-fi and mecha anime. It’s an underappreciated classic that should resonate with all of us during a time where many of us don’t feel quite like ourselves. (Amazon Prime Video)

For when you’re feeling hungry and hopeful

Image: Viz Media

Sailor Moon

Whether she’s fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight, never running from a real fight, or eating her body weight in snacks, the one called Sailor Moon will turn that frown upside-down. As I’ve mentioned many times before, Sailor Moon was my introduction into the wider world of anime and remains as poignant and powerful as it was when my cousin Jennifer first popped in a mysterious VHS so many years ago. The epitome of the magical girl genre, Sailor Moon places an emphasis on self-care, healthy support structures, and strong friendships in a way that feels empowering rather than preaching. While it doesn’t shy away from challenging its protagonists and putting them through the ringer, the series always brings you back to a beacon of light shining in the darkness, which we could all use right about now. (Viz)

For when you’re spiraling about climate change

Image: Discotek Media

Blue Submarine No. 6

While news about the Himalayas being visible for the first time in 30 years is heartening, the thought that all of this ecological healing will be undone the moment our collective national lockdowns come to an end is not. So rather than wander down the corridors of this particular thought-spiral, why not embrace the abyss of a different sci-fi eco-fable? Blue Submarine No. 6 is a dark, post-apocalyptic story about a world in which a mad scientist named Zorndyke engineered mass flooding, claiming countless lives and destroyed cities. The last bastions of mankind have largely fallen at the hands—or should I say claws—of Zorndyke’s monstrous, half-animal “hybrids.” Humanity’s last hope lies with a fleet of submarines—specifically the crew of Blue Submarine No. 6—who must stop Zorndyke from inducing a cataclysmic polar switch at the South Pole before it’s too late. Just remember, things could always be worse. (Tubi)

For when you’re feeling romantic

Image: Media Blasters

Fushigi Yugi

Have you ever wanted to lose yourself in a book? I’m not just talking about pageturners that you can’t put down; I mean to literally lose yourself inside the pages of one of your favorite fictional worlds. Well, that’s exactly what happens to junior high school students Miaka Yuki and Yui Hongo when they find themselves transported inside the world of a book about a mystical version of ancient China. These two best friends suddenly find themselves archenemies; the book casts them in the roles of priestesses serving rival gods and kingdoms. A healthy dose of political intrigue, sweeping romance, and more bishounen than you’ll know what to do with follows. Long before the isekai trend took hold of Japan’s anime industry by the throat, Fushigi Yugi set the bar for what we should expect from being transported to another world. (Amazon Prime Video)

For when you don’t want to live on this planet anymore

Image: Right Stuf, Inc.

Martian Successor Nadesico

Are you tired of living on Earth? I don’t mean in a dangerous or suicidal way; rather, do the looming threats of climate change, the real threats of global pandemic, and the prospect of having to deal with an election year news cycle on top of all of that exhaust you? Well, unless you’re Elon Musk, peacing out from our pale blue dot for Mars might not be a reality. Fortunately, you can live vicariously through the sci-fi comedy stylings of Martian Successor Nadesico, which tells the story of Akito, a goofball who grew up watching mecha anime on Mars, but would rather cook a nice meal than pilot a giant robot.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a choice. When his home on Mars is destroyed, Akito finds himself transported back to Earth where he is recruited to wage a war to avenge the attacks on Mars. Aboard the battleship Nadesico, Akito finds himself as part of a ragtag crew of weirdos, but as always, there’s more than meets the eye. While it sounds silly, Martian Successor Nadesico is a love letter to sci-fi and giant robot anime, lampooning some of the genre’s more ridiculous tropes while telling a worthwhile story all its own. (YouTube)

For when you’re tired of yet another freakin’ Zoom call

Image: Funimation

Serial Experiments Lain

Are you having stress dreams about Zoom calls with coworkers and clients? Is your screen time through the roof? Are you in the mood to potentially have a non-pandemic-related existential crisis? Then Serial Experiments Lain is for you! Lain Iwakura is a taciturn teenager, then an email from her classmate Chisa throws Lain’s life into disarray. This wouldn’t be cause for concern normally, but Chisa recently took her own life, so it was unexpected to say the least. In Chisa’s e-mail, she claims to have left her human form behind. Now she has ascended to a new digital form within the Wired, a virtual world akin to the modern-day internet.

As Lain follows the proverbial white rabbit, she arrives at some truly horrifying realizations as she explores questions about identity, reality, and self. This avant-garde cyberpunk mystery expertly captures the horrors of a world in which we’re perpetually glued to our screens. Considering the world right now, that feels like equal parts escape and prison. (Funimation)

For when you’re pondering the afterlife

Image: Funimation

Yu Yu Hakusho

These uncertain times likely have many of us pondering our own mortality in ways that may or may not be the healthiest. While I encourage everyone to try self-care routines like meditation and mindfulness exercises, as well as seek the services of a therapist through telemedicine, sometimes it’s helpful to confront these feelings directly. That’s why you should watch Yu Yu Hakusho. Admittedly, Yu Yu Hakusho is ultimately more concerned with kicking butts and taking names in perhaps the greatest tournament arc in anime history, but it also tells the story of a teenage delinquent who sacrifices his life to save an innocent child. Then he gets a new lease on life of sorts: investigating supernatural mysteries in the land of the living.

Okay, so maybe this isn’t the headiest meditation of mortality within anime—or even on this list, to be honest—but I would argue that Yu Yu Hakusho‘s shonen trappings not only make it more bingeable, but more accessible because it’s trying to communicate to a broader audience. And if nothing else, you’ll be glad that you lived long enough to see (or rewatch) the Dark Tournament arc. (Hulu)

For when you just want to scream…

Dragon Ball Z

Image: Funimation

To quote literally any character during literally any fight in literally any episode of Dragon Ball Z, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Just let it out. It’s cathartic. (Funimation)

—

If you want even more suggestions for which anime to stream, we have you covered:

• Best new anime of spring 2020
• Horror anime streaming right now
• Anime to watch when you’re feeling sad

Which anime would you add to this list and for what emotion? Let us know in the comments below.

Featured Image: Netflix/Viz/Funimation

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post The Best ’90s Anime You Can Stream For Every Mood appeared first on Nerdist.

Five years after it was first announced at E3 and 23 years after the original changed the role-playing game genre forever on the PlayStation, Final Fantasy VII Remake is finally out. The game is an absolute triumph and easily one of my favorite games of the year, but even after the credits rolled, I found myself wondering about the motivations behind rebuilding one of the most celebrated games of all time from the ground up.

To find out, I spoke with Final Fantasy VII Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase and co-director Naoki Hamaguchi via e-mail about why they finally decided to undertake such a monumental challenge, their proudest moments in Remake, what changed from the original, why they decided to go with an episodic release structure, and much more.

Nerdist: Final Fantasy VII is one of the most critically acclaimed and influential games of all time. It’s literally the reason I bought a PlayStation. What motivated the decision to finally remake it?

Yoshinori Kitase (Producer, Final Fantasy VII Remake): One of the reasons was due to many fans (including the media!) who wanted a remake, but largely it was because I, myself, wanted to see the world of Final Fantasy VII re-imagined using the latest cutting-edge technology. The ever-popular Cloud Strife took first place in the Final Fantasy poll [that NHK recently conducted in Japan], but the only way for younger players to find out about his origins, should their interest be piqued, was through the original game with graphics from the classic PlayStation era. By providing young gamers with a new and improved Final Fantasy VII Remake, I am hoping this will become a title that will continue to be beloved in the coming decades.

Nerdist: What was the biggest challenge in remaking a game of Final Fantasy VII’s size and scope, especially given the leaps and bounds in technology since 1997?

Naoki Hamaguchi (Co-director, Final Fantasy VII Remake): With the advancements in technology, the ability to depict a range of character expressions has increased. Narrative that made sense within the limitations of the technology in the original would have seemed awkward (or interfere with immersion) if depicted using modern-day graphics. So, it was a big goal for us to adjust and supplement the story for those areas in the game, while adjusting the visuals to be enjoyable as a form of modern-day entertainment, but I think the results are all extremely worth it.

One interesting concept I wanted to share – in the original, the story from the Wall Market to the Shinra Building all take place over one night, but when we tried to depict that in Remake, we felt that we were spending too much time during the night from a gameplay perspective, so much so, that having all this happen over one night interfered with that sense of immersion.

So, in Remake, we added some narrative elements that prompt the players to stay in the area after the Sector 7 plate falls down, in order to provide a more realistic sense of time; and by having players then progress in the story to head to the Shinra Building the following day, this would allow them to feel the passage of time from morning to evening. The development team considered the concept of “time” to be part of the game design, to give players a sense of immersion.

Immersion into the story is a very important element of the whole Final Fantasy VII Remake project, and we will continue to be meticulous about it.

Nerdist: What motivated the decision to make Final Fantasy VII Remake an episodic release? Is there a sense of how long there will be between episodes?

Kitase: It was easy for us to imagine, even from the story planning stages, that remaking the game to the highest visual levels and going for a more realistic approach to the world, using modern-day technology would result in a huge volume of work and assets. Simply, with the higher visual quality and the size of the world, it was impossible for a single game. As such, we had two options at that point.

One was to fit all the elements into one game by simplifying each of the elements, which basically would have resulted in a very cut-down digest of the original game, where the players would just follow the main storyline, but we would have had to cut a lot of content with that approach, and we didn’t think that fans would have accepted that.

The other was to focus on the portion of the story up to the escape from Midgar, allowing us to avoid omitting any important scenes and to expand on the original, by going deeper into the world and characters than before. Effectively it would be a new game with emphasis on creating a realistic presentation with substance.

We decided that the latter is what the fans are looking for and would enjoy far more. Development is already underway for the next game, and we are striving to make it even better than this one.

Nerdist: I was shocked at how intimidating characters like President Shinra and Heidegger look in their more photorealistic art style. Were there any moments that felt more impactful once they were removed from the super-deformed style of the original?

Kitase: A corporate conglomerate being your enemy was definitely unusual for an RPG at the time of release of the original game.

There’s a scene where the executives of this enemy organization convene for a strategic meeting, but due to how simplistic the character models were in the original, I thought it fell short because there was no way it looked like a serious executive meeting. Now that we are able to make it much more realistic, I believe we are able to portray the evil deeds of Shinra in a more powerful way. Another notable example is the major tragedy that happens mid-way through the game; the devastation and impact is truly emphasized in this iteration.

Nerdist: What went into the decision to transition from a turn-based battle system to the more free-flowing system of Final Fantasy VII Remake?

Hamaguchi: The concept for the battle system in Remake is quite clear – by evolving the ATB battle system to something you would see in modern day, we could provide a gameplay experience that is “new, yet familiar.” On top of that, we figured players would feel a deeper sense of immersion, alongside the visual upgrades, by being able to play with real-time controls. As such, we ultimately decided that the ATB (Active Time Battle) system needed to evolve into something more action-oriented.

Through trial and error, our intention was to allocate certain playstyles to the “ATB battle” portion and the “action battle” portion, instead of simply combining the two, to bring out the best aspects of both. The foundation of Remake‘s battle system utilizes the “ATB battle” portion, a very simple system like that of the original in which players consume an ATB charge to perform a certain ability. And then the “action battle” portion serves the role of highlighting how player technique can leverage the “ATB battle”, such as by allowing players to efficiently charge their ATBs or by posing “chance” opportunities for players to use them. One way of imagining it is that the “action battle” portion assists while the “ATB battle” portion scores a goal.

A great example of this relationship is seen with “Classic Mode.” Having the AI take care of the “action battle” portion automatically to allow players, even those who aren’t comfortable or confident playing action games, to play the game by just focusing on determining when to execute the abilities with the “ATB battle” portion, just like in the original. It’s not too much to say that we were able to bring this system to fruition because we allocated certain roles to the “ATB battle” portion and the “action battle” portion of the system for Remake.

Nerdist: Is there a specific aspect or moment in Final Fantasy VII Remake that you are most proud of?

Hamaguchi: I am proud of being able to expand on the essence of the original and making it work for the game design of Remake. I believe we were able to make this into a title that people can get a sense of “new, yet familiar” through gameplay.

Let me share with you something I haven’t really disclosed anywhere else until now – I’m sure you all are familiar with the scene in Final Fantasy VII where Cloud goes on a “date”… but there is also a certain part in this game where Could would split off with one of the party members to have an intimate conversation. As you can see, the situations and how we depict them may have been remade into something that matches the style of Remake, but there are many elements representing the essence of the original within the realm of this game.

Nerdist: How long do you expect the core experience of Final Fantasy VII Remake to be?

Hamaguchi: There may be people who would prefer not to know how many hours the length of this game is before playing it themselves, so I think it’s best not to disclose a specific number of hours from the development team.

What I will say though is that, as the overall story of the original game is now re-told in more than one game, this first game in the Final Fantasy VII Remake project is designed with the mindset of delivering gameplay content and story that is equivalent to a full mainline Final Fantasy game. So, I can promise you that the amount of gameplay content will be very satisfying.

Nerdist: Obviously, Final Fantasy VII Remake will be a great source of comfort to those who are social distancing to help flatten the curve of COVID-19. How will this pandemic affect the hard-working team at Square Enix and future development in the Remake project?

Hamaguchi: This is not limited to just Final Fantasy VII Remake, but I believe that the role of entertainment is the fact that it is able to provide some comfort during these difficult times. The spread of COVID-19 around the world has still yet to slow down, but if people who play Final Fantasy VII Remake could feel even a little bit of comfort, or be moved and feel encouraged to press forward to tomorrow, then I feel that the efforts we’ve put in as creators is all well worth it.

As for the next installment that follows Final Fantasy VII Remake, Mr. Kitase has already made the comment that development has begun. We are putting the safety of the development staff at the highest priority, and we are working together as one so that any impact to development will be kept at a minimum.

Nerdist: How much do I need to pay you to get a Final Fantasy Tactics sequel?

Kitase: I will let the higher-ups know.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is out now on the PlayStation 4. Read our spoiler-free review.

Images: Square Enix

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Creators Explain Episodic Release appeared first on Nerdist.

The planet is dying. Greedy corporations recklessly harvest the planet’s dwindling natural resources while grandstanding politicians exploit a crisis and unfathomable loss of life in order to line their pockets. Those who sound the alarm are decried as propagandists, hucksters, and traitors working with our enemies. The downtrodden, radicalized through being forced to bear the weight of systemic failure and crumbling infrastructure, now find themselves taking violent action against the rapacious criminals running the show. While this feels like a fairly apt description of the world in which we live, I’m describing the world of Final Fantasy VII Remake, an audacious, politically charged cyberpunk thriller that feels more relevant than ever.

Remakes by their very nature are self-indulgent exercises and more often than not contribute to the slow, agonizing death of art in favor of commerce. Why make something new when you could remake something familiar and cash in on an existing intellectual property? But while Final Fantasy VII Remake is certainly guilty of strip-mining our youths for nostalgia like the Shinra Corporation slurping up the planet’s lifeblood, there is a beating heart and a vibrant soul that pervades this remake, allowing it to transcend cynicism and say something meaningful about empathy, environmentalism, and destiny.

It’s also fun as hell. For a game announced five years ago, based on a game that released 23 years ago, Final Fantasy VII Remake isn’t just one of the finest RPGs in years; it is a balm for a weary soul, an outlet for sadness and rage and feelings of impotence during a time that feels increasingly hopeless with each new headline and unprosecuted federal crime. It also forces you to grapple with the realities of the cycle of violence you as a player and a character perpetuate, which was not something I expected to have to contend with on my journey back to Midgar.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is a game that I have been champing at the bit to play for years. To put it mildly, I am bringing two decades of baggage to this review. My obsession with the original Final Fantasy VII runs bone-deep. As I mentioned in my preview, Final Fantasy VII was not only the reason I bought a PlayStation (shout out to Santa Claus and allowance money), but introduced me to the idea of role-playing games. While much hay has been made of its signature “super-deformed” polygonal art style, Final Fantasy VII sucked me into its sweeping story through a mix of deep characterization, thoughtful worldbuilding, and the way it seamlessly blended sci-fi and fantasy together to create something bigger than the sum of its parts. From lurking on LiveJournal roleplay blogs to scouring early internet forums for hidden secrets to writing my own original FFVII tabletop role-playing game in some long-forgotten Five Star notebook, Final Fantasy VII sits proudly atop the list of my favorite games of all time. Naturally, when Final Fantasy VII Remake became a reality, I was nervous that it wouldn’t live up to my sky-high expectations.

And while Final Fantasy VII Remake is not a perfect game, it is perfect to me.

A tale as old as 1997

Without spoiling too much about the game, Final Fantasy VII Remake adapts the original game’s approximately six-hour introduction and expands it into a full-fledged game of its own, with expanded storylines, reimagined game mechanics, and deeper characterization. Your mileage may vary, but my playthrough—in which I spent a reasonable amount of time completing optional side quests—took me about 40 hours when all was said and done. It’s a far cry from the three-disc-long, 100-plus hour journey of the original, but this new game is anything but insubstantial.

Final Fantasy VII Remake takes place in the city of Midgar, a dystopian corporate-owned metropolis ruled over by the sinister Shinra Electric Power Company. This mammoth city is divided into discrete sectors, each with their own massive power plant that harvests something known as mako energy, a fictional fossil fuel that may or may not quite literally be the planet’s lifeblood. The city itself is divided across economic lines by a gigantic circular plate. The wealthy enjoy cleaner air, modern amenities, and live topside while the working class lives in slums, eking out a hardscrabble existence in tenements of scrap metal, besieged by pollution, monsters, and a sense that nothing will ever get better.

You play as Cloud Strife, a spiky-haired, big-ass-sword-carrying mercenary who only cares about his next paycheck. Although you have joined forces with Avalanche, a ragtag group of eco-terrorists who are striking back against Shinra Electric Power Company, he couldn’t care less about their struggle; he’s just hired muscle. This disdain is met with contempt and derision from Barret Wallace, the towering beefcastle with a machine gun for an arm who leads this Avalanche cell as they carry out a series of power plant bombings in an attempt to bring the fight for the planet’s life directly to the people who are bleeding it dry. Barret’s bombastic dialogue and questionable, stereotype-heavy characterization in the original game have been softened and we see a more empathetic side of a man who is fighting for a better tomorrow for his daughter because the alternative feels like suicide.

Other Avalanche members like Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie previously felt like cardboard cutouts, red shirts designed to propel the story until their time to shuffle off-screen conveniently arrived. By expanding the story, we not only get a sense of the traumas and forces that compelled them to political violence, but we also see them contend with the human cost of their radical actions. Seeing the aftermath of a bombing raid, with dazed and confused citizens in the streets bemoaning their fate and trying to make sense of the sudden devastation, makes not only the characters but the player pause to consider the consequences of their actions in a way that feels unexpected for the genre.

As the story unfolds, Cloud, and hopefully the player, begins to shed his apathy through his encounters with his fellow party members, Avalanche soldiers, and the citizens he helps–and hurts–along the way. Cloud and Barret are joined by Cloud’s childhood friend Tifa, a brawler with a heart of gold and deep-seated reservations about whether or not Avalanche is doing the right thing, and Aerith, a florist from the slums of Sector 5 who harbors a potentially world-changing secret. Longtime Final Fantasy VII fans may be disappointed to hear that these are the only playable characters, but you’ll encounter plenty of familiar faces and newly created friends and foes along the way, too.

By and large, this chunk of the overall story manages to withstand the pressures of being stretched to be five times longer than it originally was. While some of these additions feel like the equivalent of anime filler, much of it serves to imbue these characters with a deepened sense of humanity and complexity as the game explores the morality of resorting to violence to effect change in the face of unabashed villainy. As many have noted, the places where the story suffers are in its side quests, which don’t have the same sense of variety, urgency, or importance as the main storyline. The fact that many of these quests are given to you by forgettable NPCs doesn’t help, but the gameplay itself is so damn fun that I didn’t care that I had to clear out yet another area of monsters terrorizing the locals; I wanted to prove that I’m the hero of the slums and see if it could shake Cloud from his perpetual state of impassivity.

But what about those big-ass swords?

Ah yes, what would a Final Fantasy game be without people wearing way too many belts wielding improbably large blades and using crystalline orbs to unleash magical hell on all manner of murderous monsters? The combat system, as we have reported previously, is a savvy blend of old and new. Final Fantasy VII Remake takes the free-roaming, frantic combat of modern action RPGs and gives it a strategic twist through the active time battle (ATB) gauge, a throwback to the turn-based system of the original. Once your characters use enough basic attacks in order to fill up their ATB gauge, you can enter a fugue state of Quicksilver-esque bullet time as the world around you slows to a crawl and you peruse menus to determine which unique ability, magic spell, or item you want to unleash. Although you can only actively control one character at a time, you can issue commands to the characters you aren’t controlling through a few simple button taps. It’s a system that feels awkward at first until you get the rhythm of it down, and then it feels so perfectly Final Fantasy that it’s hard to imagine anything else in its place.

Because combat can be genuinely challenging in Final Fantasy VII Remake. You can’t simply button mash your way to victory. You’ll need to properly position yourself to avoid devastating attacks, parry incoming blows to reduce damage and potentially unleash a brutal riposte, and analyze the situation to figure out the best combination of spells and abilities to emerge victorious. For example, if your enemy leaps away from you and takes flight, you’ll want to switch away from Cloud to a long-range fighter like Barret or Aerith, who can keep doing damage despite the distance. This isn’t to say that the original Final Fantasy VII was a cakewalk, but Remake has a surprising amount of strategic depth to its combat system that made even unexpected side quests feel as challenging as late-game boss battles.

And speaking of boss battles, if you like fighting massive, screen-filling enemies with multiple stages and deadly superweapons, then Remake has you covered in spades. You will dispatch everything from murderous mechs to demonic haunted houses to chariot-riding ghouls, and each one will push you to your limit (and your limit break if you’re not careful).

Adding further depth to the combat system is the addition of unique abilities for each weapon, as well as a system of weapon upgrades that feel reminiscent of Final Fantasy X‘s Sphere Grid. For example, Cloud’s Iron Sword allows him to use the Triple Slash ability, which as its name suggests, allows Cloud to strike three devastating blows in quick succession. As you use the ability in combat, you unlock a proficiency bonus which upgrades its effectiveness, and eventually, you permanently learn it regardless of whether or not you have said weapon equipped.

The weapon upgrade system lets you take things a step further with skill points that you unlock in battle and through collectible grimoires. These points can then be spent to give your weapon bonuses to attack power or magic power, additional material slots so you can use more spells, critical hit bonuses, and so much more. You earn them concurrently for every weapon you have, so no matter ho deep into the game you are, you can choose the perfect weapon for any scenario and have it kick as much ass as you do.

As for materia, Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s ever-present orbs that grant you incredible magic abilities, support skills, and the ability to summon enormous guardian spirits, there is no shortage of options and fans will likely spend hours devising the perfect combinations to optimize each character’s effectiveness. In addition to familiar options like elemental magic, Final Fantasy VII introduces new materia options to help you make the most of its semi-automated combat system. For example, you can equip the Synergy materia with an elemental magic materia to allow characters you aren’t controlling to blast off a fireball or two in response to the attacks of the character you’re controlling. Or if you want to make sure you’re keeping your HP up, equip one of your party members with the Auto-Cure materia and thank the heavens when you don’t burn through all the Phoenix Downs this side of Sector 7 in a single fight.

These are the small quality-of-life changes that may feel at odds with the original game, but then again this is no facsimile of the original; it’s a unique beast all its own.

To be continued…

It isn’t all mako-suffused sunshine and slum-grown roses, though; the most frustrating part about Final Fantasy VII Remake is that it is being episodically released. Excuse me, I misspoke: The most frustrating part about Final Fantasy VII Remake are the mini-games, which nearly pushed me to my quarantine-addled breaking point until I conquered their foul congeries of bastardized rhythm gaming. The second most frustrating part about Final Fantasy VII Remake is that it is being episodically released. After 40 hours of creating a living, breathing world filled with memorable characters, we leave them at what truly feels like the outset of their journey. Final Fantasy VII Remake ends on the precipice of yet another great adventure, but unlike the original, I now have to wait between one and five business years to play it. Don’t get me wrong; I’m deeply grateful to everyone at Square Enix for making this in the first place, but it does feel a bit like narrative edging, especially when we know there is so much more to come.

That said, if Square Enix can shorten the release cadence between new entries, and maintain the level of quality established by Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s first part, then gamers are in for a treat that can sustain us well into the next generation of consoles. Because at long last, the Final Fantasy VII that existed in our imagination feels as vivacious, visceral, and real as we always knew it could. With Remake, Square Enix has thrown down a gauntlet for all those who want to reimagine classic video games for a new era of technology and a new age of gamers. It is no longer acceptable to merely slap a fresh coat of paint on an old game and call it a day; if you don’t want to lovingly rework, rebuild, and reimagine the potential of your original game, then just put the original on a digital storefront and call it a day. Anything less is sheer laziness. And as Final Fantasy VII Remake teaches us, no one ever changed the world through laziness.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Final Fantasy VII Remake is available on April 10 on the PlayStation 4. 

Images: Square Enix

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Review: A Cyberpunk Eco-Fable For Our Time appeared first on Nerdist.

Have you plowed through all of Tiger King and are now finding yourself with nothing to watch? Have you binged everything from out-of-season Hallmark Christmas movies to increasingly obscure British crime dramas? Tired of rewatching your favorite retro anime of yesteryear? Well, good news: there is a metric ton of awesome new anime series coming out this month to keep you company as we continue to flatten the curve of COVID-19. I know, with the icy grasp of winter receding for another year and the flowers beginning to burst into bloom, we find ourselves…stuck indoors apart from the occasional jaunt to the grocery store or a properly socially distanced walk around the block. But these excellent new anime series will take the edge off as we continue to do our part to kick coronavirus to the proverbial curb.

Studio Trigger/Netflix

A quick note: There are plenty of high-profile returning titles like Fruits Basket, Food Wars, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, just to name a few. That said, this is focusing primarily on new anime, so if I don’t mention your favorite, please know this is a personal attack, Kevin.

Another quick note: Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, some release dates may be delayed or have yet to be announced, while streaming services offering things like simuldubs have to modify their production pipeline to protect their employees. We will continue to update this article as new information comes out.

BNA

The fact that the galaxy brain animation geniuses at Studio Trigger made this should be enough of a reason for anyone who has seen Promare, SSSS.Gridman, or Kill La Kill to tune in. BNA, which stands for “Brand New Animal,” takes place in a world where humanoid animals begin to emerge after centuries in hiding. One day, a high schooler named Michiru suddenly transforms into a tanuki-human hybrid and must travel to Anima City, a bustling Zootopia-like metropolis, in order to solve the mystery of why she metamorphosed into an animal. What follows is a wild ride that will tackle everything from secret plots to doomsday cults to deeply ingrained prejudices and beyond. And it may just awaken something inside of you. No judgment; live your truth. | (Streaming TBD on Netflix)

Gleipnir

In Norse mythology, Gleipnir is the dwarven-forged chain that binds the powerful wolf Fenrir. Unfortunately, in Gleipnir the anime, no chains can hold Shuichi Kagaya’s inner wolf back. One morning he awakens to discover he can turn into a giant monster that looks like a wolf mascot costume with a zipper down its back. When he rescues his classmate Claire from a warehouse fire, he accidentally outs himself. Seeing an opportunity, Claire manipulates Shuichi and uses him like a murdery human fursuit in her quest to her missing sister. So, you know, maybe your high school experience wasn’t so bad after all.  | (Streaming April 5 on Funimation)

My Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom

Have you ever played a game so much that you know every inch of it? Every pixel, every hidden secret, every storyline — all embedded within the labyrinthine halls of your mind palace. Usually, you’ve learned all of this from the perspective of the hero, the player-controlled protagonist. But what if you suddenly found yourself transported Jumanji-style inside of your fictional game and you weren’t the hero, but instead you were the villain? Well, that’s exactly what happens in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!. When wealthy heiress Katarina Claes is trips and hits her head on a rock, she is flooded with memories of a past life and realizes she’s actually living inside of a dating sim called Fortune Lover, and she’s playing the villain. Unfortunately for Katarina, all of the storylines lead to increasingly grim endings for her, so she’s going to have to use her expert knowledge of the game in order to avoid triggering in-game events that lead to her demise. Honestly, it feels like the breath of fresh air the crowded isekai genre needs. | (Streaming April 4 on Crunchyroll)

Appare-Ranman!

Set in the late 19th century, Appare-Ranman! tells the story of a brilliant but awkward engineer and a cowardly samurai who find themselves penniless, adrift at sea, and far away from home. To make enough scratch to get back safely, they build a steam-powered car and enter the Trans-America Wild Race, hoping to use the prize money to fund their return trip. What follows is crazier than anything you’ve seen in Ford v Ferrari—the duo must navigate bloodthirsty bandits, inhospitable environments, dastardly rivals, seemingly insurmountable odds, and much more as they race their way across the American heartland in a desperate bid to get rich quick. | (Streaming April 10 on Funimation)

Wave, Listen to Me!

Hear me out on this: Fraisier, but make it anime. Okay, Wave, Listen to Me! isn’t quite a one-to-one parallel to everyone’s favorite salad-tossin’, egg-scramblin’ pop psychologist, but it is an anime based on Blade of the Immortal creator Hiroaki Samura’s manga series about a young woman stumbling into a career as a radio talk show host. Heartbroken and drinking away her sorrows, Minare Koda finds herself unexpectedly pouring her heart out one night to a radio station worker at a local bar. The next day, she hears her sob story being played over the radio waves, leading her to storm the studio to confront the producer. This impulsive confrontation turns into a spontaneous talk show and the official launch of Minare’s career in the wild world of radio. | (Streaming April 4 on Funimation)

Woodpecker Detective’s Office

When there’s something strange in your neighborhood in Meiji era Japan, who you gonna call? Not the Ghostbusters! They’re still over a century away from opening up shop, and even then they are limited to New York City. No, you’re going to have to enlist the poet-turned-private eye Takuboku Ishikawa and his assistant Kyosuke Kindaichi to crack the case! Whether or not they’re afraid of no ghosts, some ghosts, or all ghosts remains to be seen, but this anime based on Kei Ii’s 1999 mystery novel of the same name looks so good, it’s spooky. | (Streaming April 13 on Crunchyroll)

Tamayomi: The Baseball Girls

If you’ve been reading our seasonal anime guides for any amount of time, you know that I’m an absolute sucker for sports anime because there’s just something magical about the way they blend constant competition arcs, over-the-top “secret moves,” high-stakes drama, and overwrought inner monologues. So you’d better believe that when I saw a listing for a show that basically looks like A League of Their Own: The Anime, it immediately went on the list. Okay, maybe this isn’t the story of the women breaking into baseball during wartime, but it does look like an epic story about a group of ambitious high school students trying to fulfill their dreams of baseball greatness. And considering we have absolutely zero sports to look forward to right now, this is the perfect substitute. | (Streaming April 1 on Funimation)

Tower of God

What if an entire anime were one giant tournament arc? That’s the basic premise behind Tower of God, the second offering in the Crunchyroll Originals series. The story centers on two young people, Bam and Rachel, who grew up trapped beneath a massive, mysterious Tower. One day, Rachel manages to enter the Tower and Bam follows suit to try and find her, only to discover that each floor is the size of North America and has its own unique cultures, languages, and challenges to overcome before the next level can be reached. Based on the hit South Korean Webtoon comic of the same name, Tower of God is already a certified hit thanks to its striking animation, ambitious scope, and absolute bangers from K-Pop sensation Stray Kids. | (Streaming April 1 on Crunchyroll)

Kakushigoto

What do your parents do for a living? Does it ever embarrass you? Sure, they’re breaking their back to provide for the family, but do you raise an eyebrow over their chosen vocation? Well, that’s exactly the kind of thought process Gotou Kakushi is trying to prevent his young daughter from having in Kakushigoto, a.k.a. Hidden Things. It’s the story of a father who draws erotic manga for a living and desperately wants to keep his daughter from learning the truth about what he does. What follows is a deeply silly father-daughter slice-of-life comedy unlike anything you’ve seen before. | (Streaming April 2 on Funimation)

Listeners

Want an apocalyptic anime about people with giant robots trying to save mankind through the power of rock ‘n’ roll in a world without music? Then Listeners is for you! Honestly, what more do you need to know? Just watch the trailer and check out this wild-ass series. | (Streaming April 3 on Funimation)

And those are some of the best new anime you need to put in your eyeballs this spring! Which are your favorites? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to catch up on any winter anime you might have missed too.

Featured Image: Crunchyroll/Funimation/Netflix

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post The Best New Anime of Spring 2020 appeared first on Nerdist.

Are you in dire need of some new quarantunes while stuck in quarantine? Want to flatten the curve of COVID-19 while expanding your musical horizons? Do you yearn for an endlessly relaxing genre of music that will help you focus on working from home while releasing a steady stream of nostalgia-fueled serotonin? Then you’ve come to the right place.

Like so many people out there, I find that I am most productive when I’m listening to largely instrumental music with a driving beat, but I don’t want to be distracted by too many clever lyrics or pesky vocals. These playlists are perfect for fans who want to blend their love of classic video games like Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokemon with chillhop, the explosively popular music genre characterized by jazzy lo-fi hip hop beats. Basically it sounds like you found a haunted VHS recording of your favorite cassettes. Except in this case, they’re all digital mixtapes of classic video game tunes.

So put on your headphones, turn on any one of these playlists, and prepare to be more productive than you’ve ever been before. Or just kick back, relax, and feel like you’re floating away on a cloud.

The Legend of Zelda

For once, it’s safe to go alone, but these mellowed out melodies will are the missing Link in your current musical rotation.

These sweeping beats from Breath of the Wild are almost as satisfying as one-shotting a Guardian.

If Ocarina of Time is more your speed, then this Koji Kondo mix will transport you to an era where you’re calmer, more focused, and happier–no complex button inputs required.

Mario

Even Wario would calm the eff down after listening to this.

When you need something a little more up-tempo, this is the musical equivalent of grabbing a Super Star.

Final Fantasy

Maybe the single best opening to any of these mixes, but maybe I’m biased because I’m a diehard Final Fantasy VII fan.

Okay, maybe I’m just a sucker for the PlayStation startup noise. The first track on this is my eternal rainy day soundtrack.

Final Fantasy IX is unfairly slept on for some reason, but you should absolutely listen to this mix immediately.

Chrono Trigger

Time will fly by when you turn on this bad boy.

Is this just the same song for an hour straight? Yes. Is that a problem when it’s a straight-up banger like this? Hell no.

Kingdom Hearts

Disneyland and Disney World might be closed for the foreseeable future, but these tunes should fill you with hope.

52 minutes isn’t enough time to clearly explain the truly bonkers storyline of Kingdom Hearts, but it’s enough time to put a smile on your face after mainlining its killer tracks.

Pokemon

Whether you need to finally catalog everything in your Pokedex or veg out like Snorlax, this mix is super effective.

If you grew up playing Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum, then this mix has your name all over it.

This Johto region mix is like Rare Candy for your eardrums.

Animal Crossing

Dream up ways to overthrow that bell-hungry oligarch Tom Nook with this certifiably chill collection of Animal Crossing vibes

Silent Hill

Now, I know what you might be thinking, but trust me on this and just listen.

What is your favorite lo-fi/chillhop video game music mix? Share them in the comments below!

Featured Image: Nintendo

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post 16 Lo-Fi Video Game Mixes to Relax To appeared first on Nerdist.

In a world ravaged by the worst global pandemic of our lifetime, thousands are seeking solace in the escapism of Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Although many of us are forced to self-quarantine and stay at home to help flatten the curve of COVID-19 and prevent it from spreading, Animal Crossing: New Horizons offers players a way to leave the horrors of the real world behind as they build a life on a deserted island full of friendly faces, relaxing music, and endless customization options. But we’re not going to talk about those players; today we’re focusing on those inventive lunatics who are using Animal Crossing‘s robust customization options to turn their virtual islands into the stuff of nightmares.

As noted by our colleagues at Polygon, Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ wildly inventive playerbase are increasingly turning their idyllic island getaways into abbatoirs of terror. And no, I’m not just talking about the capitalist nightmare in which Tom Nook traps you with increasingly expensive loans. Here’s a peek at some of the haunting tableaus people are creating…

Meanwhile, some dedicated cinephiles are using Animal Crossing: New Horizons as their chance to reenact Robert Eggers’ terrifying seaside horror flick The Lighthouse.

Others are using the Animal Crossing pattern maker in order to recreate their favorite horror movie posters so they can add some spooky flair to their island homes. (Want to make your own designs? Here’s our handy guide!)

Whether they’re making nightmarish hellscapes or reenacting movie scenes, the Animal Crossing community’s bottomless well of creativity never fails to impress. Here’s hoping that this is just the tip of the iceberg as more and more players continue to show us what New Horizons is truly capable of creating.

This is what I imagine Junji Ito’s island looks like.

What’s your favorite horrifying Animal Crossing creation so far? What are you creating with Animal Crossing‘s pattern maker?  Let us know in the comments below.

—

Images: Nintendo

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post ANIMAL CROSSING Fans Turn NEW HORIZONS Into a Horror Movie appeared first on Nerdist.

…  Is there anything in the world so hotly contested as the Star Wars sequel trilogy? Neither politics nor religion seems to bring out the same level of passion and debate as the galaxy far, far away’s most recent entries do. It’s a deeply imperfect saga, but its biggest problem is that it can’t keep its mouth shut.

This inability to stop offering immediate, unnecessary answers to questions that will be answered in due time is perhaps the biggest problem in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and more specifically within The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker.

Now I know this is likely opening a can of brain worms, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about since 2015, so now that some of the dust has settled, The Rise of Skywalker is finally available on digital platforms, and we’re all trapped indoors, it’s the perfect time to get into it. That said, let’s keep it civil in the comments. You’re welcome to disagree, just don’t be a total wiener about it.

Much like the prequel trilogy, the sequel trilogy is a concept that sounds great on paper. It’s flawed in its execution though. There is plenty to like in both trilogies and plenty to make you raise a questioning eyebrow too. But there’s one important difference: mystery.

With the prequel trilogy, we know what comes afterward. We know what it is building up to and where it is ultimately going. With the Star Wars sequel trilogy, we had no earthly idea what The Force Awakens held in store and how it would continue to evolve in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. This is fitting considering that The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams is famously associated with a storytelling concept known as “the mystery box.”

First coined in Abrams’ 2007 TED Talk, the “mystery box” is basically the Schrödinger’s cat of storytelling. When the proverbial box is unopened, according to Abrams, “it represents infinite possibility. It represents hope. It represents potential.” And Abrams uses that mystery as “the catalyst for imagination.”

“Now it’s not the most ground-breaking idea,” Abrams continued. “But when I started to think that maybe there are times when mystery is more important than knowledge, I started getting interested in this.”

Look, it’s easy to crack jokes about shows like Lost, which was basically a Matryoshka doll of mystery boxes with fewer answers than some viewers may have wanted. However, the mystery box itself can be a compelling way to bring audiences further into your story.

Lucasfilm

Abrams even references the original 1977 Star Wars as an example. He refers to R2-D2 and C-3PO meeting this “mysterious woman,” who we now know is Princess Leia, as a mystery box. He goes on to mention Luke’s discovery of Leia’s holographic message and the enigmatic name “Obi-Wan Kenobi” as another example of the mystery box in action. Abrams’ most visible instance of the mystery box in The Force Awakens is Supreme Leader Snoke, the shadowy, craggy-faced puppet master behind the scenes. There are multiple instances in his Star Wars films of blowing the mystery box wide open to reveal a major piece of information.

However, the way in which the movie reveals these key pieces of information undercuts the revelations themselves. If they had not spilled these particular beans, the films would be much stronger for it. The first instance is perhaps the most grievous example:

No, not that Grievous. He’s perfect. I’m talking about the revelation that Kylo Ren is actually…dun dun dun…Ben Solo.

We discover that Kylo Ren, our most visible villain and our new Darth Vader proxy, is actually the son of Han and Leia about halfway through the movie. Han and Leia have two conversations about their boy who was tempted over to the dark side followed immediately by ham-fisted cuts to Kylo Ren, thereby eliminating any shadow of a doubt he is the wayward son to which they were alluding.

When Kylo Ren and Han Solo meet face-to-face for the first time in years on the catwalks of Starkiller Base, they share an emotionally charged moment. Kylo’s rejection of his past identity followed by the cold-blooded murder of his father is absolutely brutal. But it could be so much better.

Lucasfilm

In his TED Talk, Abrams said, “When people do sequels or rip off movies… they’re ripping off the wrong thing. You’re not supposed to rip off the shark or the monster. You know, if you rip something off — rip off the character. Rip off the stuff that matters.”

Despite its brand new diverse cast of characters and sleek new designs, The Force Awakens is, for better or for worse, a remake of A New Hope. A lonely hero from a desert planet yearns for adventure before embarking on The Hero’s Journey, Han Solo nearly dies because he owes gangsters money, a giant murder-orb superweapon—the list of similarities continues.

But imagine if they’d left this particular Star Wars mystery box closed until Kylo Ren and Han Solo have their fateful family reunion on Starkiller Base. Imagine if the first time you find out that Kylo Ren is actually Ben Solo is in this exchange:

“Take off this mask. You don’t need it.”

“What do you think you’ll see if I do?”

“The face of my son.”

Instantly, you have a revelation that feels shocking and satisfying instead of the knowledge that we’ve been sitting with for at least 30 minutes. It raises the emotional stakes of the moment. Plus it pays homage to one of the greatest reveals in cinema history—Darth Vader revealing that he is Luke’s father in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back-–while inverting the scene in a savvy way.

Instead, the fact that we’ve been thinking about the implications of the encounter for too long undercuts the potential pathos of the scene. It becomes blindingly clear that Han Solo is about to die the moment he steps onto that platform above yet another bottomless pit. Seriously, the First Order has an upsetting amount of OSHA violations.

Lucasfilm

Now you might be saying, “Sure, Dan, but anyone can play armchair quarterback after the fact.” And you’re right. I am nitpicking here, but the exact same thing happens with two more pivotal moments in The Rise of Skywalker so I’m not going to apologize. The first of these–and spoiler alert if you haven’t seen Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker yet–is Chewbacca’s apparent death at Rey’s hands after she shoots out Force lightning and obliterates the transport ship on which Chewie was presumably held captive.

Before we have any additional context, this moment is honestly incredible. It shows Rey, giving in to her anger, out of control and tapping into the dark side of the Force. It also is our first major tease of the film’s other big reveal, which I’ll get to in a minute.

The problem with the Chewie reveal isn’t that he miraculously survived; it’s that we find out he survived almost immediately afterwards. Neither Rey nor the audience gets to sit with these emotions and consider the consequences of her actions. The mystery box is torn open far too early, which hamstrings its effectiveness.

Lucasfilm

If you delay the revelation that Chewbacca is alive and well, albeit in captivity, until they infiltrate Kylo’s ship above Kijimi, then Chewie’s rescue isn’t so obviously telegraphed. The audience gets a much needed sigh of relief and it feels like an unexpected victory in the face of insurmountable odds.

And look—I’m not an idiot; I understand they can’t kill Chewbacca because that would make it super weird to see him walking around Galaxy’s Edge in Disney theme parks like a big, furry revenant. Still, you don’t have to immediately let us—and your heroes—off of the emotional hook. Keep us waiting longer before you open the mystery box like a greedy child on Christmas morning.

Last but not least is the most controversial mystery box of all: Rey’s origins. Since The Force Awakens, we have been wondering if Rey was actually the scion of one of the galaxy far far away’s most powerful families. Because legally, it seems like you have to be in order to matter in this story.

Lucasfilm

Rian Johnson tried to put his own twist on this mystery box in The Last Jedi. He had Kylo reveal that Rey was a “nobody.” This twist that effectively obliterated the idea that heroes in this world can only come from those Important Families™ we’ve met before.

Not everyone was on board with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but Rian Johnson made a bold choice to pay off the mystery box that had been gifted to him by J.J. Abrams and The Force Awakens. When The Rise of Skywalker rolled around, the filmmakers effectively took that box back, shook it up until its contents broke apart, then dumped it out on the floor to reshape it in a much different image.

While I wasn’t a fan of the big reveal that Rey is actually a Palpatine, I made my peace with it. What rankled me more is the fact that once again, they dropped this truly massive identificatory bombshell midway through the film. Once again, they should have saved this until Rey confronts Palpatine in his H.R. Giger-worthy final form on Exegol.

Lucasfilm

Kylo Ren can tell her, Palpatine can tell her, or even better, Rey can piece it together herself. She can acknowledge the strange kinship between herself and ol’ Sheev while still rejecting his legacy. There are so many more effective ways to do this without sacrificing mystery as a storytelling tool. Instead, we see the video game tooltip version of this revelation. It’s like Clippy, the Microsoft Word paperclip popped up to say, “You look like you’re trying to find your real parents. Would you like some help learning you’re a Palpatine?”

It strips the narrative of its power and makes the whole thing feel like an on-rails theme park ride. It should be a journey you’re taking along with the characters. If you really love the mystery box as much as you claim to, then for the love of god, let us sit with it unopened just a little bit longer.

If this sounds like I’m saltier than Crait over minute details, then you’re correct. But that’s because I genuinely love Star Wars and the galaxy far, far away. I want it to live up to those expectations. Your mileage may vary and you may not share any of these complaints. But what’s the point of fandom if not to get lost in the sauce of fictional worlds and get into it with your friends?

So tell me—do you agree with my assessment of Star Wars’ mystery box problem? Which Star Wars sequel trilogy movie is your favorite? What would you change about the sequels? Let me know in the comments below and give me a thumbs up while you’re there.

Featured Image: Lucasfilm

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post Op-Ed: STAR WARS Has a Mystery Box Problem appeared first on Nerdist.

John Wick is an international man of mystery, the MacGyver of murder, a lover of adorable animals, and by all accounts, he has led an incredibly sad life. But what if these gun fu-filled movies about an assassin taking his bloody revenge on those who wronged him were actually a larger allegory about the stages of grief?

According to a popular fan theory, the John Wick franchise isn’t just an excuse to watch Keanu Reeves as a dog-loving, reluctant hitman murdering dozens of evil goons; rather, each movie is actually themed after different stages of grief. First posited by redditor coces, the theory says that the John Wick franchise will ultimately consist of 5 movies and each of them will be tied to individual stages of grief. Before we get into that, let’s give some context to what these stages of grief actually are.

The five stages of grief, also known as the Kübler-Ross model, is a psychiatric framework designed to articulate, understand, and accept the complex series of emotions experienced by people who are facing death or have experienced the death of a loved one. Created by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying, the five stages of grief are as follows: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Denial: Those affected unable to accept what they’re being told as reality. “Surely there must be some mistake here.” There usually isn’t.

Anger: Once an individual realizes they can no longer deny the truth of the matter, they often get angry — at other people, the universe, themselves, anyone nearby.

Bargaining: A complicated stage in which an individual tries to find a way out of their situation through prayer or changing their lifestyle or something along those lines in an effort to kick the can down the road a little bit further.

Depression: Perhaps the most relatable and usually leads to feelings of total despair, ennui, and defeat as one comes to terms with their mortality or the loss of another.

Acceptance: The final and often the most challenging stage in which one either acknowledges and embraces their situation so they can move on with what remains of their life rather than spending it under a pall of sadness.

According to the theory, we have seen three of these stages of grief play out already over the course of the first three John Wick movies. The first film, John Wick, sees our hero reeling from the devastating loss of his wife. He is still in denial over the fact that she passed away and is unable to bring himself to get rid of her things. He is still holding on to hope that this must be some sort of cosmic mistake even while he’s hurting inside.

Quick side note: when I showed this movie to my fiance, and John Wick first got the puppy, she asked, “Oh my god! Are they going to solve crimes together?” I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

John Wick: Chapter 2 moves on to Anger as John Wick has now revealed to the wider world of assassins that he is back in the game after leaving a seriously messy calling card in the form of all of Viggo’s dead henchmen. Forced by Italian crime boss Santino D’Antonio to honor a blood oath, John must take out a target that he doesn’t want to kill. John finds himself embroiled in a world of brutality and betrayal. Ultimately, his anger gets the better of him and John murders Santino on the grounds of The Continental, the elegant hotel for underworld types where you definitely aren’t allowed to murder people, thereby jeopardizing his own safety and getting himself declared ex communicado.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum represents John’s shift from Anger to Bargaining. Bereft of resources and reeling from the consequences of his anger-fueled actions, he must try and make all sorts of desperate deals in an effort to stave off the inevitable. John literally makes a plea to a higher power when he treks across the desert to ask the High Table for a stay of execution. All I can say is if you’re experiencing this stage of grief, stay away from libraries.

So that leaves us with two movies and two stages of grief to go. The fourth John Wick film has already been announced for May 21, 2021, and if the theory holds true that means it will embrace the larger theme of Depression. Betrayed by Winston, on the run from the High Table, and now fully immersed in the life he tried to leave behind, this movie will likely see a sullen, resigned version of John Wick, who feels like he can never escape leading a life of death and destruction, so why bother trying to change it?

Lastly, and hopefully for the sake of our heartstrings, this theory requires an unannounced but likely fifth movie that ruminates on the idea of Acceptance. Whether this is, as the theory states, “John finally coming to terms with who he is/was and continuing as an assassin, dying, or taking his dog and car to go home for good,” it will complete the long, bloody emotional arc for John Wick and serve as a nice period at the end of this five-movie-long sentence.

But who are we kidding? This is Hollywood. There are going to be John Wick movies forever and ever until Keanu stops wanting to do them or they stop making money, neither of which sounds like it’s about to happen anytime soon.
That said, I love this theory because it lends a nice structural arc and colors the emotional throughline of the films in a really thought-provoking way. Because Baba Yaga should get to say Bye-Bye Yaga on his own terms, preferably with a cute little dog in tow.

What do you think? Do you buy this theory? What do you think will happen in John Wick 4? Let me know in the comments below.

Remember — not everything in life can be explained. For everything else, there’s this show.

Explainiac airs every Thursday. For past episodes about everything from WandaVision theories to deeply silly pop-culture deep dives, click here to explore our archive.

Images: Lionsgate

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Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post Are The JOHN WICK Movies Really About the 5 Stages of Grief? appeared first on Nerdist.

Roll for initiative, Stranger Things fans, and prepare yourselves because the highly anticipated fourth season of Netflix’s ode to the 1980s might be drawing inspiration from one of the most terrifying creatures in all of Dungeons & Dragons‘ storied history. Stranger Things 4 will take us from the suburbs of Hawkins, Indiana to the sub-zero temperatures of the snowy hinterlands of Kamchatka, Russia. We have already gone over the spoilerific teaser trailer with a fine-toothed comb and spun up a theory about which classic 1980s movie will serve as the fourth season’s inspiration, but now it’s time to turn our attention to the clues awaiting us in everyone’s favorite tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons.

Feast your eyes on the horrors ahead in a brand new episode of Explainiac…

…or read all about it right here in case you’re pretending like you’re paying attention in class or during yet another meeting that easily could have been an e-mail.

What do we know so far?

Admittedly, we don’t know an awful lot about Stranger Things 4 beyond the teaser trailer, titled “From Russia With Love,” which Netflix released on Valentine’s Day. With the sweet strains of “The Red Army is the Strongest,” the trailer proved rumors about Chief Hopper’s demise are greatly exaggerated. Our mustachioed small town supercop didn’t shuffle off this mortal coil; he’s been workin’ on the railroad all the live-long day (under the watchful eye of armed guards). He’s also sporting the gulag cosplay version of Eleven from Stranger Things season one. Somebody get this guy an Eggo–stat!

Nerdist News thoroughly analyzed every last detail in the trailer, and Michael Walsh expanded on that analysis with a theory about how Stranger Things 4 will draw inspiration from John Carpenter’s classic 1982 arctic horror movie, The Thing. Given this assumption, I found myself wondering which of the myriad monsters in Dungeons & Dragons’ storied history could fit into this archetype, as well as the lore that has already been established. There are plenty of shapeshifting monstrosities that could inspire this season of Stranger Things, like the Doppelganger, the Mimic, or even a Rakshasha casting Disguise Self…but something tells me we’re still a few seasons away from cat-people casting magic spells.

The answer, I believe, is within the pages of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, and in the spirit of Stranger Things, it fittingly enough came from the mind of a precocious child. The monster I’m talking about is a nightmarish, eldritch abomination with the name The Oblex.

A sticky situation

The Oblex was created by Nolan Whale, a boy who took part in the Make-a-Wish program by spending the day working with the designers of Dungeons & Dragons. At first glance, the Oblex looks like a giant, red gelatinous horror with dozens of slimy tentacles and screaming faces inside of its body, pressed against the viscous exterior.

The result of Mind Flayer experiments on oozes, the Oblex can, according to D&D designer Jeremy Crawford, “absorb the memories of other beings… and they can then create a duplicate of that person tethered to … this umbilical cord of ooze behind them”. But wait, it gets worse! “An adult or Elder Oblex can actually carry within itself basically the memories of a host of people and cause versions of those people to pop up.”

Crawford also explained that Nolan’s creation includes creatures like “Oblex Spawn”. These are the result of older Oblex “so filled up with people that essentially the memories sort of blorp out of the larger ooze and then start creating these smaller ones. It’s really some fabulous horror movie kind of stuff, these oozes that go around and steal people. It’s very kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers-esque, and then [they] can haunt communities with memories of these people in physical form.”

Sounds terrifying, right? Honestly, hats of to you, Nolan, for making my new favorite D&D monster. But how does this relate back to Stranger Things? Well, the key here is that these were created by Mind Flayers, D&D‘s malevolent, psychic, tentacle-mouthed terrors of the Underdark. In Stranger Things, the Mind Flayer is the massive, shadowy entity that rules over the Upside Down. It has a deep-seated hatred of Eleven and a penchant for mind control.

All work and no flay

Stranger Things season 3 veered a bit into this territory with the Mind Flayer slowly possessing different townsfolk and forcing them to do his bidding. But what if that was just the beginning? The Mind Flayer, absorbed so much biological and psychic data from these people–and countless other victims. What if it could start spawning full-fledged doppelgangers? Or send a shape-shifting agent like an Oblex to infiltrate and obliterate its enemies?

Its plan nearly worked in season 3; now we’re going beyond Hawkins to follow Chief Hopper’s adventures in Kamchatka, Russia. Could this gulag be turning into a goo-lag? Well, considering the Russians have a Demogorgon captive there, there’s certainly a connection to the Upside Down. Which means its likely only a matter of time until The Mind Flayer seeks alternate routes of accessing this plane of existence.

Having someone like Hopper could potentially draw the Mind Flayer to Kamchatka. He’s both fought the Mind Flayer and its cronies in the past and has a strong connection to Hawkins. He could cause the Mind Flayer to send its agents to wreak havoc. And honestly, as The Thing taught us, sending shape-shifting nightmares to menace increasingly paranoid people in polar conditions is a solid plan of attack.

Unless, of course, Chief Hopper gets his hands on a flamethrower. Which has to happen, right? I mean, how can you not want to see David Harbour wielding a flamethrower and going to town on the Upside Down’s equivalent of an Oblex? What’s he gonna do, punch it again?

Alas and alack, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens when Stranger Things 4 comes out presumably at some point this year. In the meantime, tell us — what do you think? What D&D-inspired monster do you think will menace our heroes this season? Let us know in the comments below.

Remember — not everything in life can be explained. For everything else, there’s this show.

Explainiac airs every Thursday. For past episodes about everything from WandaVision theories to deeply silly pop-culture deep dives, click here to explore our archive.

Images: Netflix, Wizards of the Coast

Editor’s note: This post contains links through which if you buy something, Nerdist may receive a small portion of the sale.

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Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post Is This D&D Monster STRANGER THINGS 4’s Villain? appeared first on Nerdist.

In an era dominated by unnecessary reboots, soulless sequels, and the relentless strip-mining of our youths to cash in on our collective nostalgia, one could be forgiven for having a cynical reaction to finding out yet another thing they love is having its corpse exhumed, gussied up, and prepared for a proverbial Weekend at Bernie’s. But when it comes to Final Fantasy VII Remake — Square Enix’s complete overhaul of one of the greatest role-playing games of all time, Final Fantasy VII — I only have one thing to say: Shut up and take my gil.

Final Fantasy VII is a deeply meaningful game for me. It was my first exposure to the world of role-playing games, a genre in which a terminally shy, lonely child growing up in the suburbs of Boston could lose himself. It was the reason I bought a PlayStation (shout out to Santa for being a real one in 1997). It also exposed me to a vast universe of thoughtful storytelling, immersive world-building, and high-stakes gambling on giant birds which I bred and raced for sport at a mountaintop casino. In short, it’s my favorite game of all time, and as such, I approached Final Fantasy VII Remake with a mixture of feverish excitement and deep-seated trepidation.

After spending four hours playing it at Square Enix’s offices at a recent press day, I am pleased to say it absolutely slaps. The orchestral swell during the opening cinematic gave me goosebumps and all my fears melted away. Even compared to the demo I played at E3, which was satisfying but slight, this is world’s better and delivers on the title’s promise.

What’s Old is New Again

Our demo begins in the familiar confines of Mako Reactor No. 1, which is a massive power plant owned by the nefarious Shinra Electric Power Company, one of the game’s main antagonists. They’re basically using it to frack the planet, extracting a substance known as the Lifestream and converting it into energy known as Mako. Taking control of the mysterious, sardonic, spiky-haired mercenary Cloud Strife, you join up with Avalanche, a band of eco-terrorists led by Barret Wallace, a towering beefcastle with a machine gun arm who has zero patience for Cloud’s aloof attitude. Their mission is to low the Mako Reactor to smithereens and hit Shinra where it hurts: their wallet.

As the game’s first mission, it’s a fairly on-rails experience meant to introduce you to many of the game’s core mechanics, including its completely redesigned combat system. Final Fantasy VII Remake features a markedly different combat system compared to the original. Basically, if you’ve played any modern action-RPG, you’ll feel right at home. You’ll have total freedom of movement in a three-dimensional space and you can hack, slash, dodge, and parry your way through hordes of enemies.

As you attack your enemies, you build up your active time battle gauge (or ATB if you’re nasty) which, in a throwback to the original Final Fantasy VII, allows you to essentially slow down time to issue advanced commands to your characters in “Tactical Mode.” From casting powerful magical spells to unleashing souped-up physical attacks, the abilities unlocked by building up your ATB gauge adds a shocking amount of depth to the combat experience.

This isn’t just a mindless hack-and-slash experience either; you’ll need to make ample use of dodging and parrying, and you must think critically about the best ways to defeat your enemies or else you’re going to wind up a human Jackson Pollock painting splattered against the Mako Reactor walls. Honestly, thanks to this new combat system, the Guard Scorpion boss felt menacing for the first time in nearly 20 years.

A Total Remakeover

Seeing Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s gorgeous graphics in motion is a deeply satisfying experience, but the extra horsepower provided by the PlayStation 4 allows Square Enix to create an even more immersive narrative experience. As I escaped on to the streets of Sector 8, the post-explosion chaos felt more tangible and more horrifying than ever before. Terrified civilians flooded the streets, nursing injuries, seeking solace in their neighbors, and trying to take shelter from the ongoing destruction all around the. What Avalanche had done was ostensibly for the greater good, but it also had a very real, very human cost that felt more immediate and more visceral than in the original.

But it’s not all doom and gloom; the graphics are a visual feast and they’re prompting all sorts of realizations that I never had when I was younger. For example, did you know how imposing the Shinra President and Heidegger were supposed to be? In the original, they looked like grade-A doofuses thanks to the game’s signature “super deformed” low-polygonal style. Now they feel like the true corporate autocrats that they are and I truly cannot wait to lay the smackdown on their conniving butts.

Speaking of the original, as I mentioned earlier this isn’t just a point-by-point remake of the 1997 game, and nowhere was that made more abundantly clear than in the Sector 5 Mako Reactor mission. This mission sees Cloud and Avalanche seeking to repeat their success by bombing yet another Mako Reactor, only to wind up caught in a deadly trap set by the sinister Shinra Company. In the original game, this reactor was a carbon copy of the first one you attacked, but this time around they have added tons of new areas, mechanics, and treasure for you to uncover.

For instance, before you do battle with the infamous Air Buster boss, you will encounter groups of Shinra guards and scientists, who drop keycards which can be inserted into various computer terminals to sabotage the Air Buster’s weapons systems. As you progress further and further into the dungeon, you’ll have more chances to disable various abilities to make your life easier in the impending boss fight. However, since there are way more weapons systems than there are keycards, you’ll have to choose wisely and live with the consequences. In my playthrough, I completely disabled the Air Buster’s magic attacks, only to leave it with truly horrifying movement speed.

There’s also a lockpicking minigame that made me want to throw my controller through my screen, but what RPG doesn’t have at least one of those? (I’m looking at you, Final Fantasy IX‘s jump rope and Final Fantasy X‘s lightning dodging…)

As a result, this reimagined experience feels fresh, exciting, and completely different than it used to despite hitting the same overall narrative beats. It rewards exploration in a unique way and opens up a world of possibilities for different play-styles. In particular, I’m fascinated by how the speedrunning community will try to optimize this particular boss fight, but that takes a level of galaxy brain gameplay that is far beyond me.

What I do know for sure is that Final Fantasy VII Remake was incredibly fun from start to finish. The worst part was when I had to stop playing for the day. Its gorgeous graphics, thoughtful gameplay innovations, and killer sci-fi storytelling make it an absolute must-play for both longtime fans and newcomers alike. Here’s hoping that the final product is as good as what I’ve played so far when it finally drops on April 10, 2020.

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Images: Square Enix

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post We Played 4 Hours of FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE (And It Rules) appeared first on Nerdist.

Are you exhausted on an existential level? Does this seemingly never-ending winter fill you with sadness? Has a medical professional told you your anime levels are dangerously low? If so, don’t worry, because these are the best anime guaranteed to turn that frown upside-down.

On today’s Explainiac, we’re going to showcase anime that will water your crops, clear your skin, and cure your depression. Well, maybe not all of those things, but these are definitely the best feel-good anime you can watch. If your favorite feel-good anime isn’t on this list, yes, it’s a personal attack and I’m sorry you had to find out this way.

A Place Further Than the Universe

If the cold weather is getting you down, simply watch this delightful anime about a group of high school girls who overcome all manner of adversity to join an Antarctic expedition. This relentlessly upbeat series has its fair share of emotional moments, but you’ll always come out the other side feeling better and filled with a sense of adventure, to boot. So make yourself a nice mug of hot chocolate and settle in for the best series that most people slept on. [Watch on Crunchyroll]

Haikyuu

If you’ve watched me talk about anime before, you know that I’m a sucker for any type of sports/competition series. There’s just something about the way anime handles intense sports moments–complete with protracted inner monologues as the game progresses in bullet time–that absolutely kicks ass and puts me in a great mood, and that goes double for the volleyball action of Haikyuu. “But Dan, a volleyball anime sounds dumb as hell,” you might be saying. Well, you’re wrong. Seeing how Shoyo Hinata and his teammates overcome crushing defeats, personal rivalries, and unexpected challenges is a wholesome, incredibly bingeable treat. Which is also how I feel about Extra Toasty Cheez-Its, minus the wholesome part. [Watch on Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Netflix]

K-On!

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

If you’re having a bad day, simply sit down on your couch, turn on an episode of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure–any episode really–and proceed to laugh your entire butt off as the musclebound mayhem unfolds before your very eyes. Whether you’re trying to decipher its preposterous musical references like Robert E.O. Speedwagon, losing your mind over the non-Euclidean geometry behind their signature poses, or cackling with glee because you were expecting something else, but it was Dio all along, Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure is a guaranteed serotonin spike. [Watch on Crunchyroll, Hulu, Viz]

Usagi Drop

How many times has this happened to you? Have you ever been a 30-year-old man with no direction in life who suddenly discovered after your grandfather passed away that he had another secret daughter? If so, you might be Daikichi Kawachi, the star of Usagi Drop. When no one in Daikichi’s family wants to look after Rin, the aforementioned secret daughter, Daikichi takes it upon himself to become Dadkichi. What follows is a genuinely heartwarming story of an unconventional family that perfectly captures all the little moments in life in a way that will leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. [Watch on Crunchyroll]

Yakitate Japan

If Food Wars is entirely too horny for you, then Yakitate Japan is exactly what the doctor ordered. This series is all about an aspiring young baker named Azuma with unnaturally hot hands. Again, not a sex thing. It’s some weird prophesied thing called the “Hands of the Sun.” Because anime. Anyway, Azuma takes “let’s get this bread” to a whole other level. He has had a lifelong obsession with bread and his dream is to create a unique Japanese bread that can stand up to iconic breads from around the world. So if you love carbs as much as I clearly do, this delightfully silly culinary comedy is a crust-see. [Watch on Crunchyroll]

Barakamon

That’s right, folks, a calligraphy anime! There really is an anime for everything. In this case, it follows the saga of Seishuu Handa, an arrogant, narcissistic young calligrapher who loses his temper so badly that his dad sends him to the countryside to cool off and examine his behavior. This slow-paced story of a young man coming to terms with himself and the simple joys of community is a breath of fresh air in a medium that can so often be frenetic, fast-paced, and frantic. Its expert balance of heart and humor makes this series about the unlikeliest of subjects a surefire way to put a smile on your face. [Watch on Funimation]

Aria: The Animation

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s anime. I’m sorry to literally any Italian person watching. Aria takes place in the far-flung future of the 24th century when mankind has colonized Mars, now known as Aqua. Set in the city of Neo Venezia, a recreation of Venice, Aria tells the story of a group of young women who work as gondola tour guides because, as I mentioned, this takes place in a recreation of Venice and they really committed to the bit. Anyway, if I had to describe this series in a word, it would be “peaceful.” Watching this legally counts as a mindfulness activity because its chill pace and the relaxing way it unfolds make for the perfect way to unwind after a stressful day. [Watch on Crunchyroll]

Nichijou (My Ordinary Life)

What are most slice-of-life anime missing? If you said “robotic caretakers” and “talking cats,” then I’ve got good news for you: Nichijou has all of those and more. This slapstick comedy series carries the Azumanga Daioh torch with its lighthearted, silly storytelling that follows the daily lives of a group of people in the town of Tokisadame. Relentlessly charming and laugh-out-loud funny, Nichijou’s madcap sensibility will banish the blues to another dimension. [Watch on Funimation]

Silver Spoon

Imagine if someone could bottle the unexpected zen of farming games like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon and channel it into an anime. That’s exactly what Silver Spoon does. Fullmetal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa’s follow-up series is pure bliss. It’s the story of a studious city-slicker who decides to enroll in an agricultural school, expecting a lighter academic workload. But in the countryside, he gets more than he bargained for and learns the value of hard work, natural living, coming to terms with anxiety about one’s future. Come for the fish out of water comedy, but stay for thoughtful life lessons and, of course, this adorable pig named Pork-Bowl. [Watch on Crunchyroll and HiDive]

And there you have it, folks: some of the very best feel-good anime that you can put into your eyeballs so you can cheer up and carpe the ever-loving heck out of that diem. Which is your favorite? What would be on your list? Let me know in the comments below.

Remember — not everything in life can be explained. For everything else, there’s this show.

Explainiac airs every Thursday. For past episodes about everything from WandaVision theories to deeply silly pop culture deep dives, click here to explore our archive.

—

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post The Best Anime To Watch When You’re Feeling Sad appeared first on Nerdist.

Don’t go smoking all your death sticks just yet, Star Wars fans. Rumors about the fate of the Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi series are less dire than originally reported, according to Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Ewan McGregor. Nerdist‘s Rosie Knight, along with a small group of press, spoke with the Birds of Prey star at the “Harleywood” media event on Thursday night. During a group interview, the star spoke at length about his upcoming turn as the villainous Black Mask in Cathy Yan’s Birds of Prey, he turned his attention to the galaxy far, far away when GameSpot‘s Michael Rougeau asked McGregor about the status of the long-awaited spin-off series, which was first announced last August at D23 Expo.

“Yeah, we just pushed the shoot to the beginning of next year,” McGregor revealed. “The scripts are really good. I saw 90% of the writing. There was all this bulls*** about [there] being creative differences and all that stuff. None of it true; they just pushed the dates.”

Rumors about whether the show was in peril began swirling last week but ultimately proved fruitless until a new report from Collider on Thursday afternoon said the series had been delayed indefinitely. However, as we all know, General Kenobi is reluctant to give up the high ground.

Lucasfilm

“Episode IX came out, everyone had more time to read the stuff that had been written, and they felt like they wanted to do more work on it, so they slid the shoot,” McGregor said. “Not nearly as dramatic as it sounds online.”

Thank goodness for that! Putting the series into developmental carbonite sounds awfully, dramatic. Production was supposed to begin this year, but now it has been moved back to 2021, according to McGregor.

“We’re shooting to film next year,” McGregor continued. “Starting shooting in January and I think they want to keep the same release date, so it’s not really gonna affect the viewer anyway. … It gives them more [time to] write, make the scripts even better, so that’s good.”

The series, which was originally intended to be a feature film directed by Stephen Daldry, has been in development for quite some time. According to The Hollywood Reporter, creative executives were concerned that the series’ current scripts, which are being written by Hossein Amini and directed by Deborah Chow, felt too similar to The Mandalorian and allegedly centered on Obi-Wan protecting young Luke (and maybe Leia) from falling into Imperial clutches.

They have also reportedly slashed the series’ episode order from six and reduced it to four while they search for a new writer to take over. Considering Chow’s episodes of The Mandalorian were series’ standouts, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I understand Disney and Lucasfilm not wanting to retread the same narrative ground.

Lucasfilm

After the critical thrashing of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and its lower-than-expected (but still really high) box office returns, it feels understandable why Disney might feel extra cautious about a series centering on such a high-profile character. Couple that with the troubled productions of Solo: A Star Wars Story and Rogue One, as well as the media circus surrounding the behind-the-scenes drama, and it makes sense why McGregor, Lucasfilm, and everyone involved would want to nip these rumors in the bud. No one wants another Star Wars: Underworld on their hands…

As for the future of Star Wars, the only thing that’s certain is we’ll be getting more of The Child—or the wee Baby Yoda, as the rest of the civilized world insists on calling him—in a second season of The Mandalorian, which will come to the Disney+ streaming service in fall 2020. Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige is reportedly developing a Star Wars film in addition to the previously announced Rian Johnson-made trilogy.

Additionally, Jojo Rabbit and Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi, fresh off his turns on The Mandalorian behind the camera as director and in front of the camera as IG-11, is allegedly being courted to direct a Star Wars film too. In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait with bated breath until we hear that oh-so-familiar “Hello there” coming out of our TV screens when McGregor finally reprises his role at long last.

Featured Image: Lucasfilm

Rosie Knight contributed to this report.

The post Ewan McGregor Gives OBI-WAN KENOBI Disney+ Series Update appeared first on Nerdist.

Expect the Marvel Cinematic Universe to get a whole lot weirder in 2021 with the release of Chloe Zhao’s Eternals. Based on the genuinely bonkers creations of Jack Kirby, the Eternals are a godlike race of cosmic beings who have secretly lived among us on Earth since time immemorial. On today’s episode of Explainiac, we delve deep into the oddball history of Marvel’s Eternals before the film hits theaters on November 6, 2020.

Directed by Chloe Zhao, Eternals stars a veritable murderer’s row of superstars: Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Kit Harington, Ma Dong-Seok, Kumail Nanjiani, Kumail Nanjiani’s twelve individual abs, and many more. It’s a film that Kevin Feige promised a screaming crowd at Brazil’s Comic Con Experience will “redefine and change” the MCU.

But the biggest question most Marvel fans have about the Eternals is the same one most of us had when Guardians of the Galaxy was first announced:

The Eternals are the weirdo brainchildren of Jack Kirby. Back in 1970, King Kirby left Marvel to go work at DC Comics where he created the New Gods and the Fourth World, a sprawling sci-fi saga about warring pantheons of gods, which coincidentally is also making its way to the big screen in the next few years.

Unfortunately, Kirby’s ambitious sci-fi series about all-powerful beings locked in never-ending war was canceled before he could finish it. So he did what any one of us would do: returned to Marvel to make a totally different ambitious sci-fi series about all-powerful beings locked in a never-ending war!

Dubbed The Eternals, the series, which was also ultimately canceled before Kirby could end it on his own terms, laid the groundwork for much subsequent Marvel Comics mythology. The Eternals #1 debuted in 1976 and took us into an archeological dig in the Andes Mountains where Kirby laid out the central conflict of the series.

Omnipotent, godlike beings in massive robot bodies known as the Celestials visited Earth millions of years before the dawn of mankind. You may remember them from Guardians of the Galaxy when we saw a Celestial use the Power Stone to wipe out an entire planet. But in Earth’s case, they decided to play a messed-up version of The Sims, performing some “cosmic chemistry” on apes to create “three powerful new species.”

The Deviants: These guys are basically horrifying monster-men who live underground. Evolutionary incels who create weapons of mass destruction and never ever moisturize.

The Humans: That’s us! Humans wound up basically trashing the joint through greed and violence, but that’s neither here nor there. We just suck and Jack Kirby knows it.

The Eternals: These, our ostensible heroes, are aloof, ageless beings with incredible powers who were regarded with equal parts “awe and fear” by the human societies who encountered them. The Celestials tasked them with defending the humans from the Deviants and then promptly peaced out to the stars.

As time went on, a rift formed between the Eternals with one faction, led by Uranos, believing they should rule over mankind, another, led by Kronos, believing they should not. Civil war erupted and led to Uranos’ defeat, prompting him to form his own civilization on Uranus and eventually Titan.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, when Kronos perished in an unfortunate cosmic energy accident, his sons Zuras and A’Lars formed a Uni-Mind–basically a mind meld that allows multiple Eternals to act as one being–to determine a new ruler. Zuras won out and A’Lar left Earth to avoid any future conflicts, settling down on the Eternals colony on Titan, which had been through the wringer, where he met a woman named Sui-San and basically repopulated the entire planet.

You may have heard of two of their offspring: Starfox (or Eros if you’re nasty) and Thanos. And no, not that Starfox, but yes that Thanos. Fun fact: Thanos is actually an Eternal with something known as Deviant Syndrome, which causes him to look like a Crossfit California Raisin instead of a conventionally hot godlike being. So there’s a neat little connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe right off the bat.

Back on Earth, the Eternals created the mighty cities of Olympia in the mountains of Greece, Polaria in the Siberian tundra, and Oceana in the Pacific Ocean. These Eternals on Earth form the basis of most modern human mythology in the Marvel Universe. They are revered and feared as gods, whereas the Deviants were largely responsible for tall tales of monsters, demons, and devils. The two groups would battle for many years before eventually settling on a mutual non-aggression pact until the Celestials returned. And return did they ever.

Our first introduction to this conflict comes through the eyes of Ike Harris, a weird-looking dude in a hat and sunglasses, who–surprise, surprise–turns out to be an Eternal named Ikaris. Played by Richard Madden in the movie, Ikaris possesses a wealth of powers including superhuman strength, flight, cosmic energy beams that shoot from his eyes, teleportation, and many more. Most useful of all, he possesses the power of exposition, which he displays again and again in the series’ first issues.

While aiding the archeologist Dr. Daniel Damian and his daughter Margo on an expedition in the Andes, Ikaris discovers a god chamber from the Incan Empire that could be used to summon the Celestials to Earth. This, of course, invokes the wrath of the Deviants, who send a devilish doofus named Kro to try and prevent the signal from going out. What follows is a brief fight scene in which Ikaris reveals his superpowers and is promptly defeated by a gun that launches a poncho at him. You know, because comics.

Ultimately, one of the mighty Celestials, Arishem, leader of the Fourth Host, lands on a giant pylon where he will stand for 50 years before rendering judgment on all of the Earth. Obviously this situation is what scientists call “not great,” so Ikaris must reunite with his fellow Eternals to help fend off Deviant incursions and figure out a way to spare humanity from the Celestial’s wrath.

To do so, Ikaris recruits Eternals like Sersi, Makkari and Thena to help save the day. Before the Celestials can deliver their judgement, the Deviants try to bomb their mothership, which would basically guarantee a “guilty as charged” obliteration verdict. Fortunately, our heroes manage to stop them before they can execute their dastardly plot and thus save the Earth.

While Chloe Zhao might pursue this avenue for her big screen adaptation, far likelier inspiration might come from Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr.’s 2006 Eternals mini-series. In this modern adaptation, the Eternals can no longer recall who they are. This collective amnesia is the result of mental manipulation by one of their own — Sprite, an Eternal who’s trapped in the body of an 11-year-old for all time. As the only one who remembers the Eternals’ true identities, Ikaris must once more help his friends remember who they are and prevent a newly awakened Dreaming Celestial from judging all of humanity before it’s too late.

As for the Eternals themselves, let me quickly run down who we’re going to be seeing on the big screen:

• Richard Madden is Ikaris
• Angelina Jolie is Thena, an immortal warrior who can create illusions
• Salma Hayek is Ajak, an Eternal capable of communicating with Celestials
• Gemma Chan is Sersi, a mythological enchantress with the power of molecular manipulation
• Don Lee is Gilgamesh, an outcast and perhaps the strongest eternal of them all
• Kumail Nanjiani is Kingo, the swordsman-turned-movie star
• Lauren Ridloff is the speedster Makkari; Lia McHugh is the puckish trickster Sprite
• Bryan Tyree Henry is Phastos, the engineer and weaponsmith of the Eternals
• Barry Keoghan is Druig, Ikaris’ flyin’, teleportin’ cousin.

As for Game of Thrones alum Kit Harington, well, he’s playing Dane Whitman, a.k.a. Black Knight, an armor-clad superhero wielding a mystical sword who is Sersi’s longtime love interest. Unfortunately for them, a man named Proctor, who was secretly another reality’s version of Dane Whitman, began trying to murder Sersi in every reality across the multiverse after getting rejected by the Sersi in his own dimension But that is a story for another episode.

We’ll just have to wait until November 6, 2020 to see for ourselves. But in the meantime, tell me — what Eternals story do you most want to see on the big screen? Which of the Eternals is your favorite? Let me know in the comments below.

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If you want even more Marvel goodness, check out past episodes of Explainiac right now wherever fine Nerdist content is streamed.

Remember — not everything in life can be explained. For everything else, there’s this show.

Images: Marvel

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

The post The History of Marvel’s ETERNALS Explained appeared first on Nerdist.

What if I told you that there was a live-action Star Wars TV series that had 50 episodes ready to go nearly a decade before The Mandalorian premiered on Disney+, but it was ultimately gobbled up by the Sarlacc pit of development hell? Chances are you’ve heard its name in hushed whispers on the Outer Rim of Star Wars fandom: Star Wars: Underworld. No Bothan spies need die to bring you this information though; simply digging through the archives and parsing through the sacred texts will let you uncover the story of the not-so-little Star Wars show that couldn’t.

Described as “Deadwood in space” and “Empire on steroids,” Star Wars: Underworld, as it has come to be known, was first announced by George Lucas at Star Wars Celebration III back in 2005. It was a prestige TV show trying to exist in a time before studios were willing to shell out the big bucks for the small screen.

After making The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in the ‘90s, Lucas became enamored once more with making television. Producer Rick McCallum teased that Lucas envisioned this new project being “somewhere like 100 hours between Episode III and Episode IV,” placing it in that 19-year period between the Prequel Trilogy and the Original Trilogy in which films like Rogue One and upcoming series like the Cassian Andor Disney+ series take place.

In a 2008 interview with Star Wars Insider, McCallum described Underworld as “a much darker, much more character-based thing. It’s not as plot driven [as the movies].” McCallum added that the series would be “about brand new characters, a group of people that we haven’t seen yet, except Boba Fett, who will be an instrumental part of it” and that “the series will also showcase other bounty hunters.” Sounding familiar?

Except this wasn’t going to be a story about Boba Fett learning the trials and travails of fatherhood as he looked after a sweet baby Yoda of his very own; it was said to set in the seedy underbelly of Coruscant, giving us insight into a world of criminals, outlaws, and operatives making their ill-gotten gains against a backdrop of a galaxy under the Imperial boot.

To bring this grimy galaxy far far away to life, Lucas and McCallum enlisted a murderer’s row of genre writers. They interviewed hundreds of writers from around the world before settling on a group including Battlestar Galactica’s Ronald D. Moore, Life on Mars’ Matthew Graham, and Doctor Who’s Chris Chibnall, as well as Fiona Seres, Tony McNamara, Terry Cafolla, Louise Fox, and Stephen Scaia.

Lucas and McCallum had grand plans to make 100 episodes, with the potential to expand to up to 400. To do so, their Rebel Alliance of writing talent would, according to Ronald D. Moore, “gather at Skywalker Ranch periodically, every couple of months and break stories and write scripts” alongside Lucas.

In classic George Lucas fashion, the 25 scripts he originally wanted soon ballooned into 50. “George wanted to create twenty-five scripts for a season,” Matthew Graham told Den of Geek in 2016. “And then he was enjoying the process so much that he wanted to carry on and do two seasons’ worth of scripts.”

Not all of these scripts were camera-ready, though. “Some of them were at first draft, some at third draft,” Graham continued. “Some needed a lot more work, some were in really good shape.” That was, perhaps, in part due to the fact that Lucas wanted an insane scope for this series.

According to Moore, “[Lucas’] mandate on the scripts were: ‘Think big. Don’t have any worries. We’ll make it. Budget is no object.’ So we wrote these gigantic pieces.”

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, roadblocks like the writer’s strike and ballooning episode budgets made actually making Underworld an impossibility. In 2010, Lucas told IGN that “We have a movie of the week and 50 hours written, all done, ready to go. It’s just that we can’t figure out a way of doing it for less than $50 million per episode.”

That is a significant leap from The Mandalorian’s reported budget of $12.5 to 15 million per episode.

Although the show purportedly focused on new characters, scripts included familiar faces like Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and more. Unused concepts and stories from Underworld like how Han met Chewie and how Lando lost the Millennium Falcon made their way into future Star Wars stories like Solo. Hell, Rogue One actually began as a pastiche of ideas from Underworld. Other ideas found their way into the ultimately canceled video game Star Wars 1313, which…pour out some blue milk on the curb for this incredible-looking game we will never get to play.

Perhaps the wildest example is how elements from Underworld made their way into 2018’s excellent God of War. In 2016, director Cory Barlog told VentureBeat:

“I was allowed to go up to the ranch and read the scripts for the [canceled live-action Star Wars] TV show. It was the most mind-blowing thing I’d ever experienced. I cared about the Emperor. They made the Emperor a sympathetic figure who was wronged by this fucking heartless woman. She’s this hardcore gangster, and she just totally destroyed him as a person. I almost cried while reading this.”

Maybe that lady gangster is Rey’s grandmother? Only time will tell.

Image credit: Lucasfilm/Disney

So while we may never get Star Wars Underworld as George Lucas originally envisioned it, thanks in no small part to Disney acquiring Lucasfilm in 2012, its ideas live on not only in the galaxy far, far away, but with a whole generation of creatives across a variety of disciplines. And if nothing else…at least we have Baby Yoda.

And that is a brief history of how George Lucas almost made The Mandalorian nearly a decade before The Mandalorian actually came out. But tell me — what do you think? What kind of live action Star Wars series do you most want to see? Let me know in the comments below and give me a thumbs up while you’re there.

—

If you want even more Star Wars goodness, check out past episodes of Explainiac right now wherever fine Nerdist content is streamed.

Remember — not everything in life can be explained. For everything else, there’s this show.

Images: Lucasfilm

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCasey).

Editor’s note: This post contains affiliate links. This means that when you purchase a product through a link on our website, we may earn an affiliate commission (at no extra cost to you), which is a great way to help support the content we create. Affiliate links do not factor into our editorial coverage, and any sponsored content will be labeled accordingly. 

The post The Secret History of STAR WARS: UNDERWORLD appeared first on Nerdist.

After playing The Last of Us Part II for three exhilarating, gripping, blood pressure-spiking hours, it’s safe to say that the highly anticipated sequel not only lives up to my astronomical expectations, but is well on its way to being a top contender for 2020’s game of the year.

That may seem like hyperbole, but if this early version of the game—which, as Sony announced on Tuesday, will officially come out on February 21, 2020—is anything like the finished product, then Naughty Dog has another masterpiece on their hands. It’s that damn good.

Inside of a giant warehouse in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighborhood, I went hands-on with an early build of the game that took us through two separate scenarios. Both left me feeling breathless, elated, and ravenous for more in two very different ways. Returning to the game’s post-apocalyptic world full of cordyceps-afflicted monsters, cruel strangers, and an inextinguishable yearning for survival was refreshing and comforting in its own deeply stressful way.

Sony/Naughty Dog

The world has changed

First announced in 2016 at Sony’s E3 press conference, The Last of Us Part II has the unenviable task of being the sequel to what is regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time. It’s not a challenge that Naughty Dog takes lightly, but the success of the original isn’t what inspired the team to make a sequel. They did so because they felt that had another story that needed to be told.

In 2013’s The Last of Us, you experienced the sordid saga of Joel (Troy Baker), a smuggler with a troubled past, and his teenage ward Ellie (Ashley Johnson) as they made their way across the burnt-out ruins of the United States. Navigating treacherous landscapes, surviving harsh conditions, and avoiding being rent asunder by monsters and murderous humans like, the survival horror game told a profoundly affecting story about love, compassion, and family in the face of certain doom.

The Last of Us Part II, however, is about something far darker: rage, vengeance, and our capacity for violence born from love.

“I want to talk about this idea of rage and anger and hate, and how close it can be actually to love,” said co-director Neil Druckmann during his opening remarks. “What happens if something bad happens to someone you love? A significant other, a family member, a best friend … How far would you go to make the people responsible for that [pay]? What are the costs of that? What are the costs of an eye for an eye?”

Something happens to Ellie that sends her down a path of violence, retribution, and ferocity from which there may be no returning. That something, which is alluded to in the trailers we have seen so far, is so horrible that it compels Ellie to leave the relative safety of her community behind to answer that primal urge within her.

Sony/Naughty Dog

The winter of their discontent

At the outset, at least, it appears that Ellie and Joel have managed to find a modicum of peace in a world blown to smithereens. Set 25 years after Infection Day, Ellie is now 19 years old and a part of the vibrant community of survivors in Jackson County, Colorado. Although she and Joel will always care about one another deeply, the two have drifted apart in the way that many teenagers do from their parents as they try to carve out an identity for themselves.

In many regards, Ellie is an average American teenager. She just wants to hang out with her friends and smoke weed, and maybe figure out what’s happening in the swirling eddy of hormones and emotions that is her love life. Unlike most average teenagers, Ellie has to go out on patrol for supplies and make sure the Infected (humans mutated into horrible monsters by the Cordyceps fungus) aren’t within striking distance of their colony.

This dichotomy was at the forefront of the narrative during our first demo, which took place on a routine patrol. Riding on horseback, Ellie and her friend Dina (Shannon Woodward) make small talk about their love lives, sneaking out after curfew to go sledding, and bits of gossip from around the community. There’s an underlying tension to the sequence, which takes place after the two share a kiss on the dance floor the night prior; seeing them not-so-nimbly dance around the elephant in the room will instantly take you back to your own hormonal high school days.

While their conversation plays out, the game slowly reacclimatizes you to its controls, which are as responsive and silky smooth as ever. Controlling Ellie is an intuitive experience as you run, crouch, and jump across the game’s expansive and fastidiously detailed environments. During quieter moments, it’s hard not to lose yourself in the game’s breathtaking landscape or in admiration of the way that snow sprays off of a tree branch if your horse brushes up against it. You’ll appreciate that aforementioned responsiveness though when you squeeze through a narrow opening in a wall in order to search for supplies only to find yourself face to face with the gnashing teeth of an Infected.

This sequence—largely intended to serve as an extended tutorial and get us up to speed—took Ellie and Dina through a supermarket on a search for supplies, and quickly turned into a life-or-death scenario when rotted floorboards collapsed beneath Ellie, sending her crashing down to a giant room full of Infected. Using stealth tactics and a revamped version of the game’s Listening mode, which allows you to see shadowy outlines of nearby enemies, Ellie and Dina must take out the Infected without being seen. First, they need to take out the Runners, who are weak but can swarm you if you’re not careful. Then they must surreptitiously avoid Clickers: blind but ferocious murdermonsters that can easily turn you into a fine red mist.

Sony/Naughty Dog

As you traverse the game’s environments, you’ll discover crafting supplies, which you can use to fashion items like health kits, silencers, molotov cocktails, and other goodies to aid you on your quest. You’ll also find little gear-shaped items, which you can use to upgrade and modify your weapons once you find an upgrade bench, and you will discover supplements, little pill-shaped items that you can spend to upgrade skills that will improve your stats and unlock new item recipes.

“We took the manual system and the supplement system and we kind of combined them into one,” co-director Kurt Margenau told Nerdist. “So the way you upgrade Ellie is through manuals, which are the branches of the tree, and you learn the skills with the supplements. Some of those things are recipes, so you can just never get certain recipes in the game [if you don’t collect the various manuals].”

For example, the player is able to craft stun bombs and if they manage to get enough supplements, they can upgrade their stun bombs to also release smoke, which will obfuscate their position and hide them from nearby enemies. As for whether or not it’s possible to unlock every recipe and skill in a single playthrough, Margenau was coy.

“We are very careful to balance that experience,” he said. “We do want people to make some decisions and tough choices in the game, so that’s kind of how it’s designed.”

The gameplay during this segment was quite satisfying, but not necessarily challenging as it was more about giving us a taste of the atmosphere and a sense of the relationship between Ellie and Dina. When the weather takes a turn for the inclement, the two seek refuge inside a bookstore, which the two discover has a greenhouse full of weed in its basement. After facing certain death, the two spark up a joint and finally start talking about the one thing they’ve been avoiding this entire time: their feelings for each other. It’s a sweet moment that serves as a thoughtful counterpoint to the horror they so narrowly escaped, but also a stern reminder that the worst is yet to come.

Wolves at the door

Sony/Naughty Dog

Taking place much later in the game—several hours into the experience, according to Druckmann—the second section of our demo took us to the mean, green streets of Seattle. On a mission to rescue her friend Tommy, Ellie must stalk her walk through the city streets to find where he’s being held captive. But with a new organization known as the Washington Liberation Front (or Wolves, for short) claiming the territory as their own, getting from point A to point B won’t be quite so simple.

To say that this segment was stressful is perhaps the understatement of the year. Although you are fully kitted out with an arsenal of weapons and more upgrades, the area is swarming with enemies, including a new type of Infected known as the Shambler, which spews noxious gas when you damage it and explodes into a poisonous cloud when it dies.

As I made my way through the city streets, squeezing through narrow gaps in the walls, clambering through windows, and crawling through the grass, I found myself surrounded by WLF soldiers. My heart was pounding so loud that it was practically all I could hear as I lay prone in the grass, hoping that a nearby patrol wouldn’t spot me. They passed without incident and I breathed a sigh of relief when suddenly a dog started barking. It was another soldier and his bloodhound had caught my scent. Entering into Listening mode, you can see your scent trail and are faced with a choice between getting away from the animal before it can sniff you out or creating a distraction to throw it off your trail.

Sony/Naughty Dog

The AI in this game is operating on another level, executing advanced tactics to flank the player, outwit you, and constantly keep you off balance. If you hide behind a nearby car, they will call out, “She’s behind the car!” One enemy will try to pin you down with suppressing fire while the others loop around and try to trap you in a pincer maneuver. And given how precious and scant ammunition and supplies can be in this game, you’ll constantly be asking yourself whether you should stay and fight or turn tail and run. Of course, as Neil Druckmann reminded us before we started our playthrough, “running away is a valid strategy.”

If you can’t evade your enemies though, Ellie has plenty of tools in her arsenal that allow you to create opportunities. Throwing items at incoming enemies stuns them, giving you a limited window to strike them and deal additional damage. Sneaking up on opponents will allow you to silently dispose of them or take them hostage and use them as human shields. And if all else fails, you can press the dedicated dodge button to try and evade incoming attacks and make yourself harder to shoot.

“The AI was such a big push this game,” Margenau said. “We started with Ellie. What makes Ellie different from Joel from the first game? And what mechanics, what things can she do that we want to give her the capability to do in this game? So you know, squeezing through things, [going prone] in grass, [crawling] under stuff, dodging, the agile nature, jumping—all things that are new and give you this big advantage. So to balance that the AI has to be so much smarter.”

The human cost

When I was discovered by the dog, I ran for my life, scrambling up the dilapidated staircase of a burnt-out house, jumping through a window, and taking cover behind a wall. Two WLF soldiers entered the room I had just left. Feeling cheeky, I popped up and shot one of them with an arrow, the shaft lodging itself deep in their head. They crumpled to the ground in a lifeless heap. It was just another enemy for me to take out. But then something happened that made my blood run cold, something I have never experienced in a video game before. The soldier’s friend yelled, “Oh my god! Omar! She killed him!”

She yelled his name.

That small little moment—giving a name to an otherwise unimportant NPC—had a profound impact on me. It gave weight to what I had just done. From their vantage point, I’m a cold-blooded murderer and I had just slaughtered someone they cared about.

Sony/Naughty Dog

“It’s like what would happen in real life? You just saw your friend get murdered, in your eyes, murdered by some random person,” Margenau explained. “For them, they’re just on a patrol, and they’re calling each other by name. They have assigned names in the game and they’ll sometimes call them out. They’ll have these different tactics. They’ll be patrolling together, checking in on each other. If you stealth kill one guy and they were in the middle of a conversation, he’ll notice that he’s not responding and go check it out. So you’ve got to be a lot more careful. They’re very clever.”

It’s yet another example of how complex programming and thoughtful storytelling intersect to create an endless string of unforgettable moments. Some elements of The Last of Us Part II‘s story are immutable, set in stone, and destined to happen as your progress through it, but the game operates as a perpetual motion device, generating these unforgettable “oh shit” moments. They can be little moments like discovering a note left by a grieving father, the chilling discovery that your actions have unconsidered consequences, or the adrenaline spike of dropping into a room full of skulking Infected. But they feel unique to your experience and they are ultimately what will make your playthrough of this game so special, leaving you champing at the bit to play even just a little bit more.

The Last of Us Part II comes to PlayStation 4 on February 21, 2020.

Images: Sony/Naughty Dog

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about the Avengers and Star Wars. Talk to him on Twitter about video games.

The post We Played 3 Hours of THE LAST OF US PART II appeared first on Nerdist.

Something tells me that this wasn’t one of the 14,000,605 realities that Doctor Strange saw. The Multiverse is about to get even wilder with the news that Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige will develop a Star Wars movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Feige’s journey to the galaxy far, far away is his first work outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe in quite some time, but considering Feige’s passion for Star Wars, much like Thanos, it feels inevitable.

Image: Marvel/Disney

Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn told THR in a statement:

“We are excited about the projects Kathy and the Lucasfilm team are working on, not only in terms of Star Wars but also Indiana Jones and reaching into other parts of the company including Children of Blood and Bone with Emma Watts and Fox. With the close of the Skywalker Saga, Kathy is pursuing a new era in Star Wars storytelling, and knowing what a die-hard fan Kevin is, it made sense for these two extraordinary producers to work on a Star Wars film together.”

Given that Feige has turned the Marvel Cinematic Universe into one of the most successful franchises of all time–and the fact that four of the top ten highest-grossing films of all time are his–it should come as no surprise that the House of Mouse is turning their attention to the only producer I know of with his own signature baseball cap collection. Some believe this is a prelude to Feige leaving Marvel Studios behind for a larger role within Lucasfilm, but it seems like they’re trying to use Feige’s impeccable track record and creative impulses to jump-start the Star Wars franchise for a new era as they leave the Skywalker Saga behind following the release of December’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Image: Lucasfilm/Disney

In addition to the Star Wars film that Feige is developing, The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is developing a trilogy of Star Wars movies and Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff are working on feature film projects set within the galaxy far, far away as well. Our next sojourn to the Star Wars universe will be on November 12 when Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, the first live-action Star Wars TV series, premieres on the upcoming Disney+ streaming service. Those series will be followed up by a Rogue One prequel series about Cassian Andor and K2-SO and an Obi-Wan Kenobi series starring Ewan McGregor.

We will continue to report on this story as it develops. In the meantime, let us know what kind of Star Wars movie you’d like to see from the mind of Kevin Feige in the comments below. My money is on Elan Sleazebaggano using his ill-gotten gains from slinging death sticks to finance war machines, which he ultimately comes to regret before using one of them to defend the galaxy over the course of 22 movies. Maybe it can even star Tom Holland. Only time will tell…

Featured Image: Gage Skidmore

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about the Avengers and Star Wars. Talk to him on Twitter about Bothan spies.

The post Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige Will Develop a STAR WARS Movie appeared first on Nerdist.

Your favorite new TV show is now your favorite new tabletop role-playing game. Say hello to the official Carnival Row RPG and assemble your friends because we’re making the game available to everyone for free.

Nerdist teamed up with Monte Cook Games, Legendary Television, and Amazon Studios to develop an original RPG set in the universe of Carnival Row, which you can watch right now on Amazon Prime. Based on Monte Cook Games’ Cypher System, this sourcebook will allow you to tell tales of magic, mystery, and murders most foul with original characters of your own design, as well as familiar faces from the series. The RPG is incredibly accessible to tabletop gamers of all skill levels and offers a wide array of ways to create compelling narratives set within the wildly imaginative universe of Carnival Row.d

You can download the game manual right now, but if you’d like to see how the Carnival Row RPG actually works, then you can watch this exclusive one-shot adventure run by series creator Travis Beacham. Starring Dan Casey, Erika Ishii, Aliza Pearl, and Amy Vorpahl as the characters they created in our amazing behind-the-scenes series Into Carnival Row, this raucous group of unlikely allies must race against time to recover a faerish relic before it falls into the wrong hands.

Download the entire sourcebook right here!
Full Sourcebook Download

The cast of Into Carnival Row

Jason Nguyen

Aliza Pearl as Mima Carmeline Brightraven

Jason Nguyen

Erika Ishii as Moonshadow Foxglove

Jason Nguyen

Dan Casey as Officer Tiberius Bottom

Jason Nguyen

Amy Vorpahl as Mabel Sullybottom

Jason Nguyen

Dirty dealings on Carnival Row

Jason Nguyen

Laugh it up, hotshots.

Jason Nguyen

They're not just winging it.

Jason Nguyen

The caretakers of Carnival Row

Jason Nguyen

A not-so-dynamic duo

Jason Nguyen

Written By
Travis Beacham

Additional Writing by
Eric C. Campbell

Designed by
Eric C. Campbell

Editor
Sam de Leve

Layout Artist
Javier P. Beltrán

Additional Design by
Sam de Leve

Creative Director
Jason Nguyen

Produced by
Erik Kozura & Katy Hampton

VP Business & Legal Affairs
Rachel Grundy

—

What kind of character would you want to play in a Carnival Row RPG? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out Carnival Row, the new series from Legendary TV and Amazon Video, available to watch now on Amazon Prime.

Editor’s Note: Nerdist is a subsidiary of Legendary Digital Networks

The post Download the Official CARNIVAL ROW RPG for Free appeared first on Nerdist.

Have you already binge-watched Carnival Row and find yourself yearning for more neo-Victorian murder mystery mayhem? Do you find yourself staring longingly out the window, wondering when the already-announced second season will arrive? Are you heaving deep, heavy sighs as you lament the fact that you’ve already read the prequel comics, so you’re currently out of Carnival Row adventures? Well, worry no more because your time in the Burgue is just beginning thanks to the official Carnival Row Tabletop RPG.

Download it here for free!

That’s right, folks: you can now create original characters that exist in the same universe as Rycroft “Philo” Philostrate, Vignette Stonemoss, and all of the other denizens of Carnival Row through a brand new tabletop role-playing game. The official Carnival Row Tabletop RPG is available for free right now, so start your very own adventures through the gritty underbelly of the Burgue.

While you’re spinning that up, settle in and watch a very special one-shot adventure run by Carnival Row creator Travis Beacham that puts the unique, canonical characters we created over the course of our five-part behind-the-scenes series Into Carnival Row into a bold new adventure that ties directly into the events of the show. Join the dirty lawman Constable Tiberius Bottom, fae priestess Mima Carmeline Brightraven, consternated faun nanny Mabel Sullybottom, and the shadowy assassin and Black Raven operative Moonshadow Foxglove as they attempt to recover a missing relic before time runs out and more bodies start piling up.

The cast of Into Carnival Row

Jason Nguyen

Aliza Pearl as Mima Carmeline Brightraven

Jason Nguyen

Erika Ishii as Moonshadow Foxglove

Jason Nguyen

Dan Casey as Officer Tiberius Bottom

Jason Nguyen

Amy Vorpahl as Mabel Sullybottom

Jason Nguyen

Dirty dealings on Carnival Row

Jason Nguyen

Laugh it up, hotshots.

Jason Nguyen

They're not just winging it.

Jason Nguyen

The caretakers of Carnival Row

Jason Nguyen

A not-so-dynamic duo

Jason Nguyen

Cast

Travis Beacham as Game Master

Dan Casey as Constable Tiberius Bottom

Aliza Pearl as Mima Carmeline Brightraven

Amy Vorpahl as Mabel Sullypond

Erika Ishii as Moonshadow Foxglove

Crew

Executive Producers Sonia Borris, Maureen Murphy, Jason Corey, Johnny Wickham, Jason Nguyen

Co-Directed & Produced by Jason Nguyen

Co-Directed by Jake Michels

Consulting Producer Eric Campbell

Produced by Erik Kozura

Director of Photography Connor Heck

Cam Op/1st AC Sean Goode

Cam Op Peter Murphy

Cam Op Joey Rassool

Gaffer Conor Soules

BBE Zach Trout

Key Grip Jake Reardon

BBG Tony Nall

Sound Mix Charles Mead

Key MUA Cici Andersen

Production Designer Nathan Owen

Set Dressers Leon Toro, Robert Wise, & Jenny Messer

Production Manager Katy Hampton

Key Set PA Dan Kleba

PA Jon Odate

Post Production Manager Matt Caron

Edited by Adam Scherer

Post Sound Mix Jon Odate

Graphics by Steven Gong

Assistant Editors Lucas Bessey

Titles and Thumbnails by Ken Nguyen

—

What kind of character would you want to play in a Carnival Row RPG? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out Carnival Row, the new series from Legendary TV and Amazon Video, available to watch now on Amazon Prime.

Editor’s Note: Nerdist is a subsidiary of Legendary Digital Networks

The post CARNIVAL ROW is Now a Tabletop RPG appeared first on Nerdist.

“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy,” wrote Alan Moore in the iconic Batman: The Killing Joke. “That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.”

Those words clearly weighed on filmmaker Todd Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver as they tackled one of the most seemingly Sisyphean tasks in modern superhero cinema: making an origin story about the Joker. Simply titled Joker, the film shows what happens when “one bad day” is actually “one bad lifetime,” and what happens when a world seemingly devoid of empathy pushes people too far.

Despite all my cynicism and trepidation, I am pleased to report that this movie is really, really good.

Set in the fictional Gotham City in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, Joker is a slick, heady pastiche of The King of Comedy, Network, Dog Day Afternoon, and 80 years of DC Comics stories distilled into a supremely stylish and affecting package. While I had my doubts about the movie after whatever it was Jared Leto did in Suicide Squad, Joker is a compelling character study that is propelled to greatness on the lithe, bony shoulders of Joaquin Phoenix, who delivers a powerhouse performance as the perpetually browbeaten wannabe comedian Arthur Fleck. (The fact that his name can be shortened to A. Fleck is just a hilarious bonus.)

What I did not expect was for Joker to be a shockingly relevant (oftentimes on-the-nose) rumination on privilege, wealth disparity, and mental health stigmatization that also gives a fresh twist one of the most unreliable narrators in modern fiction.

Joker follows the life and times of Arthur Fleck, a good-natured but emotionally stunted man who ekes out a living working as a clown to support himself and his ailing mother while he pursues his dream of being a stand-up comedian. Suffering from a neurological condition known as pseudobulbar affect, Arthur is prone to fits of uncontrollable laughter at inappropriate moments. It is a condition which, more often than not, gets Arthur into trouble, earns him scowls and sideways glances, and contributes to a crushing sense of loneliness that characterizes his life.

“The worst part about having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t,” Arthur scrawls in his notebook, which serves as both a social worker-mandated chronicle of his mental well-being and a process document for his stand-up act. Filling with manic scribblings, half-thoughts, and torn-out pictures of naked women, it feels like both a cry for help and the kind of cursed manifesto one might find in the wake of a tragedy.

The world of Joker’s Gotham City is a dilapidated, hostile place where uncomfortable proximity breeds friction, frayed nerves, and tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. Wracked by economic malaise, much like New York City leading up to the 1977 blackout, Gotham is a powder keg in search of a match. Every day the situation is exacerbated by wealth inequality and privilege—personified by Thomas Wayne (played to sneering perfection by Brett Cullen) and his Wall Street cronies—and the relentless scythe of politicians cutting funding for social services that the city’s economically disadvantaged rely upon for essential services. In Arthur’s case, it leaves him without the support structure of a social worker and no reliable means to get the medications that he desperately needs.

Arthur seems terminally unable to catch a break and the pervasive ugliness of Gotham City pushes him to his brink one night. When Arthur’s affliction leads to an unexpected altercation on a subway, that “one bad day” arrives at last and there is no turning back from it. Through a sudden, jarring, grisly act of violence, Arthur lights the proverbial match that sets Gotham ablaze and unlocks something inside of himself, which leads to his eventual metamorphosis into the titular Joker, a nickname given to him by an unexpected source. It’s like watching a Rube-Goldberg device powered by human misery slowly transform a lonely man into an unlikely symbol of chaos and resistance. While the newly christened Joker’s big Network moment approaches “We live in a society” meme territory at times, his message does have some merit to it: the world is in desperate need of some empathy.

Let there be no doubt about it: Joaquin Phoenix is throwing his hat in the ring for the title of “The Greatest Joker of All Time,” and he is a serious contender. With a uniquely unsettling physicality and a quiet intensity, Phoenix creates a portrait of a man desperate to belong, wracked with delusions and insecurities that keep his dreams perpetually out of arm’s reach. Phoenix’s work is made easier by an all-star cast for him to bounce off of, including Robert De Niro as the late-night talk show host Murray Franklin, Zazie Beetz as Arthur’s kindly neighbor Sophie, Frances Conroy as Arthur’s addled mother Penny, and Glenn Fleshler as a conniving coworker, just to name a few. Despite its muted color palette, Joker is a world full of colorful characters, many of whom will stick with you long after the credits roll.

With Joker, Todd Phillips has proven that he is much more than “The Hangover guy” and created one of the most unexpected and rewarding comic book movies since Logan. But simply calling Joker a “comic book movie” does it a disservice; it is a story that feels like it could be about any number of disaffected people who are marginalized by the ruthless world in which we live. If you aren’t convinced of the merits of universal healthcare after this, then you might just be a bad person.

While the film sometimes tells rather than shows, even going so far as to have Arthur plainly state its thesis at one point, the finished product is so satisfying that it feels like a minor quibble. If you don’t leave your preconceptions at the door for Joker, then the last laugh will truly be on you.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 

Images: Warner Bros.

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about the Avengers and Star Wars. Talk to him on Twitter about comics.

The post JOKER Is No Laughing Matter (Review) appeared first on Nerdist.

My fellow Americans, on this Independence Day, I want you to exercise your most important freedom: the freedom to stay indoors and watch anime all summer long. Without further ado, here’s the Explainiac Summer 2019 anime guide that will help you separate the wheat from the sick zebras to determine which new shows you need to see.

Editor’s note: This post will be updated as new information regarding streaming availability comes out

Vinland Saga

What is it?

If you’ve never watched History’s Vikings, congratulations…you played yourself. While that show is coming to an end, you can experience the next best thing in Vinland Saga, a.k.a. Vikings: The Anime. It tells the story of Thorfinn, the son of one of the greatest Viking warriors, who dedicates his life to seeking revenge on the man who killed his father. Like most quests, it also involves a battle for the crown of England. Unlike most quests, you don’t have to leave your couch to go on this one.

Where can I watch?

It will be simulcast weekly on Amazon Prime Video beginning on July 8.

Dr. Stone

What is it?

Easily the most anticipated new series of the summer, Dr. Stone is the anime prequel to the hit rom-com The Family Stone. Wait, I’m being told that is not correct. It’s about a teenager named Taiju who decides to tell his crush that he “likes her likes her,” only for all of humanity to get suddenly turned into stone. A few thousand years later, Taiju awakens, but his crush is still trapped in statue form. Now with the help of his friend Senku, they’re going to bring humanity back to life…with science. Anyway, do me a favor and go tweet @Sci_Phile to ask if statues can feel pain or something. Trust me — he loves it.

Where can I watch?

It will simulcast subtitled on Crunchyroll every Friday, starting July 5, and dubbed on Funimation.

Fire Force

What is it?

Fire Force is set in a world where everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Sort of. 200 years ago, the earth was engulfed in a sea of flames that basically torched the whole planet. To make matters worse, people now have the unfortunate tendency to spontaneously combust, turning into murderous flame monsters known as Infernals. Thankfully, there’s a badass group of firefighters known as the Fire Force who wield incredible abilities and…the power of prayer I guess to battle these creatures and a sinister force bent on conquering the world. Honestly, this all feels like a stealth ad campaign for vaping

Where can I watch?

It will simulcast subtitled on Crunchyroll beginning on July 4 and dubbed on Funimation on July 5.

Given

What is it?

I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in, to watching this sweet-looking musical romance anime. If you were a fan of Gravitation back in the day or you wished that A Star is Born was actually an anime instead of Hollywood Oscar-bait, then Given is for you. A young man named Ritsuka is feeling disenchanted with playing guitar…until he meets a guy named Mafuyu with a brokenaxe. Ritsuka decides to fix it for Mafuyu, which starts an unexpected friendship. But when Ritsuka hears Mafuyu sing…well, that stars something even more unexpected inside of him. Spoiler: it’s probably love.

Where can I watch?

TBD. News should be coming soon about where to stream the series.

Cop Craft

What is it? In short, it’s a fantasy twist on the buddy cop genre. He’s a take-no-prisoners detective with a cat allergy who will do anything to close a case. She’s a rookie knight from an alternate dimension with a sword as sharp as her wits, which is to say “very.” Together, they police the mean streets of San Teresa City, which lies at the juncture of two worlds, ours and the fairy and monster-filled universe of Leto Semaani. Will they get over their differences to put a stop to crime on these mean streets? The answer is probably not at first, but eventually yes after reaching a hard-earned respect for one another.

Where can I watch?

It will simulcast on Funimation beginning on July 8.

Are You Lost?

What is it?

Was your biggest complaint about Lost the fact that it didn’t follow a group of high school girls trying to make the most of their unexpectedly permanent island vacation? Well, then Are You Lost? is for you. It’s a deeply silly blend of slice-of-life comedy and a survival story, and it looks like it will have way fewer polar bears and complaints about its ending. If nothing else, it’s something to put on when it’s just too hot outside to think.

Where can I watch?

It will simulcast on Crunchyroll, beginning on July 2.

Astra Lost in Space

What is it?

With everyone from Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos trying to send mankind into outer space, it’s only a matter of time until Kanata no Astra becomes our reality. Set in 2061, during an age where commercial space travel is commonplace, the students of Caird High School find themselves on a field trip gone awry. Soon 9 students find themselves warped across the galaxy, stranded 5012 light-years from their homeworld. Will the old derelict spaceship they find get them home or will they find even bigger dangers than the badonk on Will Robinson’s robot? Only time will tell.

Where can I watch?

It will be available on Funimation beginning on July 3.

To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts

What is it?

Sorry, Ken Burns, but this ain’t the Civil War you’re used to. Set in the democratic nation of Patria, To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts takes place in the wake of a devastating war that pit brother against brother, north against south, man against monster. That last one isn’t an embellishment; the North used forbidden technology to defeat the South by transforming humans into monstrous soldiers with superhuman abilities known as Incarnates. Unfortunately, some of those Incarnates gave up their human side becoming murderous beings known as Beasts. Now with the war in their collective rear-view mirror, a beast hunter named Hank finds himself tracking down his former Incarnate squadmates, and to do so he must team up with a young woman named Schaal, who’s on the hunt for the people that murdered her Incarnate father. So, you know, basically the exact same Civil War we all learned about in history class.

Where can I watch it?

It will stream subtitled on Crunchyroll beginning on July 1

—

Which series are you most looking forward to? What would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments below and give me a thumbs up while you’re there.

New episodes of Explainiac air every Thursday!

Dan Casey is the creative director of Nerdist and the author of books about the Avengers and Star Wars. Talk to him on Twitter about anime.

The post The Best New Anime of Summer 2019 appeared first on Nerdist.

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are facing their most challenging foe yet: the capricious whims of gamers. Revealed at long last at this year’s E3, Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics’ Marvel’s Avengers was met with raised eyebrows galore thanks in part to its Marvel Cinematic Universe-lite aesthetic. But while kneejerk responses are the name of the game during E3 press conferences, that trailer only scratched the surface of what fans will experience when the game comes out next year.

During a behind-closed-doors demo at E3, I saw a much more in-depth look at how the game will actually play in context of the massive single-player story mode. The demo took us on a wild chase across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco as prelude to the events of A-Day, the ominous name given to a celebration of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes gone awry. While the level we saw them playing was admittedly more linear in nature than others that will be in the game, it gave us a taste of what each hero is capable of.

As Thor, you pack a major punch, using your thunder god powers and your mighty hammer Mjolnir to pummel your opponents. Playing as Iron Man gives you an incredible sense of agility and verticality that isn’t present in other heroes, and one particular segment reminded me of StarFox 64 in a good way. During Hulk’s time in the spotlight, he did what he does best: smash. If you want to feel raw power, Hulk is your guy, plain and simple. We also saw Black Widow tussling with Taskmaster, which required a combination of deploying gadgets, dexterous dodging, and expertly timed melee strikes in order to take down the evildoer with an eidetic memory. Last, but not least, Cap plays like the towering beefcastle that he is, absorbing blows like they’re nothing and hurling his shield like a pro snooker player banking shots from impossible angles.

To find out what we can look forward to from the final game, I sat down with lead producer Rose Hunt and lead designer Philippe Therien to chat about stylistic influences, fan response, and much more.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Nerdist: Tell me a little bit about how this project first came about, and how you decided to go with this iteration of the Avengers. 

Rose Hunt: Several years ago we wanted to work with new IP. We went looking like, “Hey, who wants a partnership?” And we got lucky that Marvel was looking for a studio at the same time. And it was really a marriage made in heaven, right? We’ve been collaborating for years on this. From the beginning, we wanted to create our own original story. That worked out with us, because we have characters that are both superheroic and grounded. We’re called on some of the best acting talent in the industry to do that for us.

Philippe Therien: We’re taking everything that we’ve learned from the Tomb Raider games, and we’ve added a lot of talents to studio because we really wanted to make this really cool hybrid game. With the Avengers, it’s such an amazing canvas because they are awesome as a team, but they can also be very strong by themselves. There’s really interesting stories to tell when they’re by themselves. And certainly you’ve seen that a little bit in the demo that we have today, which is one of our very directed linear levels. But you also have bigger, open-ended, co-op levels so you can play both. And what we call co-op, you can play by yourself as well. If you choose to play by yourself, concentrate on one hero or many, it’s your choice.

Nerdist: With something like this, it’s a more linear level experience. You’re in the thick of it, you’re running down this bridge as it’s being destroyed. Are a lot of the single-player levels similar to this?

Rose Hunt: This is one of our more cinematic moments. We call this one of our “Oh My Stars levels.” You’re doing these amazing thing in a cinematic experience. Not all of our campaign levels are going to be like this. Some are very much like our other Tomb Raider levels, where you get to explore and you get to branch out. There’s a lot of a traversal, and there’s a lot of singular game play there.

What you saw today is that the Avengers were unveiling a new location in San Francisco, and they have their very own helicarrier, equipped with a new technology. Then terrible things happen, and that helicarrier crashes into the bay with Captain America on board. We pick the story up five years later, and the Avengers have been blamed for that terrible tragedy. They’ve been disbanded and outlawed, but they have to be reassembled because is a great threat facing the world that only they can conquer.

Nerdist: In terms of comic book source material, did you folks look to storylines like Avengers Disassembled as reference points?

Philippe Therien: We have the benefit of fishing from 80 years of Marvel DNA, and collaborating with the amazing guys with Marvel. I would say that because we’re making our very own Avengers game, a lot of what you’re going to see is new, and it’ll feel very familiar. It might even reference things that are from the past. We’re that kind of game, where just like you love all things Marvel, small details. Sometimes they can mean really big things. So I encourage people to look at license plates, street signs, names of missions, people you talk to–you never know what you’re going to find.

Nerdist: This is definitely a more grounded version of the Avengers. What motivated the decision to pursue this sort of art style?

Philippe Therien: I think it’s a mix. We’re definitely good at doing very solid grounded experiences, but we wanted to have also something that has an amazing amount of spectacle. So when you have Thor rising up in the air, unleashing lightning, that’s extremely satisfying. To me it feels like what I’ve seen in the movies, which I’m super happy about. It’s grounded, but also it has that flashiness that you expect from the comics, which I think the movies got better at later on. We’re finding our own balance between those things and it should all feel exactly the way that people expect the characters to be. So that amount of spectacle that we have in the game is really so that when you’re playing the Avengers, they look exactly the way you’d expect them to. And that certainly requires a good amount of spectacle.

Rose Hunt: It was important to us in creating these characters, that people feel like they’re living out their superhero dreams, and they really get the sense of awe, I’m powerful. I’m the superhero.

Nerdist: Which character was the hardest to crack in terms of making them feel satisfying to play?

Philippe Therien: The challenge was all of them. Because fundamentally you’re looking at a set of characters where you’ve got humans with amazing abilities, you have Hulk, who’s apparently indestructible, and you’ve got gods. You put those people together and you go, “Well, how do you make an experience that fits together?” You could make a game for every single one of those characters, and you could do great by just doing that.

So there’s a couple of choices. One could have been to mathematically balance everybody, and just keep them in line. But that doesn’t feel like what you would expect. You want Hulk to take a lot more damage than everyone else, you want Iron Man to fly as long as you want. We made a game where the environments and enemies create situations where they have a chance to shine. There’s always a specific situation where somebody can do something amazing.

If you’ve got Iron Man flying in the air, he’s using repulsors, engaging flying enemies, Hulk is on the ground, just pounding everything into dust. He’s got everybody’s attention on them. Something goes wrong, Iron Man goes down, Hulk picks up this giant boulder, throws that at the flying enemies, brings them down. Iron Man starts to engage in melee. And that just created a scenario where, at a very specific point, this might have been us playing together. I might’ve said, “Hey, I need your help.” That’s how we make the heroes shine.

Black Widow can kick as much ass as Thor. She just does it in a different way. All the superheroes can wreck house. So Black Widow, she might avoid damage by being very agile. Hulk just takes a lot of damage. Because they have different superpowers and abilities, and skills and gear on top of that, you have this amazing ecosystem where the way you play a character just creates those moments where you’re going to go, “This is my time to shine.”

Nerdist: Are there plans for any stealth segments with a character like Black Widow?

Rose Hunt: Oh, we can’t go into that right now.

Nerdist: Okay. I can’t blame you for asking.

Philippe Therien: Well, I’ll tell you this much. There’s plenty of opportunities for Widow to use her very specific skill

Nerdist: How will the co-op experience compare to what we saw in the single-player demo?

Philippe Therien: Single-player tends to be very directed, so it very much focuses on either one, or many, of The Avengers, because there are specific points in the story where they need to be specific places. Now co-op is a little bit more open, so you’re going to have an objective, you have a mission to accomplish, you’ve picked your team, you’ve decided what you want to do, but then you have choice: Iron Man could be flying ahead exploring. Hulk could be engaging some enemies over here. The world breathes when you go into co-op.

You can also play that in single player, because just about everything in the game, you can play by yourself. We do have some more high-level content where in co-op you might need more players to complete those. I’m sure you’re familiar with those.

Nerdist: Is there any sort of plan in place for how regularly you’ll roll out new characters and post-release content?

Rose Hunt: We want to keep people engaged, so it’s going to be at a regular cadence. We’re not really talking about what the exact schedule is right now, but I think that people are going to be happy with it, it’s going to be pretty even.

Nerdist: Will these new characters be playable only in co-op or in single-player missions as well?

Philippe Therien: Just like the main game, it’s going to be a mix of both. What’s important to us is that the story keeps going. So when you have The Avengers together, and you’ve come to the logical conclusion that the original game has, we’re going to keep adding to that story. There’s going to be bigger threats that come out, more villains, things that challenge the Avengers. You might still have moments where we’re introducing the new superhero, but then you can go and hang out with the rest of The Avengers. So it’ll be a mix. I think people will be pretty excited.

Rose Hunt: Since we have this central base of operations, you can actually take these new characters, and you can go back and play some old levels you know.

Marvel’s Avengers comes to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Google Stadia on May 15, 2020.

Images: Square Enix/Crystal Dynamics

The post How MARVEL’S AVENGERS Will Gamify Earth’s Mightiest Heroes appeared first on Nerdist.

After seeing John Wick take down his opponents with everything from a pencil to a book to all manner of weaponry, it’s now your turn to step into his blood-slicked shoes. In John Wick Hex, the new strategy game from Bithell Games and Good Shepherd Entertainment, you will become the Baba Yaga as you maneuver John Wick through a variety of levels, neutralize your opponents, and make a series of tactical choices to ensure that our favorite dog person will live long enough to make another movie.

Serving as a prequel for the fan-favorite action-thriller movies, John Wick Hex gives you a surprisingly fluid system for executing stylish sequences of gun-fu action. As you move John Wick across a hexagonal grid (hence the name), you’ll constantly be bombarded with difficult choices to make. Do I take the shot or do I throw my weapon? Do I parry an incoming blow or push an enemy out of the way? Do I take time to bandage my wounds or drop to a crouching position to pop off a perfect headshot?

As you make these decisions, the world will come screeching to a halt, but in a good way. Time freezes as you give John his marching orders. But choose carefully because your actions, and those of your enemies, will be displayed at the top of the screen in a clever timeline mechanic which will be immediately familiar to anyone who has spent any amount of time editing video. You’ll constantly be weighing the risk of your actions relative to what your opponents are hoping to do to you. It all serves to allow you to weave a grand, murderous tapestry of death and destruction as you stitch together these actions like a director would create one of John Wick’s stunning action sequences.

To go deeper inside the weird, wonderful world of John Wick Hex, I sat down with director Mike Bithell (Thomas Was Alone) to discuss how he approached making our favorite assassin feel as delightfully dangerous as he is on the big screen.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Nerdist: What motivated the decision for the editing video timeline mechanic?

Mike Bithell: It was actually surprisingly late. Obviously, we’ve been working on this with the film studio, and the initial pitch I made to them was, “It’s X-COM, but because John Wick’s such a badass he doesn’t need a squad.” So, you have one character against [the world.] We made that prototype and it sucked. It was really bad because what was happening was, you take your turn, you move, and then you watch as five enemies did their thing and you spent most of the game just watching enemies do their thing in turns.

I wasn’t very comfortable with it. I was a bit worried about where it was going. We’re based in the UK, and we fly out to LA to demo this to Jason Constantine, who’s the executive producer of John Wick franchise across the board at Lionsgate. I demo to him and he’s like, “Mike, why is John Wick waiting his turn to do something? What the hell are you doing? This is ridiculous.” Honestly in that moment I was just like, “Well, it’s the genre, it’s the type of work.”

So I booted up my videos of X-COM, Mario + Rabbids, and he’s like, “No worries, man. You’re the game designer. Looks weird to me, but you do you. I respect you, I know your pedigree, blah, blah, blah. It’s all fine.”

And then I just spend an 11-hour flight home just like “I’m f***ed.”

Nerdist: Oh no!

Mike Bithell: I sat down with the team and we just kind of tried to work out what…we like about turn-based games. We like that it gives you time to make a decision, we like that you make strategic choices. How do you do that while also having that overlapping action stuff? Of being able to interrupt an enemy and then shoot their friend and move your way through. And how do you structure that and build that? The timeline thing just was a really nice solution to that. It’s a way of achieving what we needed: that strategic opportunity of thinking time, which results in something that looks more like a John Wick fight scene.

Nerdist: Do you expect people to fall into a rhythm as they play? Or is it kind of stop-and-start as you assess the scenario?

Mike Bithell: Genuinely, people get fast. When I’m demoing it, I’m really slow because I’m talking it through, or I’m distracted. But when I’m playing it… For me, it’s like a real-time game at this point. I intuitively know how long I’ve got, how it’s working. That’s not me showing off, by the way—I made it. So as you get better and better, it gets faster. What we found is that people kind of don’t remember it being stop-start. You’re going to remember it tomorrow as, “I did this, and I did that.” You know how you go temporarily blind every time you move your eyes? Because of the motion blurring, you’ll never see your eyes move. You’ve done that? When you look in the mirror, and you look at one eye and then you look at the other, and you never see them?

Nerdist: No, but I will after this!

Mike Bithell: When you go home, look in the mirror. Look at your left eye, then look at your right eye. You will not see your eyes move. And the reason for that is the motion block. You’d be constantly throwing up and falling over. Your brain constantly switches off your eyes every time your eyes move and you never notice it and you’re not even aware it’s happening. It’s not like every freeze frame, you’re going, “What’s up with my eyes?” Your brain just prevents you from that, because you don’t need it.

I think it’s similar with this, just because it’s got that flow to it. People just kind of fill in the gaps. They don’t really pay attention to how long they’ve been in the pause. And then, because it becomes more and more intuitive as you play it for longer, it just becomes almost real-time point.

Nerdist: What appealed to you about making a game in the world of John Wick?

Mike Bithell: I mean, I’m this fanboy. I think I’m like a lot of people; I didn’t see it until DVD. It was not a movie that I saw in cinema on first viewing. And then I became that guy in the group of friends who was introducing people to it and being like, “You gotta see this, man.” That nightclub scene, Jesus. I was showing it to people who had come back to my place after a night out. Weirdly, my father-in-law and his wife were staying with us—and this was before we were working on it—and he loves John Wick and she’d never seen it. He was like, “Let’s put that on,” and she’s like the sweetest lady. My partner and I were like, “She’s not gonna like this!”

Nerdist: She’s in for a surprise!

Mike Bithell: And I was like, “Dad’s about to f*** this up.” And, yeah, she hated it! But, I’ve always been into it. I was into it for two specific reasons, which were: the combat and the way that fight choreography’s done. Just respecting how they put that together that internal logic. When I started thinking about writing the game content…I get excited, ’cause yeah, that internal logic really works for that content. The other thing is that [it’s] kind of dark, almost like a vampire movie with no vampires. Kind of mysterious, conspiracy, fantasy stuff. I love that. I wanted to kind of play with that, and when they came to me to direct, I was just like, “Yeah, I would love to play with John Wick!”

Nerdist: I showed it to my girlfriend for the first time recently and I think right before Alfie Allen and his goons came in, she’s like “Oh my God, is he gonna solve crimes with the dog for the rest of the movie?” I was like, “You could say that…”

Mike Bithell: Oh no! Yeah, he’s gonna solve a crime involving the dog.

Nerdist: Hard to bite my tongue for that one.

Mike Bithell: Oh my God, yeah, there’s this audible kind of shriek when you show that moment to people. I love it.

Nerdist: How did you want to create your own John Wick moments in this? Or do you want the player to become the author of their own John Wick moments?

Mike Bithell: I wanted to give choice. That’s the thing—I think, look to movies and we try to break it down into verbs because with games, obviously, you do have to break it down. What are the verbs of John Wick? You shoot people, you move, you use different melee attacks on them, you push people. You do this, you do that. So, you try to break it down into verbs and then work out ways we could string that together. It was interesting, because you’re always trying to find a way to invent stuff.

We need to figure out like, if I do this then, then this, then this and that’s a badass strategy. And you see them emerging; with the people who play the game long enough, you start seeing specific tactics. They’re like, “I’m the guy who always clings to walls, so I’m covering corners in this group.” “I’m the guy who reloads my gun by throwing it at someone.” If you make the verbs interesting enough and you make them interrelated in an interesting way, then yeah, you get this emerging complexity, which is great.

Nerdist: Resource management is very important in John Wick Hex. You’re counting ammo, making tough choices about conservation of momentum or generation of it. What motived that as the driving factor of gameplay?

Mike Bithell: The movie. It’s a tempo thing. The reload is so important. It’s funny. It’s what a lot of collaboration gets at, [I got to work with director Chad Stahelski on it, and we were literally working on this in the room while he was cutting the movie. He was using me as an excuse to avoid finishing the movie. The stunt guy’s chatting to them. I trained with them a bit. Not well, I’m not physically equipped to be a serious martial artist, but I had fun with it. One of the things [stunt coordinator] Jojo [Eusebio] was really drilling into me is that the thing about martial arts choreography is there’s gotta be pauses. You can’t just have a flurry of things.

In traditional kung-fu movies, the pause is a moment when you cut to a close-up of them looking at each other or getting ready or whatever. In John Wick, that’s where the gun comes into it. So, if they’re devising a fight scene and they know that this guy has nothing to his hands for X amount of time, that’s where they put in a reload or where they put in a shoot. They build from the martial arts up. So, they start with that and then the gun becomes a piece to put into pauses. They build the rhythm around that.

It’s not composing music, it’s arranging music, and finding how those overlaps work. That’s also what we do in games. Everything in the game is designed to put you in a position where it might lead in five different directions. Reloading a gun takes a while, so you don’t do it in the middle of a gunfight. Doing a takedown makes you move, which might put you in a different position than when you started. So, it’s about always trying to mix it up, but to also hit a tempo and a rhythm. The guns are already a part of that. Picking up guns is also a part of that, and shooting. It’s all about trying to make that dance. Learning, looking at the movies, looking at how those events play out, and kind of reverse engineering how you build sets of rules and simulation and the kind of detail that leads the player to play in that way.

Nerdist: John Wick Hex makes me think of a game like Mario Maker, to a degree. You’ve created such a robust toolset here Are there any plans to have the potential for user-generated content down the line?

Mike Bithell: I don’t think we’re going to do that. But you know, maybe there will be ways to be expressive with this.

Nerdist: All I’m saying is this game looks like it has a lot of replay value.

Mike Bithell: It’s cool that you say that. It’s funny; the most complimentary thing that was said to me was [when] the stunt coordinator said to me—and he was half kidding, but he was like, “Can we get a god mode version of this and use it as a toy to start figuring out how we could schedule up a fight scene?” He’s like, “You’ve made a fight choreography toolkit.”

Nerdist: What’s one of the biggest takeaways you got from someone like Chad Stahelski that affected how you approached the design of the game?

Mike Bithell: I think the biggest one from Chad was his sense of geography. The first time I was showing them to him, we had a very rough test level we were using to kind of prototype it. Just a few office rooms and a big warehouse. The office rooms at the start were really fun and interesting, but then the massive warehouse was really boring because the game wasn’t fun with long distance firing. The night before I was meant to show it to Chad, I was like, “This isn’t good enough.” I was just filling the warehouse with boxes and things just to kind of breakup the space. Like columns and pillars and stuff.

Then I showed it to Chad and he was like, “That stuff at the start’s okay, but warehouse, its ridiculous. It doesn’t feel good at all.” I’m like, “Yeah, man, I’ll come back to this because we’re trying to simulate the game and simulate the movies. But something’s wrong, because it’s really, really small- and medium-sized spaces, but big spaces sucks.” And he’s like, “No, that’s how the film was. There’s no big spaces in the John Wick universe.”

They genuinely, when they were designing the geography of scenes, they used children’s maze books to work out winding through tight spaces. They’ll put things in spaces and block things off because John Wick‘s fight style only works in tight spaces. It was actually part of the logic, I think, behind why that fight style is the way it is, specifically because the first movie was made on such a tight budget. They had to use smaller sets. You couldn’t have John do Keanu Reeves’ Matrix s***. You had to keep things tight and have him move relatively slowly, in terms of his progression through big spaces.

But that tightness, that constraint, that’s why when you’re playing, there’s lots of corners and nooks and crannies. That’s a massive part of what makes a John Wick fight scene cool.

John Wick Hex does not yet have a release date, but you can bet your last mysterious gold coin that we’re going to be keeping an eye on it.

Images: Bithell Games/Good Shepherd Entertainment

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We came, we played, we yearned for the sweet release of death because we didn’t do enough cardio and vastly underestimated the size of the Los Angeles Convention Center. And now we have definitively chosen the best games of E3 2019.

Determined through a highly scientific formula and rigorous criteria, these are the games that left us thinking about them long after we parted ways with the show floor. Some of them you can play in the near future; some of them you can’t play for many, many months. But all of them are worthy of accolade.

As always, we have divided them into two categories: Editor’s Choice and Best in Show. Our Editor’s Choice seal of approval marks the most innovative, impressive, and genuinely fun titles we saw at E3. However, for that one game that rose above the competition to stand on its own, we have our Best in Show award. There were so many fantastic games on display at this year’s E3 that choosing was a deeply challenging, almost Sisyphean task. Yet we separated the wheat from the slightly less golden wheat to present the games you need to play.

Editor’s Choice

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Developer: Square Enix
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release date: March 3, 2020

The maelstrom of emotions swirling inside of me as I played Final Fantasy VII Remake on the E3 show floor is difficult to describe. As an introverted, lonely child growing up in suburban Massachusetts, I lost myself in the cyberpunk fantasia of Final Fantasy VII. It’s the way that I discovered role-playing games, but more importantly, it was the first time I understood the power of video games as a narrative tool.

Seeing it rebuilt from the ground up for a new generation of gamers filled me with earnest, irrepressible joy. Playing it was even better, as I rent enemies asunder with a well-timed swing of Cloud’s mighty Buster Sword or shredded them like Swiss cheese with Barret’s machine gun fire. By the end of the demo, which was a fairly on-rails experience meant to introduce players to the combat system, my face hurt because I had been smiling from ear to ear for its entire duration.

With a deeply satisfying combat system, drool-worthy graphics, and what sounds like an expanded story, Final Fantasy VII Remake is looking like it will be well worth the wait.

The Outer Worlds

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment:
Publisher: Private Division
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Release date: October 25, 2019

If you’re someone (like me) who correctly thinks that Fallout: New Vegas is the best game in the Fallout franchise, then buckle up, because The Outer Worlds is about to blow your mind. This sprawling single-player sci-fi RPG trades in the nuclear wastelands of America’s irradiated west coast for the corporate dystopia of planets on the outer rim of the galaxy. With a distinctly goofy sense of humor, lavish world-building, a seemingly limitless amount of player choice, and compelling combat mechanics, The Outer Worlds looks like the spiritual successor to New Vegas that I’ve always wanted, and the main reason I’ll be canceling plans this October.

Dying Light 2

Developer: Techland
Publisher: Techland Publishing
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Release date: TBD 2020

Easily the most stressful game I saw at E3 2019, Dying Light 2 was also one of the biggest and most pleasant surprises. The open-world, parkour-filled zombie apocalypse of Dying Light 2 takes what made the first game so addictive and raises the stakes in every conceivable way. Whether you’re barreling through abandoned buildings at a breakneck pace, hijacking a van full of murderous goons to infiltrate their fortress, or sparking up an ultraviolet flare to buy yourself precious time and repel a room full of Infected, every little moment in Dying Light 2 feels like it could be a tense, thrilling set piece in a big-budget zombie movie. And given how deeply player choice will affect the storytelling and the game map—to the point where you’ll only see approximately 50 percent of the game on your first play-through, according to a Techland representative in our live demo—it seems as though you will be the director and the star of your own horror film.

John Wick Hex

Developer: Bithell Games
Publisher: Good Shepherd Entertainment
Platform: Mac, PC
Release date: TBD

Have you ever wanted to become Baba Yaga himself? You can in John Wick Hex, an incredibly stylish strategy game that puts you in the bulletproof suit and dog-loving shoes of John Wick. Directed by Thomas Was Alone creator Mike Bithell, John Wick Hex is an elegant ballet of death, destruction, and devious design as you must maneuver the most feared assassin in all of pop culture to cut a swath through the bad guys and reach his final destination.

With John Wick Hex, Bithell Games has created sleek, fluid, and deeply original gameplay mechanics that allow you to weave a beautiful, murderous tapestry as you use your gun-fu to create adrenaline-pumping sequences of events that feel like they could be ripped straight from the big screen. And yes, that includes throwing your weapon to take out hired goons.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Developer: MachineGames
Publisher: Bethesda
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch
Release date: July 26, 2019

The only thing better than playing a video game where you can kill Nazis is a game where you can kill Nazis with a friend. Wolfenstein: Youngblood continues MachineGames’ proud tradition of making frenetic, addictive, delightfully bombastic first-person shooters that let you turn Nazis into loose piles of Campbell’s Chunky Tomato Soup.

This time around, you and a friend (or an AI if you want to play solo) take on the roles of series protagonist BJ Blazkowicz’s daughters, Jess and Soph, as you search for your missing father and riddle the Third Reich with bullets in Paris circa 1980. Expect plenty of secrets to unlock, classic co-op-style puzzles, and outrageous action as you run-and-gun or stealth your way through this tremendously fun game.

Watch Dogs Legion

Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Stadia
Release date: March 6, 2020

Any game that lets you take on the role of an elderly woman who just so happens to be a retired assassin is an instant-buy in my book, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg in Watch Dogs Legion. In the dystopian near-future London in which the game takes place, you will need to build a resistance army to hack the planet and take down the bad guys who are oppressing innocent Londoners.

Where Watch Dogs Legion blows my mind is in its new “Play as Anyone” gameplay system, which lets you quite literally recruit practically anyone you encounter in the game. Taking the “N” out of “NPC” makes the game feel like a truly open world and continues to push the envelope for the ambitious action-adventure series.

Plus, Clint Hocking is serving as the game’s creative director, which if you’re familiar with his resume, puts this immediately atop our list of most anticipated games coming in 2020. And that’s saying something given next year’s insane release schedule.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release date: September 20, 2019

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening isn’t just a remake of the 1993 classic; it has been completely rebuilt from the ground up for a new generation of gamers. The result is a beautiful, joyous, rapturously fun experience that breathes new life into the many mysteries of Koholint Island through a bright, sunny, aggressively cute new aesthetic. Whether you’re releasing a wave of nostalgia-fueled endorphins or experiencing it for the first time, Link’s Awakening is a nearly perfect game. I say “nearly perfect” because I can’t play the full version on my Switch right now. Now that would be perfect.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Developer: Respawn Entertainment
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Release date: November 15, 2019

If there is a purer joy in video gaming than using the Force to fling a stormtrooper from a catwalk as they Wilhelm-screaming to their doom, then I have yet to experience it. After witnessing the false start of Star Wars 1313, I have been aching for an addictive, action-adventure title set in the galaxy far, far away. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order delivers the goods with what feels like a delicious blend of Uncharted, Mass Effect, and Dark Souls.

Yes, I said “Dark Souls.” Because the combat system will require you to become a Jedi Master, learning the intricacies of lightsaber combat, and wielding the Force against all manner of fiendishly clever AI who want nothing more than to execute Order 66, and you in the process. If the rest of the game is as good as what I was able to play at this year’s E3, then we may have a new classic on our hands.

Borderlands 3

Developer: Gearbox
Publisher: 2K
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Release date: September 13, 2019

Inject this game directly into my veins. Borderlands 3 is bigger, brasher, and better than its predecessors. Expect more of the same high-intensity, chaotic looter-shooter action that you know and love, but amped up in every single way. With a robust cast of new characters, a mathematically implausible amount of new weapons to discover, and a scope that takes the action way beyond Pandora, Borderlands 3 is going to be the harbinger of death for my productivity this fall. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Best in Show

Cyberpunk 2077

Developer: CD Projekt Red
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Release date: April 16, 2020

There’s only one word you need to describe this game: “breathtaking.” But I’ll write a few more nonetheless.

Just when you thought the hype for Cyberpunk 2077 couldn’t get any higher, they go and add Keanu Reeves as legendary rockerboy Johnny Silverhand. The incredibly ambitious, sprawling world of Cyberpunk 2077 looks better and better with each new piece of gameplay we get to see.

Based on Mike Pondsmith’s seminal sci-fi tabletop RPG, Cyberpunk 2077 offers a world where it truly feels like you can do anything. If you want to go in guns blazing and use gang members as human shields to absorb turret fire, you can do that. If you want to hack someone’s neural implants and force them to pull the pin on their own grenades, you can do that. If you want to talk your way out of any situation and make it through the game without killing a single person, you can do that too.

It’s a world of endless possibility, all driven by you. I’m preemptively calling in sick for the last two weeks of April so I can immerse myself in the dynamic, dazzling world that CD Projekt Red has built from the ground up.

What would be on your personal Best of E3 list? Let us know in the comments below!

Images: Square Enix, Warner Bros. Interactive, Ubisoft, 2K

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In the final moments of Cyberpunk 2077‘s cinematic trailer during Microsoft’s E3 press conference, an angel appeared before us. Dog tags hanging loosely around his neck, a chrome army glistening in the sunlight, and a world-weary smolder looking past the player character V through the monitor, directly into our eyes. “Wake the f— up, Samurai,” the angel implored us. “We have a city to burn.”

But that wasn’t any angel; it was the Internet’s past, present, and future obsession Keanu Reeves, and he isn’t just playing a random character in CD Projekt Red’s highly anticipated follow-up to The Witcher 3. He is playing Johnny Silverhand, a patently ridiculous name that carries a long, storied history for anyone familiar with Mike Pondsmith’s seminal pen-and-paper role-playing game on which this video game is based.

Naturally, the first questions asked about Johnny Silverhand weren’t about his rock star status, his checkered past, or the whereabouts of his hacker girlfriend Alt Cunningham. People wanted to know one thing and one thing alone: Can we kiss Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077? The answer, as Nerdist has exclusively learned, is probably not.

At least, that’s what I was left to infer after speaking with Kasia Redesiuk, an art director working on Cyberpunk 2077. “Johnny Silverhand is a ghost,” Redesiuk said. “Can you kiss a ghost?” It’s a fair counter-question. After all, Johnny Silverhand no longer walks this mortal coil so your attempts at locking lips might lead to you falling flat on your face. “Johnny Silverhand is a digital ghost haunting our mind,” said a CD Projekt Red representative during a live gameplay demo.

When I pressed further, asking about the possibility of entering cyberspace to try and do some digital necking with Keanu, Redesiuk paused and said, “I think it would be be a spoiler.” And so she left it at that — a combination of pondering the metaphysical implications of smooching a spirit and not wanting to ruin the surprises contained within Cyberpunk 2077‘s twisting, turning narrative.

But don’t give up hope, horny video gamers: there are romance options in Cyberpunk 2077, and unlike in The Witcher 3, you won’t be limited by your protagonist’s canonical sexual orientation.

“In The Witcher 3, we were playing as Geralt. He is an established character, this guy who is hyper heterosexual. He was all about the ladies,” Redesiuk explained. “In Cyberpunk 2077, you are playing as V and you are creating V, so you’re free to do whatever you want. So if you want to play a gay V, you’re free to do so.”

But will that freedom of choice extend to how you create your character? Playing as a queer character isn’t just a mere role-playing choice for many gamers; it’s a way to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, to complete the identificatory fantasy that video games like Cyberpunk 2077 offer.

So what about players who identify as trans or non-binary? Will they be able to create a character with whatever gender expression they wish? Redesiuk’s answer was not entirely clear, but she seemed optimistic about what players can do with the game’s creation tools.

“We do have elements of characters that can be perceived as male and female,” she said. “For instance, hairstyles, voice, body. However, you can mix and match it however you want. So, you can create a character that will be the character that you want to play.”

This may come as a surprise to some, given CD Projekt Red’s history of making transphobic “jokes” in Cyberpunk 2077‘s marketing materials. This week, another red flag arose in the form of an in-game advertisement, which Redesiuk created in an attempt to create something subversive, but was decried online for sexualizing and fetishizing trans people in a negative way. These were not concerns that Redesiuk treated lightly or dismissed with a glib deflection, though.

“I think it is very important because it is important to other people,” Redesiuk said. “For many people, playing as a character that represents them is very, very important. We want to make them happy. In general, games are supposed to make people feel different things. This is the sort of medium that is very good for a narration to cause different emotions. This is part number one. Two, it is also the immersion. We want people to be immersed in the game to feel like they are actually there. Any kind of dysphoria would break it. So, we’re trying to accommodate it. Also, I think it’s just fun. Especially in the world of Cyberpunk, it’s 2077, it’s a world where people can swap out body parts. So in a society like this, being a person that has different aspects would be completely normal.”

Cyberpunk 2077 comes to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on April 16, 2020.

Images: CD Projekt Red

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If you’ve played a Gears of War game, you’re already familiar with the likes of Kait Diaz, J.D. Fenix, Marcus Fenix, and the rest of the Gears. But Gears 5 will introduce a brand new character into the mix when it launches this fall. Eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed this hulking soldier and recognized his dulcet tones during the game’s announcement trailer at E3 2018, but today Nerdist can exclusively reveal that the character of Fahz Chutani will be played by Rahul Kohli (iZombie).

Microsoft and Gears 5 developers The Coalition announced that Kohli joined the cast on stage at the E3 Coliseum on Tuesday morning. Kohli joins a star-studded cast including Laura Bailey as Kait Diaz, Liam McIntyre as JD Fenix, Eugene Byrd as Del Walker, and John DiMaggio as Marcus Fenix. Speaking exclusively with Kohli and The Coalition studio head Rod Fergusson, Nerdist has the inside scoop on who Fahz is, how he fits into the Gears 5 storyline, and what you should expect from the highly anticipated sequel.

While Fahz is a new addition to the franchise, he has a history with some of the other Gears. “He adds a new dynamic to the group,” Kohli said. “He isn’t the sweetest guy in the world and he shares a kind of checkered past with Del and JD, which you learn more about as the game goes on. But, yeah, he’s a bit of a dick in the most cool and fun way to play.”

Fergusson quipped, “It’s king of typecasting. We figured we didn’t want to stretch Rahul too far.”

This time around, though, Kait Diaz is front-and-center, continuing a narrative thread that began in Gears of War 4. But while Fahz knows the other members of the gang fairly well, this is the first time he has crossed paths with Kait, who seems to be increasingly paranoid that her allies are plotting against her.

“One of the things when we look back at Gears 4 [we felt like we wanted] is to have a little bit more tension within the group itself,” Fergusson explained. “And so when we came to Gears 5, we realized we wanted to have another character who’s a bit more of a foil and not just another buddy to get involved with.”

As the game unfolds, we’ll learn more about Fahz and his relationship with the likes of Marcus and JD. Through Fahz, Fergusson said, The Coalition was able to provide a unique insight into events that happened before Kait joined the team.

“He’s a sort of a nemesis in a way to JD,” Fergusson teased. “Fahz is sort of true to the [Coalition of Ordered Governments]. He’s one of those people, he’s a true believer, he likes the system. A lot of people look at the COG, the outsiders look at the COG as being a fascist organization where you potentially trade away your freedom for security and Fahz is totally fine with that. And I think it gives Fahz some freedom of power that I think he enjoys as being part of the COG.”

“He’s younger like the others, he didn’t live through the same events,” Fergusson elaborated. “He didn’t have the 75 years of Pendulum War and he didn’t have the 15 years of Locust War, so you have a soldier who’s looking for a fight. A lot of the times we talk about how when the war ended Marcus became a warrior without a war. I think this is the opposite, it’s what you see, just young soldiers who want to prove themselves and actually want the fight and that’s where Fahz is, he’s looking for a fight.”

As for Kohli, he wasn’t looking for a fight. He didn’t even realize he was about to audition for one of the most anticipated games of the year. While Kohli has been a staple of the CW’s iZombie for the past 5 years and spends much of his spare time playing video games, he hadn’t managed to merge his two passions until now.

“I didn’t even know it was an audition,” Kohli revealed. “I hadn’t done one before for voiceovers. It was like a five-minute walk from my apartment in Vancouver, which was cool. I got there and [they] gave me the sheets and a picture of Fahz, and it was a whole new experience for me like, ‘Oh this dude, what does he sound like?’ And then just sort of swing for the fences in the booth. You guys test my vocal cords with a few shouting lines…”

“Yeah, that’s Gears of War, right? You have to be able to yell,” Fergusson added. “We’ve had Minnie Driver, she put it on Twitter that we had to let her go because she couldn’t yell. It’s one of the things that’s not part of auditions; we have to get people to yell.”

What struck Kohli most about the process was how different it was compared to acting in the theater or on TV. “Obviously [in TV and theater] you get scripts, you’re able to piece together what’s going on fairly early on and plan your journey, but with the video game world it doesn’t necessarily work out like that,” Kohli explained. “The scripts are so huge you have to get the character nailed down quickly because the choices you make are happening in the booth real-time. Rod will take you through the scenarios that you’re in. You kind of just have to suspend yourself, be the character in the booth, know exactly where their head space is at, how their delivery would be and then just react within the situations that have been fed to you. And that was definitely a new experience, especially for me.”

“To have him come in and immediately make interesting choices, and he wasn’t just doing the same thing three times, he was experimenting creatively and he was giving different options to me,…It all clicked usably into place and so there really wasn’t anyone else in mind for Fahz,” Fergusson said. “Once Rahul read we knew we had found Fahz and we’re going to go forward.”

The toughest part for Kohli, by far, was the simple act of keeping this a secret until now.

“I am a big gamer. Before anything I was playing video games and I’ve always had the, in the back of my mind, that gaming could that be a destination for me in terms of performance,” Kohli explained. “And then I land Gears, which is like landing a fricking Avengers movie for your first movie. Do you know what I mean? It was like, ‘Holy crap, I’m in a AAA title straight away.’ And when the trailer went out last year, I got messaged so much about it. And then Rod will put up really cool artwork and stuff, I can’t like it, I won’t touch it, I won’t go near Rod’s account. I don’t go near the Gears account. So that’s been tricky, I’ve been waiting for this day.”

While Fahz won’t be a playable character in the game’s main campaign, he will be a playable character in multiplayer. “In fact, he’s a much beloved character on the team in multiplayer because of his lines,” Fergusson revealed.

Gears 5 launches with Xbox Game Pass on PC Xbox One on September 10. 

Images: Microsoft

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The Final Fantasy VII Remake presentation at Square Enix’s E3 press conference on Monday evening cleared my skin, cured my depression, watered my crops, and saved the Planet. It looks as good as that one guy thought Keanu Reeves did when he appeared like a glorious, handsome wraith at Microsoft’s conference on Sunday. But tonight was all about Final Fantasy VII Remake. The dynamic duo of director Tetsuya Nomura and producer Yoshinori Kitase took the stage to offer our most comprehensive look yet at one of the most anticipated video games of this year’s E3.

The scale and scope of this game honestly sounds insane. When the original came out in 1997, it encompassed a then-outrageous three discs. Final Fantasy VII Remake looks to push the bar even further.

“Remaking Final Fantasy VII has allowed us to dive much deeper in to the world and its characters than ever before,” said Kitase to the assembled crowd. “The game design was optimized for this title as well, and we anticipate two Blu-ray discs’ worth of gameplay content.”

Remember when it was announced that Final Fantasy VII Remake would be released episodically? It seems that is still the case, based on Kitase’s comments.

“The first game in this project expands on the story of Midgar, and is such an elaborate retelling that it’s become a standalone game in its own right.”

For a sense of just how good this remake looks, take a peek at this side-by-side of Aeris in 2019 versus Aeris in 1997:

Here’s a side-by-side for a look at just how damn good Final Fantasy VII Remake looks. #SquareEnixE3 #E3 #FF7R pic.twitter.com/qbAOEm2H1b

— Dan Casey (@DanCasey) June 11, 2019

The presentation also revealed new details about the game’s combat mode, which will be a mixture of Final Fantasy XV‘s real-time hacking-and-slashing and Final Fantasy VII‘s classic ATB (Active Time Battle) mode, which offered a more turn-based method of deciding how to best obliterate your opponents.

As you land basic attacks with Cloud’s sword, you slowly fill up an ATB gauge. When the gauge is completely full, you can activate ATB, which essentially freezes time, giving you a tactical view of the battlefield and letting you take your time to make a decision.

You will be able to switch between party members with the push of a button, and the gameplay presentation gave us a look at Barrett, Aeris, and Tifa in action. They will keep fighting and assisting you even if you aren’t actively controlling them, but when you use ATB, you can issue specific commands to them even if you’re not controlling your allies directly.

The combat designers have also included new innovations like the ability to take shelter from attacks behind cover. During a battle with a massive scorpion-shaped tank in the bowels of a Midgar power plant, Cloud and Barrett avoided getting incinerated by a nasty-looking laser attack by hiding behind some debris.

In a press release, Square Enix confirmed the voice cast:

• Cloud, voiced by Cody Christian (All American, Teen Wolf)
• Barret, voiced by John Eric Bentley (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Independence
• Day: Resurgence)
• Aerith, voiced by Briana White (Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, Occupants)
• Tifa, voiced by Britt Baron (GLOW)
• Jessie, voiced by Erica Lindbeck (Spider-Man, Persona 5, ThunderCats Roar)
• Biggs, voiced by Gideon Emery (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Teen Wolf)
• Wedge, voiced by Matt Jones (Breaking Bad)
• Sephiroth, voiced by Tyler Hoechlin (Supergirl)

In case you missed it, you can watch the complete presentation here:

The first part of Final Fantasy VII Remake comes out on March 3, 2020.

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Sorry Keanu Reeves, but gaming has a new greatest character: Helen, the retired assassin from Watch Dogs: Legion who goes from bird-feeding grandma to espionage expert in the blink of an eye. During their E3 press conference on Monday, Ubisoft revealed 11 minutes of gameplay showing off the third entry in Ubisoft’s open-world hacktion-adventure series, which takes you to the mean streets of London. Far and away, the crowd favorite was Helen, a seemingly sweet old lady who leaves her park bench behind to infiltrate a high-tech security facility, deploy combat drones, and take down guards with deadly accuracy.

Of course, Helen isn’t the only character you’ll be controlling in this near-future version of London, as you can see in the video above. You’ll be able to play as nearly any character you encounter through a new gameplay innovation known quite aptly as “Play As Anyone.” From getaway drivers to bare knuckle boxers to former MI5 agents and beyond, this new gameplay system will let you build a customized resistance army full of people with their own unique back stories, abilities, wants, and needs. And you’ll need their help considering this is a London where a corrupt private military organization, crime syndicates, and other bad actors are taking advantage of the collapsing government to oppress the innocent.

Considering that your recruits can permanently die, as we saw in the gameplay demo, you’ll want to consider how the consequences of your actions affect the world around you. Taking a violent approach to encounters will likely lead to a marked uptick in your team’s fatality rate, whereas trying to hack the planet non-violently will leave significantly fewer bodies in your wake. But the choice, it seems, is well and truly yours.

“Every cinematic in the game will change depending on whether you’re playing a former MI5 action hero or a granny feeding pigeons in the park,” creative director Clint Hocking said during the presentation. “Because being a hero isn’t just a job for someone else anymore. It’s a job for everyone.”

Watch Dogs: Legion comes to Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Stadia on March 6, 2020.

Want even more E3 goodness? Stay tuned to Nerdist all week long for all the latest updates, trailers, news, and more.

Images: Ubisoft

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Cue the victory fanfare. Final Fantasy VII Remake will release on March 3, 2020. Finally.

First announced at E3 2015, this fully reimagined version of one of the greatest video games of all time has long felt more like a delirious fantasy for diehard fans. On Sunday night during a special orchestral concert celebrating the music of Final Fantasy VII, Square Enix unveiled a brand new trailer for the long-simmering Final Fantasy VII Remake in advance of their keynote address on Monday evening. Showcasing a mixture of cinematic cutscenes and live gameplay largely taken from the game’s first mission to infiltrate and destroy a power plant in the bowels of the dystopian megalopolis of Midgar, the trailer ended with the sweetest sequence of numbers since Lost: 03/03/2020.

Now that Final Fantasy VII Remake is actually going to be a reality and not a cruel Truman Show-esque prank targeting me personally, one can expect to get a lot more information about the title at Square Enix’s press conference on Monday evening at 6PM PT. On Twitter, director Tetsuya Nomura said, “We will be making further announcements tomorrow, but for now, please have a look at the short version of the trailer we revealed today.” The trailer, which runs for a minute and change, reveals that the game’s original turn-based combat has been replace by a more modern, active style of combat that looks more in line with Final Fantasy XV‘s combat system. With stunning graphics, especially compared to the original’s notoriously goofy models, and fluid animation, Final Fantasy VII Remake is looking more and more like it was worth the wait. Barrett’s voice is still whack, though, but honestly we should have expected that given his dialogue in the 1997 original.

Not even Ruby Weapon could keep me away from this game. Stay tuned for even more details–as well as all the latest updates from this year’s E3–all week long, right here on Nerdist. In the meantime, I’m going to light a bunch of candles and start my summoning circle to will Final Fantasy Tactics Remake into existence.

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If you’ve felt like the world around us is slowly turning into a never-ending hellscape, then you’re not alone. But this November, you can actually do something about it in Doom Eternal, the sequel to 2016’s Doom (a series reboot for the venerable FPS), which takes the demon-slaying action from Mars to Earth as you once again assume the mantle of the iconic Doom Slayer (or Doom Guy if you’re nasty).

On Sunday night at Bethesda’s annual E3 press conference, audiences in Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium were treated to a bloody, brutal, and bone-crunching new story trailer that showcased all manner of new locations, weapons, and gory ways to turn the minions of Hell into a fine, red mist.

Seeing a demon being sawed in half with a chainsaw immediately sets the tone for what you can expect from id Software’s bloody first-person shooter. Honestly, I feel like I need a shower after that trailer; it’s the virtual equivalent of sitting in the front row at a Gallagher show.

First announced at Bethesda’s 2018 E3 press conference, Doom: Eternal comes to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows PC, and Nintendo Switch on November 22, 2019. It will also be coming to Google’s streaming game service Stadia after it launches this November. This time around, though, you won’t just be going to Earth; you’ll also be able to travel to Heaven and Hell, as well. Introducing angels to the BFG? Don’t mind if I do!

In addition to the story trailer, which you can view above, Doom: Eternal is getting a new multiplayer mode known as “Battlemode.” This competitive mode pits two players against one in a grueling battle of wits, wiles, and murderous strategy. One player takes on the role of the Slayer, while two players assume the role of various demons. What follows is a no-holds-barred fight to the finish as each side tries to outplay the other in a deadly duel.

Bethesda and id Software also announced that you can get a Doom Guy helmet of your very own if you purchase the swanky pre-order edition, so start saving up if you are in dire need of some demon-resistant headgear.

Want even more E3 updates? Stay tuned to Nerdist all week long for the latest trailers, hands-on impressions, and inside scoops on all your favorite video games.

Images: Bethesda

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After unveiling everything from a surprise George R.R. Martin-designed video game to literally Keanu Reeves, Microsoft raised the stakes on their annual E3 press conference by formally announcing the first details of Project Scarlett, the codename given to the next-gen Xbox console.

Set to hit stores in holiday 2020, this ultra-powerful console boasts an array of impressive technical jargon, including 8K compatibility, a custom-designed CPU running on an AMD chipset, lightning-quick solid-state hard drives, 120 FPS, advance ray-tracing abilities to render light, and much more. This next generation Xbox console is being developed by the same team behind the Xbox One X, the reigning heir to the title of “most powerful console on the market,” and will be optimized for “one thing only: gaming,” according to Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer.

Using a newly developed SSD, Project Scarlett claims to be 40 times more powerful than the current generation of Xbox consoles, according to a Microsoft spokesperson. More importantly, it will feature Halo Infinite as a launch title, hearkening back to one of the greatest console launch titles of all time, Halo: Combat Evolved way back in 2001. Developed by 343 Industries, Halo Infinite will pick up in the wake of the events of Halo 5: Guardians. In the trailer unveiled during the press conference, we see a familiar face, Master Chief, awaken from his slumber and immediately launch into a mission to presumably once again save the universe as we know it.

This announcement comes hot on the heels of Sony’s reveal of the PlayStation 5 in an interview with Wired. That console also includes a solid state drive and promises backwards compatibility, a feature that has been largely missing since the original chunky model of the PlayStation 3.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on both of these devices as the great console war of 2020 begins to heat up. For the latest updates on all things E3, make sure you stay tuned to Nerdist all week long.

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Sinister ethereal beings stalking the streets, a wistful Shiba Inu, and people seemingly being raptured during their midday commute are just a few of the eerie, disturbing things happening on the streets of Tokyo in Tango Gameworks’ newly announced GhostWire: Tokyo. 

Revealed during Bethesda’s E3 press conference on Sunday evening, GhostWire: Tokyo is a brand new action-adventure game from the studio founded by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami following his departure from Capcom in 2010. Best known for The Evil Within, Tango Gameworks’ new title seems to be a departure from its tried and tested survival horror formula.

Don’t worry, though — Tango isn’t completely leaving the creep factor behind. As creative director Ikumi Nakamura so eloquently put it, “It’s an action-adventure game, but spooky.” It’s a game that will have you constantly asking yourself if what you’re seeing is paranormal or normal, navigating the streets of Tokyo during an unexpected crisis.

“After strange disappearances hit Tokyo’s population, it’s up to you to uncover the source and purge the city of a strange, new evil,” according to a post on Bethesda’s website. “Armed with your own mysterious abilities, you will face down the occult, unravel conspiracy theories and experience urban legends like never before.”

Tango Gameworks’ previous games, 2014’s The Evil Within and its 2017 follow-up The Evil Within 2, have shown that Mikami and his team have a keen eye for worldbuilding, especially when that world is full of unexpected, supernatural dread. While the trailer doesn’t give much away, we’re crossing our fingers that it will deliver the same brand of supremely spooky mystery that we’ve come to expect from Mikami and his creative collaborators. Also, if they don’t let us pet this damn dog, I’m going to fight someone.

Tango has not yet commented on which systems GhostWire will be available, nor have they announced a release date. We’ll be busting out our Ouija boards to keep a close eye on this one though.

Want even more E3 updates? Stay tuned to Nerdist all week long for the latest trailers, hands-on impressions, and inside scoops on all your favorite video games.

Images: Bethesda/Tango Gameworks

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The Game of Thrones television series may have come to an end, but as part of his continuing efforts to do anything that isn’t finishing novels, George R.R. Martin is back with another fantasy world for you to emotionally invest yourself in to an unhealthy degree. Officially announced at Microsoft’s Xbox E3 press conference on Sunday, confirming leaks leading up to the event, Elden Ring is a new fantasy action video game developed by From Software and dreamed up by the dynamic duo of George R.R. Martin and Hidetaka Miyazaki (best know for the Dark Souls franchise).

The trailer aired during the press conference didn’t reveal any actual gameplay, but gave us a lot of moody high fantasy imagery of a tattooed man forging a mighty hammer, an armored warrior woman, and all manner of ominous talk about impending doom and the destruction of the titular Elden Ring. In other words, it sounds like a perfect union between Martin and Miyazaki’s sensibilities and has the makings of an amazing game.

Rumors about Elden Ring first began circulating in late May and the game was unfortunately one of a multitude of leaks that occurred in the days leading up to the big reveal at Sunday’s press conference as a result of a security flaw on publisher Bandai-Namco’s website. The game is purported to be From Software’s “largest game to date” and “a fantasy action-RPG adventure,” according to Polygon.

We have no shortage of questions in the meantime: will it be more satisfying than Game of Thrones’ final season? How many controllers will we break while playing this game? Is George R.R. Martin aware of how hard he is messing with us at this point or is this the fantasy author equivalent of Mr. Magoo? Only time will tell…

Elden Ring does not yet have a release date, but is confirmed to come to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Stay tuned to Nerdist all week long for the latest E3 updates.

Images: From Software

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