“The goal? To relocate humanity to another planet and avoid extinction.” Netflix has debuted a new official trailer for the weird sci-fi action film titled The Titan, starring Sam Worthington. Set in the near future, the plot is about a military program to develop superhumans called “Titans” to help us colonize Saturn’s moon Titan, but the side effects are deadly. Worthington plays a hot shot Air Force pilot who becomes the first successful Titan creation, but things start to go dangerously awry as time goes on. The full cast includes Taylor Schilling, Tom Wilkinson, Agyness Deyn, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Corey Johnson. This trailer is thankfully better than the first trailer, but this still just looks so frickin’ weird, and they don’t even show him in his fully finished alien form by the end. I don’t even know if I want to watch this? Does anyone? ›››
“I had no idea what to expect.” The Orchard has unveiled the official trailer for William Friedkin’s latest film, a documentary (of sorts) about a real life exorcism, titled The Devil and Father Amorth. Friedkin goes to film Father Gabriele Amortha as he performs his ninth exorcism on an Italian woman. This actually premiered at the Venice Film Festival last fall, perhaps just because it’s Friedkin and not because it’s really that good. The film is only 68 minutes long, and got dismal reviews out of the festivals, but if you’re into exorcisms you might as well check it out anyway. Robbie Collin’s Venice review in the Telegraph states: “The film is unquestionably a curio for converts rather than the meatier exploration it will leave many sceptics (including this one) hankering after, but it leaves you with plenty to chew on…” Well, there you go. ›››
“It sickens me to have to stand there and listen to your lies.” A24 has debuted the first official trailer for a true story political drama titled Backstabbing for Beginners, from Danish director Per Fly. The film is about a young, idealistic program coordinator at the United Nations, as played by Theo James (from the Divergent series), who stumbles upon a conspiracy involving Iraq’s oil reserves. Ben Kingsley stars as his boss, and the cast includes Jacqueline Bisset, Christina Dupre, Rossif Sutherland, Belçim Bilgin, Rachel Wilson, and Brian Markinson. This looks like a very compelling political thriller about a kid just trying to do what’s right. And, as A24 says in their email, it’s a very “timely” film for us to watch these days. ›››
It’s been a good few weeks of sales for PlayStation 4 players, with major deals to be had on both sides of the Atlantic. If you’re hoping to snag some new games at a discount, though, you’ll have to act fast; the EU PSN sale, Only on PlayStation, ends tomorrow, while The Great Indoors US sale has now entered its final week.
The Only on PlayStation sale offers some great deals on some of the best PS4 exclusives, like Horizon Zero Dawn (£16 / €20), its Complete Edition (£25 / €30), and expansion The Frozen Wilds (£10 / €13). The remastered version of The Last of Us is over half-off at £16 / €20, while Gran Turismo Sport is on sale for £30 / €35 and its Deluxe Edition is (£40 / €45). You can check out the full sale here until it ends on March 21 at 8:59PM GMT.
The Great Indoors sale ends March 27 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET. You can get a full look at The Great Indoors sale on the PlayStation Store, including deals on many PS3, PS Vita, and PS VR games as well.
It’s release day for Sea of Thieves. Although it had a gradual rollout in various markets around the world, it’s now available everywhere, and many players are reporting issues getting online to play on Xbox One and PC, among other problems. Rare has acknowledged the troubles and says it’s working to resolve them.
One of the more common problems is an error code called CinnamonBeard. This can pop up when trying to log in and will not let you get online, thereby rendering the game unplayable (or preventing you from joining a group). This was something we also saw during pre-release tests at times, and Rare confirmed it “indicates server capacity issues.” In other words, the game’s servers can’t keep up with demand as too many people are trying to get online.
A support page for the game indicates that your best bet when presented with the CinnamonBeard or BronzeBeard error codes is to quit out of the game completely and relaunch it. That’s not guaranteed to resolve the problem, but it is nonetheless worth a try. [Update: Rare has said that it’s “temporarily suspending new players joining the game” in order to address the ongoing issues. There’s no word on when new people can get online, but that’s the reason you may see the error screen below.]
“We’ve got A LOT of eager pirates playing Sea of Thieves right now and due to this some of you may experience issues,” the official Twitter account said today. “Our engineers are working hard to investigate and alleviate them.” This was followed by a subsequent tweet stating, “We’re still hard at work working on issues affecting players trying to connect to the game as a top priority. We’ll provide updates when we have them!”
Separately, Rare has confirmed that some players are loading into the game and finding they have no items, gold, or clothing, or that they aren’t receiving gold/reputation rewards after finishing a quest. The developer said it’s working on this, though there is a workaround that or may or may not work. “Currently the only method of resolving this issue is to exit to main menu & matchmake back into the game. In extreme cases this may need to be done multiple times,” a support page states. “The gold and reputation rewards should merely be delayed (can take a while to come through).”
Another, lesser issue of note is a missing pre-order bonus for the Black Dogs pack. In a tweet, Rare said that if you pre-ordered after January 26, the DLC won’t be automatically granted to you. Instead, it will be sent through an Xbox Live message that should arrive “soon.”
As promised, the latest addition to Overwatch‘s roster of heroes has now arrived. Brigitte, the newest Support character, is now available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One as part of Blizzard’s next update for the game. In addition to her, there are also some other changes and fixes made, as outlined in the patch notes.
Before Brigitte’s reveal, game director Jeff Kaplan had described the new character as someone who was “very needed.” She carries the Rocket Flail, which she swings in an arc in front of her and can hit multiple enemies. She can heal nearby allies over time (as she deals damage) and knock back distant enemies, and she carries a shield that protects her and teammates located behind her. Brigitte also has a charge ability that can stun enemies, and her Ultimate–Rally–allows her to move faster and provide armor to her nearby allies.
In short, Brigitte is essentially a mixture of Reinhardt and Torbjorn (her father) with the ability to heal. She’s been available on the PTR in recent weeks but will now get into the hands of everyone for the first time. She launches with a variety of alternate looks; you can see all the Brigitte skins in our gallery.
The other big change in this update involves Sombra, who’s being nerfed. As recently announced, Blizzard is addressing frustrations with her by putting Hack on a two-second cooldown when it’s interrupted by damage. Additionally, the game should now deal with her line-of-sight being broken while casting Hack.
“We’re also removing the 0.1 second window of time during a hack where it couldn’t be canceled via line of sight or with other abilities including Tracer’s Recall and Zarya’s Particle Barrier, which was originally put in place so the hack wouldn’t be interrupted by small objects such as light posts. We’ve implemented a separate fix for that issue, so she should still be unaffected by those small objects.”
The free update is out now on all platforms. Aside from what’s outlined above, Blizzard primarily makes a round of bug fixes, although one small feature is that the team info screen will show how close teammates are to having their Ultimate. The full patch notes can be seen on Blizzard’s website.
Welcome to Steam Punks, the show where we take blind chances on new Steam games that look promising, and give you our personal recommendations on whether they’re actually worth spending money on!
PC gamers know that there are dozens of new games that come out on Steam each week, and aside from the big, obvious releases, it’s hard to tell if something that looks promising really delivers the goods. We take that risk to help you find that great, hidden gem that might’ve flown under the radar.
This week, we take a look at Ghost of a Tale, a gorgeous-looking stealth game with a cute mouse for a protagonist (maybe he’s related to Moss?), as well as The Council, a game that does some seriously new and impressive things with adventure game mechanics.
Then we go back to the 1990s with Amid Evil, an early-access, dark fantasy FPS with a focus on speed and cool weapons. We also dive into Echoplex, an incredibly slick and unsettling first-person puzzle game with an intriguing, live-action mystery to go with its challenging puzzles.
Have you been playing any fantastic new PC games that we missed? Let us know on Twitter: @EdmondTran + @JessMcDonell
The massively popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is now available on mobile. Following a round of beta tests in Canada, PUBG Corp. has rolled out the mobile version of PUBG in “many” regions around the world, including the US.
Described as a “faithful adaptation” of the PC game, PUBG Mobile features the same last-man-standing gameplay experience that helped propel the title to become the third best-selling game in Steam history. Like the PC and Xbox One versions, PUBG Mobile pits 100 players against each other on an increasingly shrinking map, with the object being to outlast all the other players.
The mobile version of PUBG was developed in collaboration with mobile gaming giant Tencent. “We are working hard to create an authentic PUBG mobile experience that players new and old will love,” said Chen Jerry, Tencent’s Corporate Vice President. “A lot of [work] went into controls and optimization to give players a smooth and intuitive experience.”
Unlike the just-released mobile version of Fortnite, which is currently only available to select iOS users who have signed up for the invite-only test, PUBG Mobile can be downloaded for free on both iOS and Android devices from the App and Google Play stores. Those with iOS can grab the game here, while Android users can download it here.
PUBG Mobile arrives after receiving “large amounts of positive feedback” following Android and iOS beta tests in Canada last week, which took place on March 15 and 16, respectively. However, whereas the mobile edition of Fortnite features cross-play and cross-progression with other versions, PUBG Mobile doesn’t appear to offer either.
Nintendo today hosted a video livestream event to reveal new games for Nintendo Switch. Whereas it highlighted many of its own games during the big Nintendo Direct recently, this event–the Nindies Showcase Spring 2018–focused exclusively on indie games coming to the system in 2018. Although it ran for only about 10 minutes, it was an event packed with announcements for a lot of new games.
Many of these games are ports or remasters of existing titles–something that many of us have been asking for, given that games can feel like new experiences on the portable Switch. Others are brand-new games that have yet to be released. In all, there were more than a dozen games featured, and we’ve rounded up the basic details on all of them below.
Mark of the Ninja Remastered — Fall 2018
Nintendo started out the event with news that Klei Entertainment’s stellar 2D stealth-platformer, Mark of the Ninja, is being remastered for Switch. Few details were shared, but it’s getting a “high-definition remaster” for its release on Switch.
Fantasy Strike — Summer 2018
Next up is a fighting game from Sirlin Games called Fantasy Strike. Despite having the appearance of a standard 2D fighting game–albeit with a cel-shaded look–it features an unusually wide variety of weapons. The brief glimpse we got showed wind, paint, and even a slot machine all being utilized in the middle of the fight.
Just Shapes & Beats — Summer 2018
Launching on Switch before other consoles, Just Shapes & Beats is described as a “musical bullet hell” game. Bullet hell might be a stretch–we didn’t quite see the screen completely flooded with enemy fire–but the game does feature a pleasantly minimalist visual style. It also features a story mode that can be played solo or with friends and music from 20 different chiptune artists (though none were called out by name).
Garage — Spring 2018
Another game launching on Switch before other platforms, Garage is a top-down shooter from TinyBuild that Nintendo says was inspired by VHS B-movies. You’ll deal with zombie-like enemies as you shoot your way through levels using a variety of weapons.
Pool Panic — 2018
From Adult Swim Games comes Pool Panic, where you’re effectively playing pool through a wide variety of unusual locations like the top of a rocking pirate ship. You’ll knock around a cue ball and have to deal with a wide variety of other types of balls that don’t conform to what you’re used to seeing in billiards. There are more than 100 levels in the game and support for four-player local co-op. Pool Panic launches first on Switch.
Bomb Chicken — Summer 2018
The aptly titled Bomb Chicken is a 2D platformer where you play as a chicken who can lay bombs, rather than eggs. Those bombs can then be used to destroy parts of the environment, block incoming fire, or push you up to hard-to-reach places. It launches on Switch before other platforms.
Lumines Remastered — Spring 2018
Another of the remasters announced during the event was for Lumines, the classic puzzle game from Q Entertainment. It’s described as an “HD remake” and features the involvement of Tetsuya Mizuguchi. It includes HD rumble support that matches up with both the beat of the music and the action on-screen, as well as local multiplayer support.
Reigns: Kings and Queens — Spring 2018
Reigns: Kings and Queens packages together the two existing Reigns games (Reigns and Reigns: Her Majesty). Like the original versions, this humorous Tinder-inspired RPG has you swiping left or right on various cards to make decisions on how you’ll rule. New for this Switch collection is a local co-op mode that allows you to make decisions with a friend.
Light Fall — Spring 2018
Light Fall is a gorgeous 2D platformer set in Numbra, a “forgotten world.” You’ll use a magical box called the Shadow Core to navigate the environment. It’ll be a timed console exclusive when it releases on Switch.
West of Loathing — Spring 2018
West of Loathing is a comical RPG where you and everyone in the world is a stick figure. You’ll solve puzzles and take part in traditional turn-based combat as one of several classes. It launches as a console exclusive on Switch.
Pode — Spring 2018
Pode is a puzzle/adventure game inspired by Norwegian art that can be played with a single Joy-Con. Each of the two characters has special abilities they can use to help the duo navigate the world. Although it appears to primarily be a two-player co-op game, it can also be played solo.
The Messenger — Summer 2018
The Messenger is an old-school 2D action-platformer where you play as a ninja who acquires a variety of abilities over the course of the game. What distinguishes it more than anything else is the ability to transition from an 8-bit-style game to a 16-bit “time-traveling adventure.”
Bad North — Summer 2018
A blend of real-time strategy and roguelikes, Bad North tasks you with defending small islands. Whenever you lose one of your commanders, they’re gone permanently, and the game ends completely if you lose them all. It launches first on Switch.
The Banner Saga 3 — Summer 2018 / The Banner Saga 1 + 2 — “soon”
The upcoming conclusion to the Banner Saga series, The Banner Saga 3, is coming to Switch in addition to other platforms. This tactics game has a strong emphasis on story and allows progress to be carried over from one game to the next. To ensure players get the full experience, both The Banner Saga 1 and 2 will also be released on Switch “soon.”
The latest Nintendo broadcast, the Nindies Spring Showcase 2018, was fairly short–it lasted just over 10 minutes, but it was packed with news on more than a dozen games coming to Switch. Not long after it concluded, Nintendo held a Nindies event for press where it revealed several more acclaimed games that are coming to the system.
Three more game ports have been revealed. First up is Nidhogg 2, the competitive action game where you and one opponent (AI or human) square off in a swordfighting duel to reach the opposite edge of the screen. Developer Mark Essen subsequently confirmed the news on Twitter, saying it’s due out on Switch in North America and Europe sometime in 2018.
Next up is Hyper Light Drifter. The stylish action RPG comes to Switch this summer. (The game will also have a crossover shirt in Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes.) Finally, rounding out the list is Crashlands, an RPG where you’re stranded on an alien planet and have to build a base, tame creatures, and fight off enemies to survive. A release date for it has not yet been shared.
It’s unclear why none of these were announced during the stream, which was used to reveal some other remasters and ports. Regardless, the bottom line is this: There are a ridiculous number of Switch games coming, with even more likely on the way, as Nintendo claimed that the number of developers working on Switch content has quadrupled since last year.
