Although it’s not set in stone right now, it sounds like this year’s Star Wars Rogue One will not include the franchise’s iconic opening crawl. Being the first-ever Star Wars “story” film, Lucasfilm is looking at taking a different approach to Rogue One as it relates to the opening sequence.
“You know, we’re in the midst of talking about it, but I don’t think these films will have an opening crawl,” Kennedy told Entertainment Tonight.
By “these films,” she also likely is referring to all of the upcoming “story” movies, including 2018’s Han Solo film. At Star Wars Celebration this weekend in London, Disney officially introduced Alden Ehrenreich as the actor who will play the famous smuggler.
Director Gareth Edwards said Rogue One may not have an opening crawl because it might lead people to believe Rogue One 2 is on the way.
“The idea is this film is supposed to be different than the saga films…the whole crawl of it all– it’s funny people are fascinated on that,” he said.
“This film is born out of a crawl. The thing that inspired this movie was a crawl and what was written in that,” Edwards added. “There’s this feeling that if we did a crawl, then it’ll create another movie. And so the honest answer is you’ll have to wait and see.”
Rogue One‘s official title is Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The naming convention for all previous mainline films has started with Star Wars, including the most recent one, 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
The next fighter to join Street Fighter 5 will be Taekwondo practitioner Juri Han. The announcement was made by producer Yoshinori Ono during fighting game tournament EVO 2016.
Speaking during a panel, Ono confirmed that Juri will be available to play by the end of July. A more specific release date was not provided.
Juri was featured in the story mode expansion for Street Fighter 5 and, on PC, the data files for the character have been used to make her available early. There is plenty of video footage of the character available online, for those who want to see how she plays.
During EVO, Capcom released new DLC to support its Pro Tour events. Among these are new costumes for Chun-Li and Cammy, which can be purchased for $6. A third “mystery” costume is also available, but it won’t be revealed until later this year.
A new stage called Ring of Destiny, which is themed after the Capcom Pro Tour, is available separately for $10. The stage will be updated over the course of the year with new banners and images depending on the Capcom Pro Tour event happening at the time. In its current iteration it features EVO banners.
All this content is part of a $25 bundle, which also has an exclusive color option for all 22 characters, and two exclusive titles (Capcom Cup 2016 and Capcom Pro Tour 2016).
The money generated by the DLC will be added to the prize pool for the Capcom Cup. The total winnings will grow “based on the content download numbers,” according to the publisher. It’s unclear how much money each purchase contributes, however.
You can see all the Capcom Pro Tour DLC in the video above.
Alongside all the drama and intrigue, Game of Thrones is rightfully renowned for its spectacular battle sequences. The recent episode “Battle of the Bastards” featured an epic confrontation to rival the previous ones in “Blackwater” and “The Watchers on the Wall.” But it has now been revealed that the makers were forced to cut a battle scene that was originally intended for the very first season.
Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss were interviewed by the UFC Unfiltered podcast, and explained that budget restrictions meant they had to cut one of the book’s key sequence from the show.
“Thinking back to season one, there was supposed to be this big battle,” they said, via Digital Spy. “Tyrion Lannister follows The Mountain into combat–and we were really excited. We were going to have the camera at Peter Dinklage’s eye level and have him follow this giant, The Mountain, into battle and just see everything.
“Frankly we just ran out of money and we couldn’t do it. So that was one of the big battles from the book that we hoped we could get on screen and we never managed to do it.”
Nevertheless, the showrunners admitted that ultimately, keeping the epic battles for later, higher-budgeted seasons was a good thing. “In a way, I think it’s probably better that we couldn’t do it, because it never would have measured up to what we were able to do later,” they said.
Season 7 is expected to debut in 2017, with an eighth and potentially final season presumably premiering the next year. Benioff and Weiss have talked about how Seasons 7 and 8 may be shorter than the rest, spanning 13 episodes between them; all previous seasons had 10 episodes.
Trophies for a PlayStation 4 version of Dead Rising have appeared online, suggesting the first entry in Capcom’s open-world zombie survival game is being readied for a re-release.
A list of 51 trophies has been posted online by Exophase. These are the same as those included in the original Xbox 360 release of the game, but have new artwork.
Should Dead Rising be released for PS4, as this Trophy list indicates it will, this would mark the first time the game has been available on a non-Microsoft platform.
At E3 2016 Capcom and Microsoft revealed Dead Rising 4, which is set to release exclusively for Xbox One and Windows 10 PC in December.
Dead Rising 4 brings back Frank West, the star of the first Dead Rising, and the photography mechanic. It is also set in Willamette Parkview Mall, the setting of the first game.
It might have taken the second Independence Day 20 years to reach the screen, but the upcoming Blade Runner 2 is set to be an even more belated sci-fi follow-up. The sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic hits screens next year, and some pieces of new concept art have been released. Check out the images below, via EW:
Blade Runner 2 is being directed by Sicario‘s Denis Villeneuve, with Scott producing. In an interview with EW, Villeneuve revealed the first details about the film. He told the site that it takes place several decades after the original, and that it would be set in LA once more. “The climate has gone berserk–the ocean, the rain, the snow is all toxic,” he said. “It’s a Canadian wet dream!”
Villeneuve also described how the “terror period” of pre-production was helped by returning writer Hampton Fancher. “He told me that Blade Runner was a dream,” the director said. “We just have to dream again and not worry too much about logic. That removed so much pressure and gave me the key to move forward.”
A Florida man fired shots at two teens playing Pokemon Go this weekend after apparently mistaking them for thieves.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that the man was awoken from his Palm Coast area home at around 1:30 AM by a loud noise. He looked outside and saw a car parked near his house; he grabbed his handgun and went to investigate, authorities said.
After hearing one of the teens say, “Did you get anything,” the man–thinking they had just robbed him–stepped in front of the car, raised his weapon, and told them not to move, police said.
After the teens started driving at the man, he moved out of the way, and fired shots at the car, believing it was “attempting to strike him,” Flagler County Sheriff’s Officer Jim Troiano said.
The teens were not injured, but the card had a flat tire as a result of the shooting. The investigation is ongoing. Head to the Sentinel to get more details.
This is just the latest wild story we’ve heard about Pokemon Go. Check out the video above to see other wild real world stories stemming from the mobile game.
MMA fighter Michael “Venom” Page is apparently just the latest person to get caught up in the Pokemon Go craze.
At tonight’s Bellator MMA match in London, Page knocked down his opponent with a brutal knee kick and then proceeded to celebrate in Pokemon style. Watch as he tosses a Poke Ball at his opponent, Evangelista Santos (via Kotaku).
Pokemon Go, as you might have heard, is game where you catch Pokemon in the real world. It’s taking the world by storm, and, presumably due to the popularity, its servers have been unstable. Just today, players reported that the servers went down, though they appear to be back up now.
Trainers! We have been working to fix the #PokemonGO server issues. Thank you for your patience. We’ll post an update soon.
In other news about Pokemon Go, it launched today in 26 new markets. These include the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland.
This weekend at the Evo fighting game tournament, Microsoft announced the next DLC character for Killer Instinct Season 3. Eyedol is joining the lineup.
He’ll be available in the Killer Instinct Ultra Edition starting July 22, while people who bought the Season 3 Combo Breaker bundle will get Eyedol on July 29. Watch a gameplay trailer below.
The two-headed Eyedol was the final boss from 1994’s original Killer Instinct. He’s the final DLC character for Killer Instinct, following others like Rash, Arbiter, Kim Wu, and Tusk.
Amy Hennig, writer of the first three Uncharted games and currently creative director on EA and Visceral Games’ Star Wars title, has discussed her process for creating a brand new story set in the beloved sci-fi universe.
Speaking during a panel at Star Wars Celebration, Hennig explained that her process involved deconstructing the movies and understanding how they could be adapted to video games. This, Hennig added, was the same method she used when working on Uncharted while at Naughty Dog.
“The reason [we’re collaborating with Lucasfilm so closely is] we’re writing an original Star Wars story with new characters, locations, tech, creatures, you name it. All of it has to sit authentically alongside the stuff people know now,” she said.
“The process that I’ve been using is really similar to what I did with Uncharted, to be honest. If you’re trying to re-create that classic–in [Uncharted’s] case–pulp action adventure experience, you need to deconstruct the films so you know how to reconstruct them in an interactive context as gameplay.”
She continued: “The end goal is by the time the player has finished playing they feel like they really did play a Star Wars film. So I’ve done the same thing for Star Wars. What does that mean? It’s getting the structure right. It means you have to understand where the act breaks fall, where all the obstacles and reversals fall, and the set-pieces. [You need to know] what are all the component parts that make up a Star Wars story.”
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Although Hennig didn’t reveal any specific details about the Star Wars game, she hinted at the tone, which sounds to be quite similar to Uncharted.
“It means getting the tone right. It’s what my writing partner Todd [Stashwick] calls breezy urgency. It’s the idea that there’s sort of a swash-buckling charm to the thing. There’s humor and buoyancy but at the same time there’s stakes and jeopardy.”
The “humor and buoyancy” she refers to is a key characteristic of the Uncharted series and the Indiana Jones movies they draw inspiration from. Of course, it’s also a key part of the Star Wars movies.
Another detail about the game that Hennig alluded to, by way of her analysis of the movies, was that it’d have an ensemble cast. This, she explained, was the essence of the film series and something developer Visceral was focusing on bringing to the game.
“What I was really eager to discover is what distinguished Star Wars films from the others I’d been studying in the action adventure genre. The first thing that jumped out was these are always ensemble stories … People would say there’s other characters in something like Indiana Jones, but they’re side characters. In Star Wars they’re co-protagonists, so if you think about the original trilogy it’s as much Leia’s, Han’s, and Vader’s story as it is Luke’s.
“Think about Star Wars Rebels, that tradition continues now. Think about Rogue One, it’s the same thing, and the same thing is true of our game. Part of our deconstruction is to figure out how we enable that in the story and honor it in the gameplay as well. It’s not a lone-wolf story because that’s not Star Wars. Your characters have to be a coordinated ensemble acting in the moment and in parallel. If you think about the film and the Death Star, they only escape because everybody does their part in parallel.
“[Characters are] always outnumbered and outgunned, so they have to be smarter than their enemies, more improvisational, and work together. The challenge for us is to figure out how we enable that in gameplay so that the player really feels that experience, so that it’s not just part of the story but also the gameplay. That’s why you deconstruct and reconstruct.”
Although many have speculated the Star Wars game from Visceral will be a third-person action game, this has not yet been officially confirmed. Other rumors suggest it will be open-world.
EA is working on multiple Star Wars games, including a sequel to Star Wars Battlefront, which will be developed by DICE and Motive Studios. Along with a Battlefront sequel, a number of other Star Wars titles are coming from internal and external EA studios. Take a look below for a list.
EA Star Wars Games in Development:
DICE — Collaborating with Motive on new Star Wars Battlefront game, coming in 2017.
Respawn — Third-person action adventure game (no release date)
Visceral Games — New action game coming in 2018
BioWare — Continued development on Star Wars: The Old Republic
Capital Games — Continued development on Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes
Motive — A new Star Wars Battlefront game, in collaboration with DICE.
Criterion — Assisting with development on unspecified Star Wars project
DICE has announced the fourth expansion for Star Wars Battlefront is called Rogue One: Scarif and is a tie-in with the upcoming Star Wars spin-off movie Rogue One.
The announcement was made during Star Wars Celebrations, where Battlefront design director Niklas Fegraeus revealed the name and confirmed it will be available this holiday. He also stated that Rogue One protagonist Jyn Erso, who is played by Felicity Jones will be playable.
In addition to Jyn, Ben Mendelsohn character, Director Orson Krennic, will be introduced to the game.
Earlier in the panel, DICE revealed Bossk, the Trandoshan bounty hunter, and lovable Wookie Chewbacca would also be available as two new characters in the upcoming Death Star DLC expansion. Death Star is the third expansion the studio plans to release, with Scarif following it.
Star Wars Battlefront has shipped 14 million copies, becoming one of the best-selling Star Wars games of all time. A sequel is on the way, which will be developed by DICE and Motive Studios.
In addition to the Battlefront sequel, a number of other Star Wars games are coming from internal and external studios to be published by EA. A list of these can be found here.
