Category: Gamespot

Although Microsoft is keeping specifics under wraps, the company now says the story events set into motion in Halo 5: Guardians will forever change the overall universe in “really important ways.” After the events of Halo 5, the story “will never be the same,” developers said as part of a new interview.

Speaking with Forbes, Halo franchise development director Frank O’Connor said, “There are some elements of the story that are definitely there to surprise people.” Some of these surprises, he explained, are being teased out in the game’s live-action TV trailers, in which Master Chief is “dead.”

That’s the “official” story. But really, after a mysterious event at the beginning of Halo 5, Master Chief goes AWOL from the UNSC. Joining him on his rogue mission are other members of Blue Team. Fireteam Osiris, meanwhile, led by Spartan Locke, are sent out to hunt Master Chief down. Creative director Tim Longo said the game will play out like an interplanetary manhunt.

As this Chief vs. Locke story plays out, there is also the matter of the Guardians, the mysterious Forerunner constructs referenced in past games and media but not explored too deeply. That’s all set to change with Halo 5.

“There are catastrophic, big events going on all across the galaxy when it comes to the Guardians,” Longo said, without giving anything away.

In addition, Halo 5 executive producer Josh Holmes teased that Halo will never be the same after the game’s story comes to a close.

“One of the things that’s most exciting about this story is through the course of your journey in Halo 5, you’re going to see the Halo galaxy change in really important ways and it will never be the same,” he said. “On a truly galactic scale, things are transformed through the course of the story.”

If that all sounds like a lot to take in, O’Connor assures that Halo 5’s story will be “self-contained” and easy to understand.

In other Halo 5 news, you can now listen to the game’s title song and check out some newly re-designed Covenant vehicles. Microsoft has also confirmed that work has begun on Halo 6.

Halo 5 launches on October 27 exclusively for Xbox One.

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The organizer of a Pokemon-themed fan event that was supposed to take place in August during PAX Prime but was shut down at The Pokemon Company’s request now says the firm is asking him to pay $4,000 to settle the lawsuit. The man, Ramar Larkin Jones, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise the money. After just three days, he managed to raise the money, which will presumably end this matter.

Writing on the crowdfunding page, Jones said, “This year I tried to throw a unofficial Pokemon party because why not… it would be fun, I’m a huge fan, I know all my friends are fans, and I mostly wanted to geek out and add to the fun parties you can find all over the city.”

The day before this event was schedule to take place, The Pokemon Company took legal action against Jones. For its part, The Pokemon Company claimed that Jones and other organizers were guilty of “blatant and willful” copyright infringement regarding the use of its IP to promote the fan event, which had been held annually since 2011. In addition, it was not free, as Jones was charging a $2 door fee.

He now says The Pokemon Company never sent a cease and desist order.

“Totally didn’t expect that,” he explained. “I cancelled the party, refunded everyone the two dollars I charged to help cover all the prizes I bought for the cosplay contest and smash bros tournament. Pokemon wants $4,000 that I just don’t have. I told them I would pay it over a year and they denied that. They want it now with in the next 45 days.”

Speaking with GeekWire, which originally broke the story in August, Jones said, “I thought it was a scare tactic. I thought once the party was canceled there would be nothing more about this. I’m shocked.”

Jones said he works in a cafe and did not have the money to pay The Pokemon Company. Thankfully for him, the community has rallied around his cause. Funding now stands at $4,082 from 111 supporters.

For more on this story, read GeekWire’s in-depth report.

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With just a few more weeks to go before Assassin’s Creed Syndicate‘s release, Ubisoft’s stealth-action game is now up for preorder on digital channels. As a result, we’ve learned the game’s file size.

On Xbox One, Syndicate will take up 40.27 GB of space. The game’s PlayStation Store product page does not list a file size for the PlayStation 4 edition. File size details for the PC edition, which is coming in November, are not yet available.

Also featured on the Xbox Marketplace and PlayStation Store are listings for a $90 Assassin’s Creed Syndicate Gold Edition, which comes with the base game and its DLC season pass, which, by itself, costs $30. Check out this post to see all of the content that comes with it.

The Assassin’s Creed Syndicate release date is set for October 23 across PS4 and Xbox One. The PC version, meanwhile, will launch on November 19.

In other recent news about the game, Ubisoft has confirmed that it will support microtransactions, though the company stresses that they are entirely optional.

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The sci-fi drama The Martian has soared to the top of box office charts this weekend, with a massive $55 million haul.

The film, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, earned only slightly less than the current record holder for an October opening. In 2013, the similarly themed space thriller Gravity took $55.8 million on its opening weekend.

The Martian has benefitted from strong reviews, prominent marketing and a wide-rollout to 3,831 theatres. It now stands as the second best opening of both Damon’s and Scott’s careers, sitting behind The Bourne Ultimatum and Hannibal respectively.

Elsewhere in the chart, the animated sequel Hotel Transylvania 2 dropped into second place, earning an impressive $33 million, bringing its domestic total to $90.5 million. The acclaimed crime thriller Sicario expanded nationally this week and rose to third, making $12 million.

In an interview with Space.com this week, Scott explained why The Martian had a potentially even wider appeal than the likes of Gravity.

“I think what we’ve got may be an even bigger palette, bigger vista,” he said. “You’ve got all four quadrants. We’ve got great drama. You’ve got a lot of humor–which comes out of the drama, out of the reality of the situation. We’ve got truthful machines and technologies. And I think we’ve got pretty good visuals.”

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Following the success of 2014’s Transformers: Age of Extinction, which took more than $1.1 billion at the global box office, Hasbro Studios has revealed Transformers 5 has already been scheduled for a 2017 release, and a further three movies are planned.

Speaking at the entertainment trade show MIPCOM in Cannes, as reported on by Variety, Hasbro Studios president Steven J. Davis discussed the future of the sci-fi action franchise.

“We just finished, as some of you may have read, just an incredible experience,” he said. “We decided that we wanted to plot out the next 10 years of the Transformers franchise, so we got together in a room over a three-month period of time.

“[It was] nine of some of the most creative writers I have ever worked with, shepherded by Akiva Goldsman, who many of you may know won an Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind. And they plotted out the next 10 years of Transformers. Similarly, we are doing the same in television and in digital. So stay tuned, Transformers 5 is on its way, and 6 and 7 and 8.”

It is yet to be confirmed if director Michael Bay will direct his fifth Transformers film. Last month, he stated that had been in conversation with producer Steven Spielberg about a possible return to the franchise:

In total, the four previous Transformers movies have earned more than $3.7 billion worldwide. Age of Extinction saw Mark Wahlberg take over as the lead actor, and last month it was reported that he would return for Transformers 5.

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The League of Legends World Championships kicked off earlier this week in Paris, raking in nearly one million concurrent viewers on Twitch. And that doesn’t account for viewers using other streaming platforms like YouTube, Douyu, and Longzhu, the latter of which has estimates of over 8 million concurrent viewers.

Bringing in the 16 strongest teams from China, Korea, North America, Europe, Brazil, Thailand, and Taiwan–fans have gathered to watch their favorite players duke it out on stage until one League of Legends team is left standing.

The tournament is a multi-city event, with the round robin stage taking place in Paris. Following that, the bracket stage will take place on October 15 in Wembley Arena in London, and will continue in the Brussels Expo in Brussels. The tournament grand final will conclude on October 31 in the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin.

You can check out more of our Worlds Coverage here on GameSpot.

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