Month: January 2018

Total War: Warhammer 2 players can now download Legendary Skaven Lord, Tretch Craventail, on Steam, free of charge.

The Chieftan of Clan Rictus is just the kind of vermin you want troops to rally behind, with attack bonuses kicking in during an ambush or fight, after an initial retreat with your tail between your legs.

Being the ultimate rat, Tretch has more than a few tricks up his sleeve. According to the Steam page, troops “under Tretch’s direct control can vanguard deploy in all battles, and his empire revels in discord, gaining public order bonuses whenever diplomatic treaties are broken.”

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Last year I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to visit the set of Marvel’s Black Panther. The Ryan Coogler-directed film promises to showcase T’Challa and his homeland of Wakanda in all of it’s Afro-Futuristic glory.

On a cool Friday morning in February, a group of 19 journalists gathered on folding chairs under a pop-up tent (that was surrounded by tarp behind us and on each side) to look at a TV. What we saw on the screen was the filming of a scene featuring CIA Agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) interrogating arms dealer and mercenary, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) in a safehouse, while T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and later Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) watched the conversation from behind a two-way mirror.

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Ubisoft has embarked on some unusual projects–a Mario-Rabbids crossover that is basically XCOM wasn’t something a lot of people saw coming–but its latest announcement is particularly unusual. The games publisher has revealed a new “personal gaming assistant” called Sam that will be housed inside the Ubisoft Club mobile app.

As you’d imagine, Sam’s original inspiration was Siri, and that shows through its ability to answer basic queries made through text or voice. As seen in the images below, it can share the “weather” in various Ubisoft games and can respond to questions and requests related to those titles. Examples the company cited including asking for Far Cry 5‘s release date, to watch a trailer for Beyond Good & Evil 2, to get help in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, or to hear a story recap of Assassin’s Creed Origins.

That may all sound somewhat rote, but where Sam becomes intriguing is through its ties into Ubisoft’s games. It can provide a breakdown of your play stats, recommend in-game challenges you should tackle next, or even suggest tip videos from YouTube. Eventually, the hope is that it will be able to analyze your play style to the point where it can even point out possible skill upgrades that would be of use to you.

Ubisoft also promised there will be no shortage of Easter eggs. One example is asking for the definition of insanity, which yields Voss’s quote from Far Cry 3.

A beta of Sam debuts today in Canada through Ubisoft’s app, which is available for free. The company plans to expand it to other countries in the “coming months.”

The Bartlet Jones Supernatural Detective Agency, the studio led by Twisted Metal director David Jaffe, has experienced significant layoffs. Jaffe announced recently that the studio, which developed Drawn To Death for PS4, let go of many of its staff this week.

Jaffe announced the news on Twitter today, explaining that a canceled project resulted in the developer needing to downsize significantly. The “vast majority” of the gaming staff has been laid off, but Jaffe has yet to explain what the future of the studio will be.

“Wanted y’all to hear it from me before anyone else: we’ve had a project canceled and have been forced to lay off the vast majority of the Bartlet Jones staff gaming division,” he wrote on Twitter. “More news to come but for now, that’s what’s up. Heart’s breaking for the amazingly talented crew that’s out of work.”

Not much is known about the project that was canceled; neither Jaffe nor the studio had spoken about it prior to this week. The developer was relatively small prior to the layoffs, but it’s unclear exactly how many people are out of work.

Drawn to Death launched last year, and, in spite of a striking style, met a lukewarm reception from critics and players alike. You can read more about Drawn to Death in our 4/10 review.

Former Uncharted director Shaun Escayg and Dead Space producer Stephen Barry have joined The Avengers Project game, developer Crystal Dynamics announced.

Escayg joins the team as creative director, while Barry will serve as director of production. Escayg is the creative director and writer of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and worked on The Last of Us as the director of photography and animation supervisor. He was also an animator at Industrial Light & Magic. “I’m thrilled to join Crystal as Creative Director and be aligned with a team as passionate about telling great character based stories as I am,” Escayg said.

Barry held several positions at Electronic Arts, with his latest role at the company being the director of product development at Visceral Games. “Crystal’s been around almost as long as I’ve been in the business. The immediate chemistry and camaraderie has been exactly what I’d hoped for,” Barry said.

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This week, developer Niantic added a new set of Pokemon to Pokemon Go, all from Generation 3’s Hoenn region. Recently, the studio also revealed that, for a limited time, any egg you find will hatch a Pokemon from Hoenn.

This means that there’s another way to grab Hoenn Pokemon that doesn’t involve stumbling across them by chance. Niantic announced the news on Twitter alongside a video of an egg hatching into Torchic, one of the starting Pokemon from Ruby and Sapphire.

23 new Hoenn Pokemon were added this week. In the past month, Niantic has added 70 additional Gen 3 Pokemon. In addition, a Gen 3 Legendary, Kyogre, is also available right now. Players can encounter the Pokemon in Raid Battles until February 14.

In other Pokemon Go news, Niantic recently began a series of real-world events called Community Days. The first event, which took place last weekend, allowed players to try and catch a Pikachu that can use Surf. The next Pokemon Go Community Day will take place on February 24 and will focus on Dratini.

Black Dynamite is coming back in 2018.

Martial artist and actor Michael Jai White teased on Twitter the return of the nunchuck-wielding blaxploitation parody protagonist for what appears to be a new live-action project. You can check out the teaser trailer below.

“Black Is Black”#thisisjaigantic #blackisback pic.twitter.com/MwW6qly3ze

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The new trailer for Pacific Rim Uprising is here. The sequel to Guillermo Del Toro’s 2014 sci-fi action hit stars John Boyega and arrives in theaters on March 23, 2018. This latest promo gives us a bit more plot than the first trailer. It shows Boyega’s character Jake Pentecost being released from prison to reluctantly take on the job of piloting a Jaeger in a new fight against giant, city-destroying Kaiju. There’s tons of action too of course–check it out above.

Pacific Rim Uprising is directed by former Daredevil showrunner Steven S. DeKnight and also stars Scott Eastwood, Zhang Jin, Cailee Spaeny, and Jing Tian. The film has had a troubled development over the years, with Del Toro ultimately handing the directorial reins over to DeKnight but remaining on board as a producer. In April, Del Toro spoke about working with DeKnight and explained that he was a hands-off producer.

“It was such a great choice. I mean, I love [DeKnight], love what he does. I think he’s really brilliant,” Del Toro told Indiewire. “He’s making it his own. I’m not breathing over his shoulder saying, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ He’s doing things differently, and I like that.

“When I produce, I try to produce the way I would like to be produced. I say to everyone I produce, ‘If you need me, I will be there 100% all the time. If you don’t need me, I’m not there. You show me the cut then we’ll start interacting.'”