Month: June 2018

UPDATE: News of a Game of Thrones prequel from creator George R. R. Martin and writer Jane Goldman (Stardust, Kingsman, X-Men: First Class) just broke, with the show expected to takes place thousands of years before the events of the current series during the Age of Heroes. But there are reportedly still other ideas floating around at HBO as well for the land of Westeros, so we figured it was a good time to look once again at some of the spinoffs we’d like to see based on Martin’s world.

The possibilities really are endless within the world of Game of Thrones. We’re only looking through a small window into the worlds of Westeros and Essos, but there are plenty of interesting plotlines that have only been touched upon. With that in mind, we broke down the stories we’d love to see explored more and the characters who would deserve to ground their own series. It was hard to pick only four!

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Nintendo’s press conference will wrap up the briefings for this year’s E3, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be lacking. We’re expecting to see more about Super Smash Bros. for Switch and Let’s Go, Pikachu and Eevee during the conference. On the floor, Nintendo will host two tournaments for the new Super Smash Bros. and Splatoon 2, and hand out special collectible pins to attendees who bring a Switch along.

We’re not exactly sure what other surprises Nintendo will have in store this year, but there are plenty of rumors already. We hope to see more on Metroid Prime 4 and Yoshi, both of which were teased at last year’s show.

In typical Nintendo fashion, its conference this year will be pre-recorded and presented in the “Nintendo Direct” form. It’s set to air at 9 AM PT / 12 PM PT / 5 PM BST on Tuesday, June 12, just before the show floor opens. After the conference, Nintendo will host its usual Treehouse livestream throughout the remainder of E3.

If you can’t tune into the livestream, which we are hosting here on GameSpot, you can catch up with all the latest announcements in our liveblog on this page, so be sure to come back then. We’ll have all the biggest headlines from the conference rounded up on GameSpot, so once it’s all over, you’ll be able to get all your E3 news in one place.

For now, check out our predictions and more for the Nintendo conference until the show.

• E3 2018 Nintendo Switch Rumors: N64 Classic, Fortnite, Star Fox Racing Game, More
• E3 2018 Nintendo Switch Predictions: Fortnite, N64 Classic, Fallout 3, And More
• E3 2018: Super Smash Bros. Switch — What We Want And Know
• E3 2018: Pokemon On Nintendo Switch — What We Know And Want

An ad for Just Cause 4 has appeared on Steam, but unfortunately there’s no release date or confirmation on whether it’ll come to PS4 and Xbox One, in addition to PC.

It is finally happening, or at least starting to. HBO announced today that it has greenlit a pilot for a Game of Thrones prequel. The network also released the first plot details, and it sounds ambitious.

There were five or more prequel pitches being worked on, and HBO selected the one from Kingsman: Secret Service and Kick-Ass writer Jane Goldman. George R.R. Martin is involved, too, serving as an executive producer.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the untitled show is set “thousands” of years before the events of HBO’s Game of Thrones. “The series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour,” reads a line from the announcement. “And only one thing is for sure: From the horrifying secrets of Westeros’ history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East, to the Starks of legend… it’s not the story we think we know.”

EW reminds us that the Age of Heroes started 10,000 years before the events of the current show, according to the fiction. Some of the characters who could show up, based on this timeline, include House Stark founder Bran the Builder and House Lannister founder Lann the Clever. Notably, Bran the Builder is known for building The Wall, so that could be explored.

Bear in mind that HBO has only ordered a pilot, not a full series. It is possible some of the other pitches could get pilot orders as well. In fact, EW’s sources said HBO is still considering the other four ideas. What we do know is that any new Game of Thrones show would not air until after Game of Thrones Season 8 in 2019, so don’t expect the new show to premiere until 2020 at the very soonest.

Game of Thrones creators and showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are not involved in the new show. As reported previously, they are working on Star Wars movies and an HBO show set in post-Civil War America where slavery remained legal. However, Benioff and Weiss are not actively working on the project, according to The Washington Post.

According to math, Daenerys is the most likely of all the major Game of Thrones characters to die in Season 8, but if Game of Thrones has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is certain.

Game of Thrones Season 8 premieres sometime in 2019. There are six episodes in all, which doesn’t sound like many, but remember that they might all be as long as movies. In other news, we recently learned about a battle scene that took 55 nights to shoot.

E3 2018 is almost upon us, and as always it will be preceded by all of the big publishers and platform holders showcasing their wares. Ubisoft’s will take place on Monday, June 11 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST / (6 AM AEST June 12), and we’ll be livestreaming the whole event here. If you can’t follow along with the livestream, read along with our liveblog instead.

Ubisoft’s E3 2018 presentation will include new looks at The Division 2, Beyond Good and Evil 2, Transference, and the toys-to-life game Starlink: Battle for Atlas. Despite a recent delay, we’ll also get an updated look at the pirate adventure game Skull & Bones. We’ve even heard word of a rumored new Splinter Cell.

Ubisoft is one of the last showcases of the week, but there will be plenty of others. It kicks off on Saturday with EA, and then continues with Microsoft, Sony, Bethesda, Square Enix, Nintendo, and more. Follow along with our full E3 2018 schedule to plan your viewing, and remember you can watch it all right here.

The E3 show floor will be open June 12-14. Keep checking back in the days ahead for lots more on E3 2018.

Matthew Vaughn, the acclaimed director who brought us Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class and perhaps most notably, the Kingsman universe, has announced several new projects in the works. A new film in the Kingsman series was already pretty much confirmed; his other new projects, however, might surprise some fans. In an interview with Empire, Vaughn announced that not only is he working on a Kingsman spinoff but he is also rebooting the cult-favorite Kick-Ass movie based on the comics by Mark Millar.

The Kingsman spinoff will be called Kingsman: The Great Game and will be a period piece looking at the Kingsman organization at the turn of the 20th century. It will also likely be shot in direct succession with the new Kingsman movie, which will conclude most of the existing storylines.

As for the Kick-Ass reboot, this may come as a surprise considering that the film didn’t do particularly well upon its release, but it did gain a dedicated following in the same way that projects like Firefly have in the past. The reboot is said to focus on Kick-Ass himself, who is played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Vaughn also reports that there have been talks for making a solo Hit-Girl movie played by Chloe Grace Moretz.

There is no official release date for any of these movies, though the third Kingsman is expected to come out in the fall of 2019. Anyone who is eager to know what might happen in the new Kick-Ass movie(s), Vaughn says, “Look what Mark Millar is doing with the comic for clues.”

Finally, if you’re still hungry for more Kingsman, there is apparently an eight-hour TV show and a Statesmen film on the way which will focus on the American agents introduced at the end of the last Kingsman film played by Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, and Halle Berry. Looks like it’s going to be a busy few years for director Matthew Vaughn.

Monster Hunter World launched back in January to mostly positive reviews and huge sales, and now Capcom is hoping to drive its commercial success further with a decent price drop. The action role-playing game is now available for $40 in the United States. That price is only for a “limited time,” Capcom said, though the company did not specify the duration of the offer.

A $20 discount on a game released five months ago may not sound all that great, but if you’ve been eying the game but didn’t want to pay full price, this looks like one of the better offers around. The price drop applies to both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One editions.

In other news about Monster Hunter World, a new event quest called “A Whisper of White Mane” is went live this week. It wasn’t the only new quest added this week, as another one of them challenges you to take down the Arch-Tempered Kirin; do this and you’ll get new Kirin armor, which you can see in the Twitter image embed below.

Capcom, like many of the other big gaming publishers, will be at E3 2018 next week. The company has a booth in the South Hall where it will let attendees try new games and get autographs from big-name developers like Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono. The following games will be playable at Capcom’s booth: Mega Man 11, Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 + 2, Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, and the already-released Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition.

While E3 2018 proper does not begin until June 12, the event begins on June 9 with a press conference from Electronic Arts. Briefings from Microsoft, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Sony, and Nintendo will follow in the days thereafter; here is the full schedule.