Month: January 2019

There’s an exchange in this issue of The Walking Dead where Rick and Michonne reflect on how the current Commonwealth conflict feels bigger and more out of control than anything they’ve faced in the past. That sentiment isn’t anywhere close to being supported by the past year or so’s worth of issues, unfortunately. It’s been a long, repetitive grind during that stretch. And even with issue #186 going a long way toward reinvigorating a struggling series, this follow-up makes it clear how much work remains.

This is a case where the dramatic cover doesn’t translate into the story itself. That image suggests a major rift between Rick and Michonne in the aftermath of Dwight’s tragic death. But while their relationship is obviously strained at this point, the end result is nowhere near as serious as one would expect. Strangely, writer Robert Kirkman seems to go out of his way to deflate the tension between the two and smooth over this sudden rough patch. That’s a pretty disappointing way to capitalize on one of this series’ more compelling cliffhangers in recent memory. It’s entirely possible their friendship will crack further as the Commonwealth situation escalates further, but why not take advantage of the dramatic potential available right here and now?

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2018 was a big year for streamer Ninja, whose real name is Tyler Blevins. While he was already an established name in the gaming world having competed as a professional Halo player for years, Ninja entered a new stratosphere of success in 2018 following his record-breaking Fortnite stream with rapper Drake.

He’s ridden that wave and prospered financially. He told CNN in an interview that he made nearly $10 million in 2018. He told the site that 70 percent of his revenue came from Twitch and YouTube, through ads and subscriptions, with the remainder coming from his sponsorship deals with companies like Samsung, Uber Eats, and Red Bull.

The $10 million figure cited in the CNN piece is likely pre-tax, so more than likely he did not take home that much at the end of the day. Still, it’s an eye-watering figure.

In March, Ninja said he was making around $500,000 every month from his various revenue sources.

Ninja told CNN that he spends around 12 hours each day streaming, and in 2018, he estimates he played around 4,000 hours of Fortnite; that’s about 140 days.

He’s enjoyed success among mainstream audiences this year through his appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s late night TV show and as a cover star of ESPN the Magazine.

Ninja said he thinks Fortnite still has lots of room to grow, but in the event that Fortnite loses steam, the streamer is diversifying through efforts like a Ninja-branded clothing line.

2018 wasn’t a blemish-free year for Ninja, as he stirred controversy when he told Polygon that he wouldn’t stream games with women to avoid dating rumours.

It’s become something of a tradition for Daredevil writers to leave Matt Murdock stuck in the lowest, most hopeless place imaginable before handing him off to the next creative team. Brian Bendis made him an incarcerated felon. Ed Brubaker made him leader of the Hand. And with the conclusion of the most recent volume of Daredevil last month, Charles Soule left Matt at death’s door. The onus is going to be on new writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Marco Checchetto to pick up the pieces of “The Death of Daredevil” next month. But for now, the weekly miniseries Man Without Fear serves as a stopgap, one exploring what happens when Matt drifts between life and death. Sadly, this first issue never comes across as anything more than a placeholder story.

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Looking Back At Looking Forward

The world of video games is a swirling, ever-changing place where nothing is guaranteed–games no one thought would exist come out of nowhere, while others that seem like foregone conclusions get delayed into oblivion. We cover an industry that’s often extremely tough to predict, which is exactly why each year, we try to make predictions about the coming 12 months. Sure, anything could happen, but it always feels great to be right–and we’ve got some good evidence on which to base some educated guesses.

In 2018, our predictions ranged from some safe-seeming bets like remasters, to wishful ports across the Pacific, to announcements that happened much differently than expected. Our editors made 11 total guesses for 2018. Not all of them were wrong–but how many do you think we got right? You’ll have to read on to find out.

As long as we’re thinking about what didn’t come true in 2018, it’s worth taking a look at the great games that did make it into our hands. Check out our Best of 2018 hub for rundowns of all the games that caught and kept our attention last year, the gaming moments that defined the year, and the titles we’re most looking forward in 2019.

We’ll also have predictions for 2019 coming soon, so be sure to check those out. And if you’ve got predictions of your own, or stories of amazing prognostications that came true in 2018 despite all odds, be sure to leave them in the comments below.

Nintendo Will Announce Mother 3 For Switch

It might have been wishful thinking, given that we’ve predicted Mother 3 coming stateside each of the last few years, but we really thought there was a chance this year. That’s because releasing the Earthbound sequel for the Nintendo Switch seemed like a pretty ideal both for Nintendo after a record-breaking 2017 put the console in a whole lot of hands. Ravenous Nintendo fans are hopeful for the game, and the Switch would be a great fit for a localized version of the original GBA game as part of Nintendo’s digital content offerings.

Unfortunately, just because a thing makes a lot of sense and would would bring joy to a lot of people doesn’t mean it’ll happen. Another year has come and gone and Mother 3 seems no closer to finding its way to your Switch on this side of the Pacific. We were wrong about Mother 3 showing up last year, but the chances still seem pretty good it might eventually. And Reggie Fils-Aime knows Nintendo fans want the game in the US–so there may well be hope for it in 2019.

Verdict: Wrong

Nintendo Will Release Another Zelda Game Or Expansion

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was both a huge game and acclaimed by players and critics when it released in 2017, so we predicted that Nintendo would want to ride that wave into the future as it continued to build the Switch’s library. The two DLC packs Nintendo offered for the game seemed to go over well, but there’s definitely still room at the periphery of Breath of the Wild to make it even bigger. And given the massive success of both the game and the Switch in 2017, it seemed like Nintendo had an opportunity to print even more money with another Zelda offering the year after. We figured that more expansions for Breath of the Wild, beyond that first annual pass, would likely pop up this year as Nintendo found more value in its huge adventure. Another possibility: a new take on a classic Zelda, just in time to take advantage of the Switch’s digital storefront and its big new install base.

Unfortunately, the only fresh appearances of Link we saw in 2018 were in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. There wasn’t any movement on Nintendo about its flagship franchise, in fact, and the last we heard about any DLC for the game was back in December when Champions’ Ballad was released. Maybe that’s because Nintendo is gearing up to make 2019 the Year of Link? That seems…unlikely, but it’s always tough trying to predict what Nintendo has planned.

Verdict: Wrong

Bethesda Game Studios Will Announce Its Next Game At E3 2018

Bethesda’s big press conference extravaganza at E3 each year is usually packed full of games, and since we hadn’t heard much from the studio behind The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, it made sense that Bethesda would hit us pretty hard at E3 2018. In particular, the next installment of the Elder Scrolls series seemed to be due for some news. Skyrim might be on everything that plays games, including Alexa, but the game was first released in 2011.

We were very right about this one, with Bethesda hitting the gaming public with two big announcements. First, we found out about Fallout 76, an online multiplayer addition to the Fallout franchise. And as expected, 76 was released just months after Bethesda told us about it at E3. But that wasn’t all Bethesda Game Studios had to offer at the event: it also teased The Elder Scrolls VI. That game is coming, uh, sometime, and Bethesda has given pretty much no information about it at all apart from showing an image with the title over it. And then Bethesda went and announced a third game: Starfield, which got its official debut trailer at E3. That’s two announcements, so our speculation that we’d get news of a Bethesda game–and that one would release soon after it was announced–was right on.

Verdict: (Extremely) Right

Nintendo Will Announce (And Release) Smash Bros. For Switch

Well, this one’s pretty obvious. We speculated that with Nintendo chugging along with a lot of acclaim around the Switch, it was time for a new Super Smash Bros. Nintendo hasn’t disappointed on that front–Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is here, and Nintendo really did lean into the “Ultimate” part. The game is huge, featuring every character that’s ever been on a Smash Bros. roster before, plus multiple game modes and a lengthy single-player campaign.

We loved Smash Ultimate almost as much as we loved being right about the game showing up this year. In our review, Edmond Tran gave Smash a 9, writing, “it’s still astounding that a game featuring characters from Mario Bros, Sonic The Hedgehog, Pac-Man, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, and Street Fighter all interacting with each other actually exists.” Smash Ultimate also made our list of the best games of the year–that’s how great it is. It sure is nice being right.

Verdict: Right

Cyberpunk 2077 Will Be Re-Revealed At E3 2018

We were hoping to see Cyberpunk 2077 make a big splash at E3 after a whole lot of time had passed since the last reveal of information about it, and we were not disappointed. Not only did CD Projekt RED bring Cyberpunk to E3, but it also brought a huge, gorgeous hands-off gameplay demo. It only showed that behind closed doors (although CD Projekt made the demo available online in August), but it was enough to remind us all why we were excited about it in the first place. Cyberpunk’s open world of Night City is huge and full of things to do, and there are plenty of ways in which the RPG will react to your actions and change around you. All in all, Cyberpunk is looking great and we learned a ton about it at E3 this year, making this prediction satisfyingly correct.

Verdict: Right

Mass Effect Ain’t Dead; Trilogy HD Remaster Will Come This Fall

This one might be kind of right. We expected that, in the aftermath of Mass Effect: Andromeda, Electronic Arts would let BioWare’s sci-fi RPG franchise cool off, but it wouldn’t kill it. Instead, we figured BioWare would take the opportunity to re-release an HD remastered version of the original trilogy. A re-release of the original three games could go a long way to repairing the bridges between BioWare and fans who felt burned by Andromeda, bringing them back into the series’ world and potentially revitalizing it, bit by high-res bit. The hope, of course, is that Andromeda will be a misstep but not a fatal fall for the beloved franchise, and instead provides the developer with some lessons that can improve Mass Effect and the rest of what BioWare has to offer in the future.

No HD remastered version of the Mass Effect trilogy made its way to us in 2018, nor was one even announced, sadly. That doesn’t mean it’s not being planned for the future, though. In fact, BioWare’s Casey Hudson gave fans a cryptic note on November 7, otherwise known among the Mass Effect faithful as N7 Day, suggesting that there’s more coming for the series in the future. So perhaps Mass Effect isn’t dead! We don’t know what BioWare might be planning, whether a new Mass Effect game or a remaster of the old trilogy. But at least there’s still hope on the galactic horizon.

Verdict: Wrong, but with a glimmer of hope

From Software’s Project Teased At The 2017 Game Awards Is Tenchu

E3 2018 saw the first real information about From Software’s next title. Bummer for this prediction: it wasn’t a new Tenchu game. Instead, From showed off gameplay of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, a game that riffs on feudal Japan and stars a ninja, fighting monsters, demons, and various other creatures. It’s a departure from both Dark Souls and Bloodborne, adding a lot of speed to the proceedings, but it’s definitely possible to feel the influence of the From’s past games on this new effort.

We might be forgiven for getting the exact nature of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice wrong, on account of the fact that Sekiro really did start its life as a Tenchu title. A lot of the hallmarks of the stealth ninja series seem like they’re making their way into Sekiro too, and the phrase “Shadows Die Twice” is a reference to Tenchu 3. So while From Software isn’t technically making a new Tenchu title as predicated, this is pretty dang close.

Verdict: Half-Right

Nintendo Will Release The N64 Classic

We got the NES Classic Edition and SNES Classic Edition in 2016 and 2017, respectively. So it stood to reason that Nintendo might decide to continue printing money in 2018 with another miniature version of one of its classic machines–the N64. After all, the console had plenty of standout, watershed titles, including Super Mario 64 and the original Super Smash Bros. With the way that the other Classic consoles have made major impacts on the market and among Nintendo fans, even encouraging a similar tiny console from Sony, the N64 Classic seemed like a no-brainer.

Sadly, Nintendo didn’t bring out a new classic console this year, and what’s more, the current classic consoles will be discontinued after the holidays. That’s basically negative progress on our prediction. Thanks a lot, Nintendo.

Verdict: Wrong

Blizzard Will Announce Diablo 4

We couldn’t have predicted just how this one was going to play out. Blizzard’s lack of Diablo announcements in the last few years made an announcement of the next chapter in the franchise feel inevitable for Blizzcon 2018. We were right that Blizzard did have something up its sleeve for Diablo–but we, and just about everyone else, were very wrong about what that Diablo thing turned out to be.

At Blizzcon, Blizzard announced a new entry into the Diablo franchise, but it wasn’t a new numbered installment. Instead, it was Diablo Immortal, a mobile game, and fan response to the announcement was pretty intense. It included booing and one Blizzcon attendee asking if the game’s announcement was actually an early April Fool’s Day joke. We got hands-on with Diablo Immortal and found it pretty impressive, but while the controversy seemed overblown, it’s obvious that fans are ravenous for a new, full-fledged Diablo game.

Verdict: Wrong

Phantasy Star Online 2 Will Finally Come To The West

Phantasy Star Online 2 is performing well for Sega, even five years after its 2012 release. The MMO even got a release on the Nintendo Switch in 2018–in Japan. With the game trucking along with ports and expansions five years later, it seems like it would make a lot of sense for Sega to expand its audience. Phantasy Star Online 2 still isn’t available in the West, but we hoped 2018 would be the year that changed. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

We’re still waiting to hear anything on the front of PSO2 making its way out of Japan, and even with the Switch release, there’s no word of a western release. Maybe 2019 will be the year an English version of Phantasy Star Online 2 finally becomes available.

Verdict: Wrong

Spyro Trilogy Remaster Announced

In 2017, Activision released the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, a remaster of the first three Crash Bandicoot games. Fans had been asking for a Crash Bandicoot re-release for years, and they finally got it. With the N. Sane Trilogy in the past, the next logical step was a re-release of another classic PlayStation platformer series: Spyro the Dragon.

Activision must have been thinking the same thing, and the N. Sane Trilogy performed pretty well. Not only did the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, a remaster of the first three games in the franchise, get announced, 2018 also saw its release. Justin Clark gave Reignited an 8 in our review: “The Reignited Trilogy is the best kind of collection that not only brings a beloved series up to current visual standards but also proves just how well-built the original titles were,” he wrote.

Verdict: Right

Predictions Total

4.5 out of 11

For making predictions and prognostications that mostly just boil down to educated guesses, a success rate that’s not too far off 50 percent feels pretty respectable, overall (although maybe we’re just biased). Hopefully this means we’re improving in our predictions since our track record at the end of 2017 was pretty dismal. Here’s hoping (predicting?) our look through the crystal ball at 2019 will be even more successful.

Below, Capy’s long-in-development roguelike, has cultivated a sense of mystery across the course of its entire gestation. The question of what Below is, exactly, doesn’t go away once you’re playing it–the game offers minimal instruction beyond the occasional button prompt, and much of the first few hours is spent figuring out how everything fits together. Your objective is simple enough and spelled out in the game’s title–you’re on an island, and you need to go as deep below the surface as you can. How you do that slowly becomes clear, although reaching any suggestion as to why you make this voyage takes far longer.

Below opens with a long, slow cutscene of a boat arriving on an island, with no context or explanation. It’s a suitable introduction to a game that you’ll want to take at a considered pace; from the beginning, there’s no instruction, although it won’t take you long to find the lantern at the island’s apex and begin your journey through the first floor. From there it’s a matter of exploring each floor of the island’s depths, finding keys to unlock doors that will take you further down, and managing your resources and health as you deal with a series of hardships.

Whenever you die in Below, a different boat will arrive at the island’s shore and you’ll be given a new disposable character to take up the quest with. The distant camera and simple character designs mean there’s not much to differentiate each individual you control: they’re not named or unique in any way, and the game never makes it explicitly clear how or whether they’re connected. You start each life armed with a sword and hunting bow, which can be used to fend off any enemies you encounter, as well as a single refillable bottle of water that’s needed to replenish your character’s thirst meter. From there it’s up to you to gather the resources you’ll need to survive–by defeating enemies, finding chests, and exploring any part of the world that’s sparkling–as you delve deeper into Below’s world.

Early on, Below can feel generous by roguelike standards. You unlock multiple shortcuts as you go, allowing you to jump to a deeper level from the beginning of your next life, so that you don’t need to go all the way back through the whole game every time. Before long you unlock the ability to activate campfires as single-use checkpoints, letting you warp straight back to them with your next character. Resting at campfires will take you into a little room where you can store excess items that your next explorer can collect if need be, although storage space is limited, and if you exit out of the game you’ll start right back in the room you left when you start the game up again.

It takes a while to encounter an enemy that can do real damage too, meaning that instant-kill traps are a much greater danger for the first few levels, conditioning you to take a slow, cautious approach. Each time you respawn, the layout of every floor will have changed slightly, with room positions shifting and your map (which helpfully shows which direction you can exit each room from) having reset. It’s essential that you return to where you last died when you were carrying your lantern, which provides some challenge–you can retrieve resources from any corpses you leave behind, but your lantern is absolutely vital for progress.

For the first seven or so hours, Below hits a good balance between the intrigue of its atmospheric aesthetic and the punishing nature of its mechanics. Unfortunately, the balance shifts in a major way later on, and the game’s increasing difficulty is matched by harshened conditions. While early floors are rich in the essentials, letting you exploit swarms of bats for meat and enemies that drop gems that power your lantern, later floors are more miserly. Gathering resources from chests and defeated enemies is important–there’s a rudimentary crafting system letting you combine them to create weapons and items, but which resources you have access to depends on which floor you’re exploring. It’s not unusual to end up with an inventory full of items that can’t be combined or used for anything.

Once you’re midway through the game, each new restart is going to involve some early grinding, as jumping right to a lower level without the resources needed to keep your character fed, and without retrieving the lantern from where you last died, can turn the game into a disastrous slog. The areas you can use to gather resources need light so that you can avoid the instant-kill traps planted all over them, and although you can craft limited-use torches, that’s not going to do you much good in later stages where the lantern is your main way of fighting back against some of the game’s harsher nasties.

Your mileage may vary depending on your patience, but this isn’t a case where the game’s brutality works in service of its excellent combat and astonishing world. Below’s main thrills come from discovering new things, and when you’re forced to repeat the same sections multiple times, the game’s difficulty feels excessive and unnecessary. Below’s combat is simply not interesting enough to make the tough sections feel worthwhile–the rudimentary dash/shield/attack system has little room for nuance, and when enemies can do extreme damage with a single hit (often with a “bleed” effect that requires you to use resources to patch yourself up), death doesn’t always feel like your fault.

Later floors ask you to play very differently compared to the earlier ones. Suddenly you need to keep moving constantly, and the slow, methodical exploration that made the early parts of the game interesting is lost. The game’s sense of foreboding mystery begins to dissipate as well, as the mechanics reveal themselves to be relatively uncomplicated and the game’s art design relies on some tired tropes and enemy designs. Overall, the art design and Jim Guthrie’s imposing soundtrack are both excellent but become much harder to properly appreciate when you’re suffering through the game’s more tedious sections. Below also feels much better suited to PC–the distant camera and tiny characters had me moving closer to the television while playing on Xbox One.

Below’s extreme demands for patience and tolerance remain right through to the game’s mysterious ending. But despite its assured aesthetic and the initial pleasures of discovery, Below will eventually turn into a slog for all but the most committed of players.

The final season of Gotham is going to be a wild ride, based on what has been seen so far. With the city of Gotham cut off from the outside world and villains reigning supreme, it sounds practically impossible for any kind of happy ending. Don’t count out Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz), and their allies just yet, though.

While we do know some of the massive things happening in the final season–like the arrival of Batman in the series finale–there are still plenty of mysteries we’re dying for answers to. How will Bane be introduced? What happens to Selina (Camren Bicondova) after being paralyzed? And the question that plagues every season: How is Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) going to somehow survive this time?

Thankfully, during a visit to the Brooklyn sets of the Fox series, GameSpot had the chance to speak with the cast about what to expect from the final season. With Gotham returning on January 3 for the first of its final 12 episodes, there’s plenty you’re going to want to know before Season 5 kicks off, whether it’s what’s happening with Jeremiah (Cameron Monaghan) or how Lee (Morena Baccarin) will be different after Hugo Strange (BD Wong) brought her back to life.

Gotham Season 5 premieres Thursday, January 3, on Fox.

No Man’s Land is a scary place

In the Season 4 finale of Gotham, Jeremiah blew up the bridges that connect the city to the outside world. Now, when Season 5 picks up three months after the explosions, Gotham is a very different place. Criminals are in control as the city has been divided among various gangs. Meanwhile, there’s one small piece of land that Jim Gordon and what’s left of the GCPD has managed to maintain.

“The gangs are fighting each other and Gordon is literally and figuratively on an island,” McKenzie said. “He’s sort of on an island within an island of the little territory the GCP controls, surrounded by all these hostile forces.”

Penguin is reigning supreme… for now

With the gangs at war, there’s one man sitting pretty at the beginning of the season. Penguin has set himself up as a very important person in Gotham City. “All the major resources in a way have to fall through him,” Taylor explained. “Like most war profiteers, he also controls all the ammunition. If anyone is going to rise up to try and take over, essentially they have to go through Penguin to have the means to do so. He’s in a very good place when we start off.”

And his relationship with Gordon is more dangerous than ever

The dynamic between Penguin and Gordon has been one of the craziest in all of Gotham. They’re never exactly friends, but they shuffle back and forth between being in an uneasy alliance and a flat-out bloody feud quite often. Now, with the city devolving into utter chaos, viewers are going to see a new type of relationship between the two, as they may be the only things that can keep each other alive.

“We really go more in the direction of ‘I hate you, I need you,’ you know what I mean?” Taylor explains. “This happens between a lot of the characters. Because they’re all competing for control and they all have their own territories, they were all vying for more and more of this limited resource, which is just what the city [is now]. You see these relationships where it’s like it is an alliance, but at the same time the second someone slips or turns their back, that’s when the knife goes in. It’s this razor edge of trust that Penguin and Gordon are walking. We’ll see who wins.”

Get ready for Bruce’s final steps toward becoming Batman

We already know Batman will appear in the final episode of the series, which flashes forward 10 years. However, this last season will see Bruce Wayne take those final steps toward becoming the Caped Crusader fans have been waiting for, especially when it comes to his work with Gordon and the GCPD.

“Bruce is essentially a part of the GCPD. He is working very intimately with Gordon, and Bullock, and Lucius, and Alfred and all the good guys are together having to do that,” Mazouz said. This is a far cry from the days of Gordon chastising Bruce for putting himself into dangerous situations. With so little left in Gotham, he’s run out of options that aren’t Bruce Wayne.

Let’s talk about Bane

When it was announced Shane West would be coming to Gotham to play the iconic villain Bane, there was still quite a bit of mystery about him. We know the character’s name is Eduardo Dorrance and he is a friend of Gordon’s who comes to Gotham to help restore order in the city. Clearly, there’s a plan he has yet to clue Jim in on, though, given he’ll be revealed as a major villain in the final season.

According to McKenzie, it won’t take long for Eduardo to go full-on Bane. “I think when his character appears, because of their shared history and because of where Jim is–in a bad spot in Gotham–his friend’s appearance is very welcome,” the actor teased. “It’s a way of helping him out of his current predicament. But their history is complicated, and as much as they saw hard times together, the level of trust you reveal through action that the story is not quite as simple as they served together [in the military] and they are best buddies. It’s a little more complicated than that, in a good way, and I think it reveals itself rather quickly to be something a little more sinister and a little more complicated.”

What’s the deal with Jeremiah?

Gotham’s flirtation with the Joker has been going on since Season 1. When Cameron Monaghan first appeared as Jerome, a murderous child of the circus, viewers thought he’d surely become the Clown Prince of Crime. From there, the character went through several evolutions–and some serious disfigurement–on the path to becoming Batman’s greatest foe–though he never took on the name. Ultimately, he died at the hands of his twin brother Jeremiah.

Now, in Season 5, Jeremiah is this show’s take on Joker and Monaghan can’t wait for viewers to see how that plays out. “I liked playing Jerome a lot, but Jerome was extremely just chaotic and destructive in a way that was… It was representative of the anarchic side of the Joker, but I don’t think it necessarily captured a lot of the obsession and his meticulousness,” the actor told GameSpot. “There’s a level of genius to this guy. I think that that’s what’s fun about exploring this.”

Selina is down but not out

In the Season 4 finale, Selina was shot by Jeremiah for no other reason than Bruce cared about her. While she didn’t die, she was left paralyzed by season’s end. That’s a strange turn for the character that is to become Catwoman, but showrunner John Stephens made it clear that Selina’s story is far from over and will include some help from an old friend.

“We kinda know she’s not gonna be paralyzed forever,” he said. “So, the question is, what is the journey to becoming unparalyzed, and how does that journey end up changing her? Because obviously the Selina we’ve seen so far is not necessarily the same Selina we’ve seen within the comic books, you know? So the journey of becoming unparalyzed, which kind of vectors through [Poison] Ivy, changes her in a way that pushes her even further towards who she ends up being later on.”

Hugo Strange has made some alterations to Lee after her near-death experience

Selina wasn’t the only one left in a precarious position at the end of Season 4. Riddler (Cory Michael Smith) and Lee seemingly killed each other. That’s definitely not the case, though.

And for Lee, when viewers see her again, she’s going to be quite a bit different, thanks to Hugo Strange. “She’s definitely changed,” Baccarin said. “He’s been definitely messing with her. But in a weird way, what has happened also brings the old Lee back a little bit. There’s like a crazy switch that’s gone back and forth, I think that’s as best as I can say it, and then it gets better.”

Of course, in Gotham better normally means much worse. With that in mind, it should be interesting to see what happens to that character moving forward.

The long-running and wildly popular American sitcom The Big Bang Theory is ending with its current 12th season, and now we’ve learned more details about how it will wrap up. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Harold & Kumar actor Kal Penn and Lord of the Rings star Sean Astin will guest-star in the show’s final season.

Penn and Astin will play physicists who by accident confirm Sheldon and Amy’s super-asymmetry theory, which could have a major impact on how things turn out. There is no word yet on when the episode featuring Penn and Astin will air.

There were reportedly discussions about a 13th season, but they never materialised. The five original actors are set to make around $900,000 per episode for the 12th season, according to Variety.

Season 11 averaged 14 million viewers per episode, making it one of the most popular shows on TV, according to Variety. A spinoff, Young Sheldon, premiered in 2017.

In other news, Home Alone actor Macaulay Culkin says he was pursed for a part in The Big Bang Theory years ago but he turned it down multiple times.

The Big Bang Theory airs on CBS, whose parent company–CBS Corp.–owns GameSpot parent company CBS Interactive.