Another installment of 2K’s WWE series has been announced, and with it, two images have been revealed. Little is known about the latest version of the game, aptly named WWE 2K20, but more information will be revealed on August 5.
2K Games has revealed two images from its long-running WWE series: one of Universal Champion Brock Lesnar and one of Smackdown Women’s Champion Bayley. Both images feature the WWE superstar’s entrances and can be seen below. While this isn’t a huge reveal for WWE 2K20, more information will be shared on Monday, August 5.
Teased by 2K, Monday’s reveal will include the cover art for the game, along with gameplay footage and more information. This is the first announcement for the game and no further details have been given.
Last year’s installment–WWE 2K19–made huge changes to the overall game, completely reimagining the MyCareer Mode to be more story driven, adding fun arcade elements, a roster of over 200 superstars, and reintroducing Showcase Mode–which took inspiration from WWE’s documentary series on the WWE Network. The overall changes vastly improved the game and added a bit of fun to the series.
As for what could be coming down the like for WWE 2K20, no one knows at this point. Many fans of the series are hoping for the reintroduction of GM Mode, where players take on the role of Raw or Smackdown GM and try to get better ratings for their weekly programming than the other show. GM Mode has been one of the most talked about features that’s gone missing since UpUpDownDown started its weekly Battle of the Brands video series. In it, WWE superstars Xavier Woods and Tyler Breeze play GM Mode on WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2006.
Additionally, many are wondering not only who the cover star of this year’s game will be–hopefully Becky Lynch–but also which superstar Showcase Mode will focus on. There are plenty of working superstars in the company whose stories would work exceptionally well for that mode.
FIFA is one of the biggest games of the year, and FIFA 20 will likely be no different. Between Kick Off, Career Mode, and Pro Clubs, the series is rarely lacking in content, but the most played mode every year is FIFA Ultimate Team, or FUT for short. EA has finally lifted the lid on all the new FUT features, so read on below for a look at FUT Friendlies, FUT Seasons, new customization options, and the new FUT Icons we know about.
Contrary to what you might expect, this has nothing to do with the existing Seasons mode; instead, Seasons in FUT will work similarly to the periods of real-world time that Fortnite, PUBG, and more have popularized in recent years. In FIFA, these time periods are between six and eight weeks long and will include rewards you can earn over the course of a Season. There will also be Season objectives: these are similar to the current daily and weekly objectives but longer-term and with bigger rewards–one example given to us was a loan Ones To Watch Eden Hazard. Completing matches and objectives will net you XP, which will count toward Season rewards.
Club Customization Options And Milestones
FUT 20 will feature a bigger suite of club customization options, with EA making a big change by allowing clubs to display fictional badges, balls, and tifos, among other cosmetic items. For example, you’ll no longer be forced to display a tifo of Neymar or Thomas Mueller–instead, you can erect one of a dabbing unicorn… because of course. You could also use a 16-bit styled ball in your home stadium, rather than just real-world Adidas and Nike ones.
The new customization options are not currently planned to be available in regular packs. Rather, they’ll be rewards for a new type of challenge called Milestones. These are not tied to XP or Seasons but will be attainable by achieving long-term objectives such as scoring 100 headers. More customization options will be added throughout the year, EA says, but they will be untradeable.
FUT Friendlies
FUT Friendlies are a new way of playing casually within FUT–a place to go, EA says, when you don’t fancy the pressure of the Weekend League or Squad Battles. There are no great rewards for playing FUT friendlies, but you do still earn coins, and, crucially, player injuries, contracts, fitness, and your playing record remain unaffected. That means you can use that loan OTW Hazard to your heart’s content.
A big part of the new FUT Friendlies mode is House Rules, which have been lifted wholesale from FIFA 19‘s Kick Off update into FIFA 20’s Ultimate Team portion. As well as those modes added last year–Headers and Volleys, Survival, and so on–new options are being introduced in FUT 20. Those are:
Max Chem: Team chemistry doesn’t matter here–regardless of your squad selection, every player will be granted maximum chemistry.
Swaps: A standard match of FIFA except a random trio of your first XI players get swapped for three of your opponent’s.
King of the Hill: If you can keep the ball under control inside the virtual box painted somewhere on the pitch, you’ll build up a goal meter. Go on to score in the same attack and you’ll have that number added to the scoreline. For example, hold the ball in the box for long enough to build it up to 3 and you’ll add three goals to your score if you get the ball in the back of the net soon after.
Mystery Ball: Every time the ball comes back into play, a new match condition will be set. These could range from 3x goals for the next successful strike to maximum speed boost or maximum dribbling boost for the ball holder.
The latter two House Rules options are also coming to Kick Off outside of FUT, while the former two will be available within Ultimate Team only. FUT Friendlies as a whole can be played against AI, a local opponent, or online against friends.
FUT Icons
Finally, EA revealed a selection of its new Icon cards that will come to Ultimate Team this year. The players revealed so far are English striker Ian Wright, Italian midfield maestro Andrea Pirlo, Brazilian forward Carlos Alberto, Ivorian frontman Didier Drogba, and Dutch star Ronald Koeman.
FIFA 20 launches for PS4, Xbox One, and PC–with legacy editions coming to Switch and older platforms–on September 27.
Microsoft has announced the Xbox Game Pass lineup for the first few weeks of August, so you can play game gratis during the dog days of summer. As usual the service is offering a collection of games that will join the service on Xbox One consoles, PC, and one that will be on both.
On August 1, the service will add the sports game Ashes Cricket and the strategy game Pandemic for Xbox One, along with the vertical action game Downwell for PC. Then on August 8, those will be joined by the Jackbox Party Pack 2 on Xbox and Space Hulk Tactics on PC. Finally, on August 14, both Xbox One and PC players will get the roguelike Slay the Spire.
The Gears 5 PvP tech tests included with Game Pass have concluded, but a separate Horde Mode tech test is coming sometime in August. Microsoft hasn’t detailed when that will come, but like the PvP test, it should be included in Game Pass. That’s because the game itself will be included with Game Pass, and the tech tests are open to pre-orders, so if you’re a subscriber you kind of pre-ordered it too.
The announcement also detailed a new set of quests for Game Pass, which grant rewards points for playing Game Pass games that can be traded for gift cards or extending your Game Pass time. This time those include rewards for earning achievements in Batman: Arkham Knight, the Metro series, Borderlands, and Ashes Cricket, among others.
Game Pass is an all-you-can-eat subscription service that rotates a library of games for a monthly rate. You can pay $10 per month for the service on Xbox One or PC, or $15 for the combined “Game Pass Ultimate” subscription that also includes Xbox Live Gold. Check out the full list of Xbox Game Pass games for early August below.
The first trailer for The Irishman is here. The highly-anticipated crime thriller is the latest movie from legendary director Martin Scorsese, and stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci. It’s been produced by Netflix and is set to hit the service in the fall.
The Irishman tells the real-life story of Frank Sheeran, a union man who also allegedly worked as a contract killer. De Niro plays Sheeran, with Pacino as notorious union boss Jimmy Hoffa and Pesci as mobster Russell Bufalino. It looks like another epic, decade-spanning crime saga from Scorsese–and let’s face it, no one does it better the director of Goodfellas and Casino. Check the trailer out below.
The Irishman also stars Ray Romano, Anna Paquin, Bobby Cannavale, Harvey Keitel, and Stephen Graham. It’s penned by by Steven Zaillian, who also wrote Schindler’s List, American Gangster, and David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
One of the most notable aspects of The Irishman is that it will make extensive use of CG to “de-age” De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci for scenes in which their characters are much younger. The trailer shows relatively little of this, but the amount of VFX work meant that the movie has involved nearly two years of post-production. According to Deadline, the final budget is around $200 million, making it the most expensive movie of Scorsese’s career.
Although The Irishman does not yet have a confirmed release date, it will hit Netflix in the fall. It is also set to have a limited theatrical run and will premiere at the New York Film Festival on September 27.
EA has confirmed it will release a new Need for Speed title soon. The publisher said in an investor call that it plans to launch the new game before the end of March 2020.
“We’ll be delivering many other new experiences to players throughout the remainder of this fiscal year,” said EA CEO Andrew Wilson. “We’ll take the wraps off our new Need for Speed game heading into Gamescom in a few weeks.
“We [also] have plans for a Plants Vs. Zombies shooter title, coming to console and PC later this year.”
The most recent Need for Speed game, Payback, launched in 2017 to a mixed reception, including a 5/10 in GameSpot’s review. The upcoming Plants Vs. Zombies shooter, expected to be Garden Warfare 3, was stealth announced just recently with the codename “Picnic.” Not long before that, EA announced another mainline PvZ title. Plants Vs. Zombies 3 is currently in the pre-alpha testing phase, but a final release date has not been confirmed.
For the April-June quarter ended June 30, EA made $1.2 billion USD in revenue, which is up from $1.1 billion during the same quarter last year. Digital revenue accounted for $1.049 billion of the $1.2 billion total, with revenue from physical game sales and other sources coming in at $160 million.
EA posted $1.42 billion in profit for the three-month period, compared to a profit of $293 million during the same period last year. The huge increase was due to a number of factors, including EA’s decision to move some of its IP rights to its international HQ in Switzerland, as well as changes to the Swiss income tax rates that seem to have benefited EA in a major way.
A slide released as part of the EA earnings report also shines a light on just how substantial “live service” elements of the publisher’s games are to the company’s bottom line. For the latest quarter, live services, which include microtransactions and subscriptions among other elements, brought in $504 million in digital net For the trailing twelve months, live services racked up $2.461 billion for EA.
Looking at these numbers, it’s not hard to see why EA–and numerous other publishers in gaming–are pushing so hard for online games that use the games-as-a-service model to keep people playing–and paying.
Madden NFL 20‘s release this week kicks off the company’s barrage of sports games. The Ultimate Team modes are incredibly lucrative. EA disclosed in 2017 that all of the Ultimate Team modes combined brought in $800 million annually, according to GI.biz.
Movies about cats are very popular these days–yes they are–and now another cat-themed movie has added more actors to its cast.
The Tom and Jerry movie, which is based on the classic animated show that in its new form will seemingly blend live-action and CG, has welcomed Ken Jeong, Rob Delaney, Jordan Bolger, and Pallavi Sharda to its cast, according to Entertainment Weekly.
The Tom and Jerry movie will also star Colin Jost, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Michael Pena. Fantastic Four and Ride Along director Tim Story is directly the Tom and Jerry movie.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the Tom and Jerry movie follows the cat and mouse after they get booted from their home and must live in a New York hotel. Chloe Grace Moretz plays the character Kayla, who works at the hotel and is tasked with hosting a fancy wedding there. No one wants to come to a wedding with a mouse problem, so Kayla brings in Tom the cat to get rid of Jerry.
It probably won’t go to plan.
There have been Tom and Jerry movies over the years, but this new one seems to be the first of its kind with its hybrid nature, the full details of which are unclear at this stage.
In other news about cat movies, the first trailer for the movie version of Cats recently came online–and it’s terrifying meme-generator. The movie stars Idris Elba, Judi Dench, Rebel Wilson, Ian McKellan, James Corden, and Jennifer Hudson.
