Month: September 2019

The latest Dungeons & Dragons book takes players into the world of Baldur’s Gate, and it’s the perfect starting point for new adventurers and new characters, if you’re up for the challenge. Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus arrives in stores today and adds vehicles to utilize in a massive war.

The new adventure book starts off characters at level one and takes them to level 13 as they traverse Baldur’s Gate and set foot in Avernus, which is the first layer of the Nine Hells. And yes, this is the same Baldur’s Gate from the video game series that takes place on the Sword Coast.

Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus

$50 $32

See it at Amazon

The big edition to the series for 5th edition is infernal war machines. These are battle-ready vehicles which characters can customize and utilize as they traverse deeper and deeper into the Blood War. Additionally, this world will be filled with new possibilities as Dungeon Masters will be able to offer heroes deals with the devil to give players power and treasure, but at what cost?

The new adventure book costs $50, but is currently on sale at Amazon for $32 at the time of this writing. The book is also available at local retailers and on DnD Beyond. There is also an alternate cover for the book, pictured above, available at gaming stores.

There is also a dice set for the new game, featuring 11 branded dice, a dice tray, 20 double-sided cards with encounter tables, a foldout map of Avernus, and more. The set is available on Amazon for $23, a couple dollars off the original price.

Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus Details:

• 1 new background
• 62 new magic items
• 37 new monsters
• 4 new vehicles
• New adventure taking place in Baldur’s Gate and Avernus

The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

Writer/Director duo Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson have, in the span of only seven years and four movies, established their own unique brand of filmmaking, playing with different genres, cosmic entities, and the concept of time without ever losing sight of the core relationships that are always at the center of their films. Moorhead and Benson seem fascinated by the concept of time, the fear of it passing, and our inability to control or escape it. Now with their fourth feature collaboration, Synchronic, the duo gives us their most mainstream-friendly movie to date, but one that nonetheless feels like their most grounded and emotionally charged work. And of course, it also explores some sci-fi shenanigans.

If there’s one thing you can expect from a Moorhead/Benson joint besides a genre-mashing exploration of time, it’s a core duo at the center of the story. The 2013 low-budget horror movie Resolution had a long-lasting yet estranged friendship, 2014’s Spring had a new romantic relationship, and last year’s thriller The Endless had two brothers as the protagonists. This time, in Synchronic, it’s friends and work partners Steven (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan), two paramedics working in New Orleans who one day are called to a scene that looks like a typical overdose–except for the guy stabbed with an ancient-looking sword. The only clue is the wrapper for a synthetic designer drug called Synchronic. As more bizarre and inexplicable deaths begin to happen, and Dennis’s teenage daughter Brianna (Ally Ioannides) goes missing after trying the drug, Steven and Dennis find themselves personally involved with the mystery.

It takes a while before Synchronic fully enters into cosmic sci-fi territory, which may lose some viewers hoping for a full-blown time travel movie. But by the time it finally happens, you’ll be fully invested in Dennis and Steven’s dynamic. Dornan and Mackie have great on-screen chemistry, and the duo manage to convey a nuanced relationship with small touches like a few silent glances. The problem comes when Mackie’s Steven gets a terrible piece of news that he chooses to hide from Dennis, and Brianna’s disappearance has Dennis focused on saving his family. This causes the pair to split apart for most of the movie’s second half, each dealing with their own issue alone. Sadly, the movie chooses to focus on Steven’s journey over Dennis’s, leaving Dornan’s character feeling like an afterthought.

That being said, Mackie more than steps up to the task of serving as the emotional anchor of the movie. The Marvel Cinematic Universe star effortlessly conveys the drama of the story in his coping with his terrible news, while also keeping the mind-melting hard sci-fi exposition from overwhelming the audience. It’s this last part that leads to a high-concept third act that feels ripe for a larger franchise.

Credited as the screenwriter, Justin Benson isn’t a stranger to writing well-developed characters or to slowly revealing a grander story little by little, and Synchronic shows exactly why he and Aaron Moorhead work so well together. Benson forgoes lengthy monologues to exploit the actors’ performances, instead letting the drama unfold through action and behavior. This is aided by Moorhead’s excellent eye for detail in his cinematography, which makes the audience feel like they’re a passenger on a speeding train with no power to stop it. For example, an early scene where Dennis and Steven go to a crime scene is shot using an apparent single long take, turning the camera into an ethereal, floating specter, ominously following Dennis and Steven as if watching its next victims.

While it’s difficult to talk about this movie without spoiling its many surprising twists, it is fair to say that Synchronic takes us to a variety of different scenarios and set pieces. There’s a reason Synchronic takes place in New Orleans, as the city has a historic and intricate connection to death and the macabre, which allows the filmmaking duo to flex their horror muscles and explore the historical terrors of the city that still resonate today.

During a Q&A following the movie’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the filmmakers talked about waiting years to tell this story due to budget constraints. Synchronic is the pair’s most accessible film to date, and it shows that they are fully deserving of working with a big budget. Moorhead and Benson take us to incredible and fantastical locations, and they do so without losing sight of the film’s emotional core.

Some films about time or time travel make the past look pristine and perfect compared to our dark and gritty present. Synchronic is not interested in that, but instead tells a poignant message about clinging to life and making the most of it. This is a sci-fi film that will twist your mind as it pulls at your heartstrings.

Bungie is changing how Destiny 2‘s Nightfalls work with the Shadowkeep expansion, amping up their difficulty significantly and increasing rewards to match. The new system is called Nightfall: The Ordeal, and it sounds like it could be one of Destiny 2’s greatest challenges.

In its ViDoc discussing upcoming content in the Shadowkeep expansion, the Season of the Undying, and beyond into Year Three, Bungie showed a look at the new Nightfall menu. The new brand of top-level Strikes go by the name Nightfall: The Ordeal. It’s broken up into four different difficulty tiers, starting wth Adept, which requires a Power level of 750 (which you’ll automatically start at when Shadowkeep releases), and topping out at 980 with Master. Those levels show that Nightfalls are about to be a bigger part of the endgame grind, it seems, requiring you to really amp up your character to complete them.

Nightfall: The Ordeal Tiers

• Adept – 750 Power Level
• Hero – 920 Power Level
• Legend – 950 Power Level
• Master – 980 Power Level

Which level of Nightfall you go for will seriously affect its difficulty, adding a whole host of new modifiers–most of which we don’t know anything about yet. Known modifiers include Match Game, which requires you to use energy weapons that correspond to the elemental type of an enemy’s shield, and Chaff, which disables your radar. Some new ones are Empath and Hashladun’s Serenade.

The Ordeal also includes a new enemy type called Champions, which sound like they’re especially tough to beat. Champions also get modifiers of their own. According to Bungie, the new Season Artifact items players earn and power up will be essential to working through The Ordeal, as these will give you the ability to take on and deal with Champions. Artifacts also allow you to boost your Power level indefinitely–these items are how you’ll reach those top-tier Power levels in the high 900s.

The rewards for the Nightfalls look like they’ll match accordingly. The Master level states Exotic gear is a Common drop for completing the Strikes. Also included as rewards are Enhancement Prisms (which are Common) and Ascendant Shards (Uncommon). Those sound like materials you’ll use to upgrade Exotic gear–we last heard about Ascendant Shards in Destiny 1, where they were used to power up gear from the Vault of Glass raid.

The ViDoc dropped a lot more information as well. It includes some hints about what to expect from the rest of Destiny 2’s third year, including a serious story hint about time travel. We also got a brief look at the Lectern of Enchantment, which looks to be the system through which you’ll earn Shadowkeep gear by finishing Nightmare Hunts, one of the new activities in the expansion.

Birds Of Prey And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn is just hurtling towards its February 7 release date in the sort of style you could only expect from Gotham’s Clown Queen of Crime herself. Now a new poster featuring Margot Robbie as Harley, along with a few of her pals, has arrived.

With the style and sensibility that feels more like a Looney Toons bit than a gritty superhero thriller, Harley’s head is surrounded by little birdy versions of her friends (and enemies) like Cassandra Cain, Black Canary, and Huntress as well as our first up close and personal look at Ewan McGregor‘s Roman Sionus and Chris Messina‘s Victor Zsasz. This version of Sionus is notably missing his trademark skeletal mask–the origin of his Black Mask codename–and it’s difficult to tell if Messina’s Zsasz is covered in his iconic tally mark scars, but some design updates would definitely be par for the course on a movie like this. Also in the poster is Rozie Perez’s Renee Montoya, sneaking in on the far left of Harley’s pigtail.

Fans who went to the theaters for It Chapter 2 earlier this month were treated to a surprise teaser for Birds of Prey, complete with a fourth-wall breaking Harley explaining that she’s “so f***ing over clowns.” So we can likely expect a full trailer to drop fairly soon.

Birds Of Prey And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn hits theaters on February 7, 2020.

With Destiny 2 gearing up for the release of Shadowkeep, developer Bungie outlined what’s to come in the first-person looter-shooter MMO. Destiny 2’s five-year plan is now underway–and it really kicks off when Shadowkeep comes out this October. This likely means Destiny 3, if it ever happens, is years away from release. In the meantime, here’s how Guardians can expect Destiny 2’s ongoing updates to work.

Various Bungie developers–including game director Luke Smith, community head Eric Osborne, production director Justin Truman, and more–spoke about their vision for Destiny 2 with Shadowkeep and beyond in a new vidoc. Bungie is investing in a large system overhaul for the looter-shooter. Everything is changing: armor, enemies, missions, and even the game world itself. The studio claimed it wants to “build Destiny for its core fans [and] the people who love it.”

Everything Is Changing

Director Luke Smith started the vidoc by saying he wants to construct a world where you feel like all your actions move the universe forward in some meaningful way. To achieve this goal, Smith said Shadowkeep is the “first step” for Bungie to build the world it is envisioning for Guardians. Shadowkeep will call you back to the Moon, an important Destiny locale that has undergone some frightening changes. Community head Eric Osborne explained that part of the game is understanding what has changed the Moon and why, and what has the Vanguard Hunter Eris Morn discovered on or in it. Whatever discovery this is, according to Osborne, will have drastic implications on Destiny’s world, extending possibly to March 2020, all the way to this time next year, and beyond. But returning to the Moon will induce nightmares that manifest into enemies from the past.

Shadowkeep doesn’t just present a new suite of missions and raids. It also changes the way you play Destiny 2, according to production director Justin Truman. The studio transitioned to talking about armor, which is seeing a drastic overhaul with Shadowkeep. Armor 2.0, at its core, is about making every character slot count. Stats have returned in the character screen, finishers have mods that affect their properties, and more. Further, Shadowkeep will introduce a bevy of new weapons, from seasonal equipment to Shadowkeep gear and some that glow when nightmares are nearby. Smith says Shadowkeep will allow you to “build your character your way.”

More Ways To Play

With Shadowkeep comes the evolution of how Bungie handles its season pass. The studio is focusing more on how the seasons actually connect and relate to each other in order to create a more cohesive narrative across the whole of Destiny 2. The studio wants to tell “one continuous story” that poses and answers questions, all starting with Shadowkeep.

Fellow production director Matt Zitterman explained that each time you log in to Destiny 2 there’s a new way to play thanks to the seasons. Each system–from season rank to the Artifact–is “designed to make the game more compelling as a character-building game,” according to Zitterman. The Artifact, an infinite power grind, will give you the tools you need to defeat Destiny 2’s new harder enemies, the Champions, as well as the new Nightfall modes. With the introduction of the Artifact, the endgame will soon be about overleveling your character so you can take on Destiny 2’s hardest challenges.

Repurposing Familiarity

Having a “healthier PvP game” is part of Bungie’s focus within the five-year plan. That includes bringing back original Destiny maps–like Fragment and Widow’s Court–placing Elimination back into the Crucible’s rotating game modes, and more. Each week will feature different iterations on game modes, where Bungie will be looking for player-feedback to make tweaks.

Bungie also wants Destiny 2 to have a single, evolving world. The Season of the Undying sees the Vex invading the Moon, and it kicks off the first act of Year Three. From there, Destiny 2 will see a bevy of new content, including new raids, nightmare hunts, exotic quests, and “so much more no matter what player you are,” Osborne said. Creating a single, evolving world is “one of the biggest changes” coming to Destiny 2 overtime. All of these changes follow Activision and Bungie’s break up earlier this year, which now sees the FPS developer showcasing the breadth and scope of its vision for Destiny 2.

Shadowkeep is expected to hit PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 1. Destiny 2 will be a day-one launch title when the Google Stadia comes out sometime this November.

While Toy Story 4 introduced a number of new toys into an already massive cast, there are even more new characters who didn’t quite make the cut. We have an exclusive clip that showcases some of these characters, as Buzz Lightyear meets three “knockoffs” crudely designed in his image.

Check out this deleted scene in the video player above.

Director Josh Cooley breaks down the origins of the scene as he introduces the clip. The idea being that Buzz would meet several bootleg toys while trapped as a prize inside a carnival booth. The toys look like him (more or less) but they aren’t quite the real deal. And as we can see from one of these characters, Buzz’s iconic catchphrases didn’t quite make the transition.

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All September long, IGN is highlighting the best TV coming your way in the 2019-2020 season. Today we’re featuring Arrow, which is set to begin its eighth and final season in October. The series is undergoing its most dramatic status quo shift ever in Season 8. Oliver Queen is coming out of his short-lived retirement to join forces with the Monitor and prepare for the coming Crisis, a conflict he’s been told will lead to his own death. Along the way, the series will revisit the most popular characters and conflicts from the past seven seasons, even as it also continues exploring the future of Team Arrow in the year 2049. We recently had a chance to chat with showrunner Beth Schwartz about the final season and how it pays tribute to Oliver Queen’s legacy in the Arrowverse.  

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