Month: March 2020

Few projects have amassed the level of expectation as Final Fantasy VII Remake. The highly-anticipated reimagining of the classic RPG is finally coming–at least, as a first piece in the multi-part saga–on April 10 for PS4. Unlike the original, it will feature a full voice cast to help imbue the iconic journey with a more cinematic quality. At PAX East, GameSpot spoke with four of the upcoming remake’s cast members–Erica Lindbeck (Jessie), Gideon Emery (Biggs), Briana White (Aerith), and Britt Baron (Tifa). They each shared their thoughts on stepping into the roles of such beloved characters, the challenges of getting their performances just right, and how some parts of the story are timeless.

For some of the voice cast, the journey started years ago with the second trailer shown at the PlayStation Experience in 2015. That trailer will look familiar to those who have played the now-public demo, which heavily features the opening bombing run organized by the Avalanche revolutionary group. It uses the resistance members Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge to introduce the world and the stoic Cloud, and so their voice actors were brought on early.

“Gideon [Emery] and I have been on this project for about five years now because we had to do that trailer that premiered at the PlayStation Experience, so I remember auditioning for Jessie and booking her,” Lindbeck said. “I didn’t know a ton about FFVII barring the main characters, but I’d seen it in other forms, like in Advent Children or Crisis Core. And I just assumed that she wasn’t a very big character. A couple of my friends like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s Jessie, she’s basically in the first quarter of the game.’ Then the trailer premiered and she was the first English line of the first English trailer for FFVII. So I did some research and found out that her story was being expanded. The team Avalanche story was being expanded a lot and that was really exciting because I remember being so excited to just be in a Final Fantasy game.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

On this week’s episode of GameSpot After Dark, Kallie is joined by Michael Higham, Kurt Indovina, and Ashley Oh to talk about The Witcher 3, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Murder By Numbers! If you have any questions for the cast, email us at afterdarkpodcast@gamespot.com.

The creative director of E3 2020 has decided to step down from being involved in this year’s show.

Merchandise and event production company Iam8bit has resigned from its position as creative director “with mixed emotions” as revealed in a tweet, but the reason why hasn’t been given.

It’s with mixed emotions that @iam8bit has decided to resign as Creative Directors of what was to be an evolutionary #E32020 floor experience. We’ve produced hundreds of gaming + community events and it was a dream to be involved with E3. We wish the organizers the best of luck.

— iam8bit (@iam8bit) March 5, 2020

 

Iam8bit was originally brought on to “reinvigorate the show and, frankly, to shake things up,” as it said in the announcement earlier this year.

The idea at this year’s E3 was to create a showfloor that “celebrates gaming culture in exciting new ways.” This would be shared with the world through new streaming and digital programming.

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While Iam8bit isn’t giving any explanation of why it has resigned from its position, the organiser of E3, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), has given a statement to GI.biz.

“We can confirm that Iam8bit is no longer part of the inter-agency group working on E3 2020. We greatly value their passion for the video game industry and the contributions they brought toward our vision for this year’s show,” the ESA said to GI.biz.

“We have an innovative and experienced team in place including Endeavor’s creative agency 160over90, event innovators Mat+Lo and longtime E3 partners, GES, Dolaher Events and Double Forte — all collaborating to bring to life an exciting and authentic experience for fans, the media and the industry.”

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The ESA has confirmed that it still plans to go ahead with E3 2020 despite the city of Los Angeles declaring a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Many of the game events meant to be happening in the first half of this year have already been cancelled due to concerns surrounding the spread of the virus.

The ESA released a list of companies that still plan on attending E3 2020, but one of the big companies that has dropped out is Sony. E3 Coliseum host Geoff Keighley also said he won’t be attending this year.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Today, Frictional Games announced their next horror project and it’s a return to the series that made them famous. Amnesia: Rebirth will be released on PC and PS4 later this year, 10 years after the release of Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Amnesia: Rebirth follows a new character Tasi Trianon as they try to survive a deadly creature stalking her in the Algerian desert. This creature apparently feeds of Trianon’s terror, and players must be careful not to breathe lest they alert the hunter. You can watch the full announcement trailer below.

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The trailer is light on details but it’s immediately clear that Trianon finds herself in hostile territory. There are what appears to be caverns outfitted with traps, and you can briefly see the silhouette of a creature in a sandstorm.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent was released in 2010 where it became a viral hit online. The no-combat horror game was a popular mainstay for YouTubers and streamers to show how brave (or not) they could be while playing the game. Frictional would publish a sequel called Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs that was developed by The Chinese Room.

Frictional would develop their own follow-up in 2015 called Soma, which isn’t set in the Amnesia universe but features many of Frictional’s hallmarks such as having an unreliable protagonist and ambiguous memory.

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Prior to today’s announcement, Frictional began drip-feeding several mysterious videos hidden online that led up to today’s reveal. Some of the past videos included references to Algeria, and hinted at the desert location.

Amnesia: Rebirth will be released in autumn 2020 for PC and PlayStation 4. It is already available to wishlist on Steam. For more, check out IGN’s review of the first Amnesia here.

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Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. You can reach him on Twitter.

James Gunn has confirmed that he once had an idea for a Guardians of the Galaxy spin-off movie focused on Drax and Mantis, which was “never ruled out.”

Taking to Twitter on Thursday, the filmmaker verified a recent report, exposing his idea of a Drax and Mantis team-up movie, while suggesting that it “could be amazing” if the project was ever actually greenlit.

True. But this was never ruled out. I still think it could be amazing. @DaveBautista @PomKlementieff https://t.co/MpA2iDGLHg

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 5, 2020

This comes shortly after Dave Bautista, who plays lovable lug Drax in the Guardians movies, expressed his interest in Gunn’s potential spin-off movie while simultaneously turning down the possibility of his character appearing in a Disney+ series.

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“I wouldn’t do a series because Drax as a series would be really rough with the make-up and everything, it would just be too tough. What I would like to do is, honestly, and this is not my idea, I’m stealing this idea, James Gunn had the idea to do a Drax/Mantis movie, and that’s what I’d be up for because there’s just too much fun there,” Bautista said in a recent interview with Collider, even though the movie didn’t end up making it into Marvel’s schedule.

This isn’t the first time that the idea of a Guardians spin-off movie has been bandied around; a Groot/Rocket buddy movie was once deemed a “highly possible” release to follow Avengers: Infinity War. Gunn also suggested that he would like the Ravagers to star in a standalone movie as an expansion of Vol. 2’s post-credit scenes.

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Before any of that, however, Gunn is expected to move onto Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, though it could be a long way off, as Gunn previously apologised for Guardians 3’s absence from Phase 4 of the MCU. However, it sounds like it could be worth the wait, as Karen Gillan, who plays Nebula in the MCU, claimed the script for Volume 3 is the best of the trilogy.

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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

On Twitter, Craig Mazin, the writer and producer of the just announced The Last Of Us HBO show has confirmed that he will not be changing Ellie’s sexuality, much to the relief of fans.

Ellie’s sexuality has been a divisive issue among fans ever since it became apparent that Ellie was gay in the first DLC, Left Behind. Ellie’s sexuality has been further confirmed by the marketing for The Last of Us Part II, with an early trailer showing her kissing another woman. Ellie is a rare example of a gay protagonist in a major AAA game, and Mazin clearly recognizes the importance of representing this in the series.

The feeling of being included in media is a big deal to those who have been marginalized in the past, ignoring that part of Ellie’s character would be a shame.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

The Wonderful 101: Remastered has surpassed $2 million in funding on Kickstarter, unlocking a new mission and extra stretch goals.

Unlocked by reaching this new funding goal is Luka’s Second Mission, of which we only have a vague description to guess at what it might be: “Our young hero is back and ready for more adventure.”

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Some idea might be gleaned by looking at Luka’s First Mission, which was unlocked when Kickstarter funding reached $1.5 million, and is said to be a “brand new 2D side scrolling adventure starring a young hero.”

Luka appears in the original game as a young, aspiring boy who encounters the Wonderful Ones several times throughout the story. He is eventually inducted into the team under the alias Wonder Googles on account of his goggles that fire laser beams.

Developer PlatinumGames has now revealed two more stretch goals as the Kickstarter enters its final hours. The first, unlocked at $2.25 million, is orchestral recordings for the songs “The Won-Stoppable Wonderful 101” and “Tables Turn.”

The second new goal, unlocked at $2.5 million, is new languages added to the game. No specific languages are mentioned by Platinum asks for fans to let the studio know which languages they most want the game to support if this stretch goal is reached.

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The Wonderful 101: Remastered was the first of four big announcements that Bayonetta and Nier: Automata developer PlatinumGames has for 2020. The second was a self-published game currently known as Project G.G.. The third announcement was the opening of PlatinumGames Tokyo which will be developing live-service games.

The Wonderful 101: Remastered already has a release date. It will be released for Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Steam on May 19 in North America and May 22 in Europe.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.