Month: April 2020

E3 2021 has locked in dates, and will happen from June 15 to 17, 2021. Gamesindustry.biz is reporting that the ESA has set these dates following the cancellation of E3 2020, and that they’ve said that the event will be “reimagined.”

What exactly this means isn’t yet clear, and it will likely be some time before we know exactly what E3 2021 will look like.

E3 2021 might have needed to look different even if COVID-19 hadn’t forced the cancellation of this year’s showcase–2020 was set to be the second year of E3 without PlayStation, and regular E3 Colosseum host Geoff Keighley was planning on missing the event for the first time in 25 years.

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2017’s Oscar-winning drama Call Me By Your Name is getting a sequel, and now we’ve learned a little more about it. Director Luca Guadagnino told Italian newspaper La Repubblica (via Deadline) that the stars of the original movie–Timothee Chalamet, Armie Hammer, and Michael Stuhlbarg–are all set to reprise their roles in the follow-up.

“Of course, it was a great pleasure to work with Timothee Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Esther Garrel, and the other actors. Everyone will be in the new movie,” the director said.

Call Me By Your Name was based on the Andre Aciman novel of the same name. The sequel will presumably be based on Aciman’s follow-up to that book, Find Me, which was released in October 2019. Guadagnino was given an advance copy of the novel to read to plan out his movie.

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Mafia II released for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in 2010, and now, a decade later, there’s some evidence that a new version of the game might be on the way. Gematsu is reporting that the Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea has rated something called Mafia II: Definitive Edition.

Whether this definitive edition of Mafia II is a Switch port, a PS4 and Xbox One remaster, or even a next-gen version of the game, is unknown. An official announcement will hopefully come soon and clear up any confusion.

It would not be the first time a 2K release has been revealed by a ratings board in 2020– the Switch ports of XCOM 2 and The BioShock Collection both leaked early through ratings boards, as did Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered.

The most recent game in the Mafia franchise is 2016’s Mafia III, developed by Hanger 13. That studio is currently working on a new project that will be unveiled this year–it’s unclear whether or not it will be a game set in the Mafia universe.

Mafia II received an 8.5/10 in our original review, and was praised for “deliver(ing) fun shoot-outs and pockets of shocking brutality in a world you’re delighted to be a part of.”

Rocksmith 2014 Edition is ending its DLC support after over five years of weekly releases. The newly released Opeth song pack is the final piece releasing, Ubisoft has announced, and the game’s library is now complete after 383 weeks straight of DLC releases.

Rocksmith 2014 Edition now features 1570 songs if you bought all the DLC, spanning seven decades of artists (plus Bach, an 18th century outlier). According to the post to the Rocksmith website, the team is moving away from DLC because they have “been hard at work on a new project.”

“For over a decade, we’ve watched players learn, grow, and constantly surprise us with your talent, creativity, and eagerness to help one another reach your goals,” the post reads, referring to the 2011 release of the original Rocksmith. “We truly could not be more proud to play a part in this guitar journey with you.”

Although there will be no new DLC, the team behind the game promises that “the Rocksmith Dev Stream will continue (in a new format), along with some more surprises.” It’s unclear whether the team’s next project will include guitars, too.

Rocksmith 2014 Edition received a remaster in 2016, which was a free download for anyone with the original game on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The game received an 8/10 in GameSpot’s review, which praised the game as an improvement on its predecessor. “Rocksmith isn’t going to be replacing the likes of a keen ear, a copy of Guitar Pro, and a good set of tabs for me, but when I think back to when I bashed out my first clumsy Green Day chords on guitar, I’d have killed for as good a teacher as this,” reviewer Mark Walton wrote.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare‘s Season 3 update is coming very soon, but ahead of that, some of the first details about what’s included in the release have leaked ahead of schedule.

Data-miners claim to have found references to a new map called “Village” that will be included in the Season 3 update. According to the leak, which shows the map from a top-down view this is a brand-new map, not a remake of the Village map from 2011’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Another leaked image, which you can see here at CharlieIntel, shows what appears to be the loading screen for the Village map. It depicts a forest setting with buildings that are on fire. It appears to be a three-lane map.

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The Switch has played host to some surprising ports of PS4 and Xbox One games over the years, including The Witcher 3 and Doom, but with the next generation of consoles on the horizon, some fans are wondering whether titles designed for PS5 and Xbox Series X will also get Switch releases. But one developer that has built a reputation as a good Switch port studio is encouraging game studios to not leave the Switch behind.

Virtuos Studios has handled some of the biggest ports on Nintendo Switch, including Dark Souls Remastered, LA Noire, and the upcoming port of The Outer Worlds. Now, in an interview with Maxi Geek, the studio’s vice president Elijah Freeman has expressed optimism in being able to continue developing ports of new games for the Switch.

“We believe that 2020 will be the year of game-centric development,” he said, “where players will expect as standard a consistency of experience with their favorite games.” He says that, with new consoles right around the corner, “developers need to strategize and plan for the game experience to be consistent across all platforms. At Virtuos we are charged up and full of talent that is ready to help bring these new games to the Nintendo Switch.”

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Some of the producers of The Office have announced they are creating a new TV show that is, basically, The Office but if everyone worked from home. Executive producers Ben Silverman and Paul Liberstein (who also starred on The Office as Toby Flenderson) are developing a new show that is “an office comedy without an office.”

Obviously, this show is inspired by the way in which many people are working today due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. “Everybody’s attempt to keep themselves private from work no longer applies. And this kind of integration between home and work brought all these new ideas and stories and characters into play,” Lieberstein told NPR about his plans.

The show would focus not on the global health crisis that is forcing people to work remotely, but instead “the realities of working from home” in general.

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