Month: April 2020

Once again, Sony has moved the release date of its long-awaited Uncharted movie, but this shift is different. The movie studio has announced that the Uncharted movie has now moved forward to a release date of July 16, 2021.

The action-adventure movie was previously scheduled to premiere on October 8, 2021, so it’s been moved up by around three months. The release date changed as part of a wider Sony shakeup that saw the release date of the Spider-Man: Far From Home sequel move to November 5, 2021, with the Into The Spider-Verse sequel shifting to October 7, 2022.

The Uncharted movie has been in one form of production or another since 2008 or earlier, so it’s been a very long time coming. The film had been delayed numerous times over the years, but this time it’s moving up the schedule. The Uncharted movie had always sounded like a summer blockbuster, so the new July release date seems fitting.

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Avengers: Endgame is the most commercially successful movie of all time, with $2.79 billion at the global box office. The movie was extremely expensive to produce, as well, but the epic comic book film made enough money to become the most profitable film in history.

Deadline’s sources report that Endgame made $890 million in profit, which sets a new record for any film ever released. The P&L sheet states that Endgame cost $356 million to produce, with a further $175 million going toward paying cast and staff before residuals. Marvel reportedly paid $155 million to market the movie around the world.

In total, Endgame cost $899 million to produce, covering the production budget, actor and staff salaries, marketing, and other costs, according to the report. You can see a full breakdown of the expense sheet here at Deadline.

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It’s the last episode of New Releases for April, and some war games have been itching to finally deploy. We’ve got Gears Tactics, Sakura Wars, and the Xbox One and PC versions of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered to check out. It’s also the return of a retro classic with Streets of Rage 4. If you’ve been itching to get behind the wheel of a vehicle recently, you can check out SnowRunner too.

Gears Tactics — April 28

Available on: PC

Gears Tactics turns the Gears of War shooter formula into a tactics game, giving you a squad of customizable COGs who will carry out your orders against the Locust. It’s not just cannon fodder they’ll be facing, though: expect to encounter big Brumaks and Corpsers during the campaign too. Tactics is coming Game Pass for PC on launch day, but the Xbox One version will launch later this year.

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Fortnite‘s recent Travis Scott event was a gigantic, unprecedented success for the free-to-play battle royale game. Developer Epic Games announced that more than 12.3 million people were logged into the game at the same time for the concert, which sets a new concurrent record.

To put this number into perspective, the free-to-play PC juggernaut Counter Strike: Global Offensive recently set a concurrent player record of 924,000 users. No one doubted Fortnite’s unthinkable popularity, but these new numbers for the Travis Scott concert reinforce what a behemoth the game really is in terms of scale.

The Travis Scott Astronomical event premiered on April 24, with repeat shows taking place every day thereafter until April 26. Everyone who attended any of the Astronomical events received an Astroworld Cyclone glider and two free loading screens, while a skin based on Travis Scott, including emotes and more, was available to buy in the game.

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Since its highly successful Steam launch just under a month ago, Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord has been busy patching. In the 27 days since release, the game has had 19 patches and hotfixes, as well as introducing alpha and beta branches to streamline the patching process. The e1.2.0 patch is the result of the beta being rolled into the main Steam version, while further updates are happening on the beta branch.

The biggest fixes made in the new patch have to do with crashes, something the game has struggled with since launch, but has been proactive in fixing. A number of small checks and balances for multiplayer have been added too:

• Troop Balance
  • Battania
    • Clan Warrior Troop Count Increased 20 > 21
    • Savage Troop Count Increased 17 > 18
    • Wildling Troop Count Increased 16 > 17
    • Mounted Warrior Armor Increased 8 > 16
    • Mounted Warrior Troop Count Increased 9 > 16
    • Oathsworn Armor Increased 40 > 43
  • Empire
    • Courser Price Increased 130 > 140
    • Palatine Guard Menavlion Perk equips correct Menavlion now.
    • Recruit Speed Increased 78 > 80
  • Vlandia
    • Sergeant Armor Decreased 41 > 37
    • Knight Price Increased 180 > 190
  • Sturgia
    • Brigand Speed Increased 75 > 79
    • Varyag Price Increased 140 > 150
    • Berserker Armor Decreased 15 > 6
    • Berserker Troop Count Decreased 18 > 17
    • Raider Troop Count Increased 7 > 9
    • Druzhinnik Price Increased 170 > 180
  • Aserai
    • Skirmisher Speed Increased 78 > 80
• Weapon Balance
  • Menavlion Length Decreased 200 > 179
  • Menavlion Damage Decreased 147 > 129
  • Heavy Menavlion Damage Decreased 177 > 166
  • Long Menavlion Damage Decreased 149 > 137

A heap of other fixes and quality-of-life tweaks from the beta have also moved over to the main release, and you can check the full list here.

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Infinity Ward has share more details on the April 28 update for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone, including the preliminary patch notes and the file size.

In a blog post, Infinity Ward clarified that the update is about 15 GB in size, and it will be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The update delivers the Data Pack 1, and it must be downloaded to keep playing the game. This appears to be a console-only update.

In addition to the Data Pack, the April 28 update will include a series of bug fixes and changes (across console and PC). One of the big ones is that the speed and size of the Warzone gas circle has been “adjusted,” but Infinity Ward did not provide any further details.

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Days Gone, one of 2019’s biggest PS4 exclusives, has been out for a year now, and developer Bend Studios is celebrating the game’s success. In a new tweet, the studio revealed that players have racked up 200 million hours in the game, and showed off some other play stats.

In the tweet, embedded below, Bend Studios thanks its player base for playing the game and using photo mode to send screenshots to them, and gives us some insight into how the game has been played.

45 million hoardes and 32 million infestations have been cleared, along with 30 million ambush camps and 30 million nero checkpoints. Photomode has been used by 1 million players, and 600,000 have opted for the advanced features.

Along with this, players have earned 100 million trophies in the game, which is a huge number.

Days Gone was not a huge critical success; it earned a 5/10 in GameSpot’s review. However, it achieved some sales success, and has received some updates since launch. The game is set to remain a PS4 exclusive, despite rumors of a PC version.

The record-setting Avengers: Endgame released in theatres one year ago this month. It’s a very different world today, with theatres closed around the world due to COVID-19. In a new interview with Deadline, co-director Joe Russo reflected on how he believes the movie theatre business will once again thrive, but there will complications in the coming years.

“Theatrical is going to be complicated over the next year or two, but we don’t think it’s going anywhere. We will always want that communal experience,” he said.

Joe Russo said the movie theatre business is facing greater competition from the likes of Netflix and other digital platforms, and this could shake up the traditional movie-going business. The quality of films released on digital platforms instead of in theatres is getting “higher and higher,” Russo reflected. The newer, younger audience audience has grown accustomed to watching movies and TV shows at home on smaller screens. “This next generation isn’t afraid to watch content on their phones and computers,” he said.

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One of the newly established Xbox development studios, The Initiative, continues to hire big-name talent for its first project. The southern California studio has hired Sylvia Chambers–who worked on Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy at Naughty Dog and Battlefield V with DICE–to become an animator at the company.

Chambers’ LinkedIn page states that she is working at The Initiative on a contract basis, having started in April 2020. In addition to working in games, Chambers worked as a shot creator for Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok at the pre-visualization studio The Third Floor.

You can check out Chambers’ demo reel below. Chambers is starting with The Initiative at a unique time, as all developers there are currently working from home amid the COVID-19 crisis.

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