Author: trafficblast

Among the 30+ games that will be optimized for Xbox Series X at launch is the million-seller Maneater, which is basically a Jaws simulator where you are a shark and you try to do as much damage as possible.

David Amata, a product director at developer Tripwire Interactive, spoke to Xbox Wire about the benefits of the extra horsepower in the console. Amata said the speed of the Series X’s SSD, in particular, has impressed him.

“The speed of the SSD inside the Xbox Series X cannot be understated,” Amata said. “It has allowed us the freedom to make the world of Maneater even more visually impressive, helped us cut down on load times, and even helped to increase the draw distance.”

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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which released on Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC in 2019, is on its way to mobile. The game, which resulted from a $5.5 million Kickstarter campaign, will be available for iOS and Android devices in the future.

The news was announced by publisher NetEase Games, and translated by Gematsu. It’ll be a premium game, not free-to-play, and while specific regions for release have not been announced, an English language release has been confirmed.

The mobile version will have a new UI, with on-screen buttons being used to control the action.

This version will have its own achievement system, and will feature all the content that was in the original release. The command mechanic from the console/PC version will be overhauled to make it easier to pull off, and there will be shortcuts for quick-swapping between different loadouts.

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To help expand the reach of the Xbox streaming service, xCloud, Microsoft might consider releasing a “streaming stick” for the subscription service, similar to Google’ Chromecast offering.

Spencer said on the Stratchery podcast that part of Microsoft’s effort to lower the price barrier could be to offer xCloud on a streaming stick that simply gets plugged into a TV.

“I think you’re going to see lower-priced hardware as part of our ecosystem when you think about streaming sticks and other things that somebody might want to just go plug into their TV and go play via xCloud,” Spencer said, as reported by Stevivor.

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Sony has partnered with one of the world’s most famous rappers to promote the launch of the PlayStation 5. On social media, Sony announced that it’s working with Travis Scott, who will become a “strategic creative partner” for PlayStation going forward.

Scott himself created the video for the announcement, which features a number of other key members of the team that developed the PS5 hardware.

“We heard Travis is a huge PlayStation fan, so we started a conversation with him that led to this unique partnership,” Sony said in a blog post. “Through our mutual passion for gaming and creativity, we plan on collaborating with Travis and his Cactus Jack brand to produce innovative projects that we hope will delight our collective fans.”

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At WWE’s Hell in a Cell PPV, Sasha Banks won the Smackdown Women’s Championship for the first time. With five prior Raw Women’s Championship title reigns, that now makes Banks a six-time world champion. But despite letting her run with the belt so many times, WWE has an equal tendency to snatch it back just as quickly. Let’s hope that WWE finally gives Banks a title reign that benefits her performance.

It doesn’t always sit right when professional wrestlers brag about their number of title reigns. In 1996, the Intercontinental Champion was Razor Ramon, and the announcers would gush over him during the broadcasts: “The Bad Guy is the first four-time Intercontinental Champion!” It sounded impressive on its face. But think about it for a second. For someone to be the reigning 4-time champion, didn’t they need to lose the title three times? This type of boast didn’t hold up to scrutiny, especially if the reigns all happen in a short time frame.

What these abbreviated runs communicate to a smart audience is that the wrestler is objectively talented or charismatic enough to be a top star. But for some reason, the company cannot fully commit to or trust the individual. It could be that the wrestler has personal issues or x factors that compromise reliability. It could be an established reputation as “difficult to work with.”

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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, one of the upcoming films in Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has finished shooting. Director Destin Daniel Cretton and lead actor Simu Liu have both confirmed the end of filming on their Instagram accounts (embedded below), as reported by Deadline.

In any year, finishing a film shoot is worth celebrating, but in 2020, wrapping on shooting is an even bigger achievement that usual. The film, which had to shut down its set in early March after the COVID-19 outbreak, was able to resume filming in Australia at the end of July, and has now been completed.

“We made a baby!!!,” Liu wrote in his Instagram post about filming being completed. “We can’t wait to introduce him to the world in 9 months…” The photo shows him and Cretton celebrating. The top comment on the post is also from Cretton: “Hahaha. You killed it!!”

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The Suicide Squad is releasing in 2021, and a new Empire cover story has shown off the movie’s full Squad cast all together. This has started a new wave of discussion about the upcoming sequel/reboot, and director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) has jumped into the fray to talk about his approach–and the fact that a lot of the characters on this cover won’t make it through the movie.

Responding to a tweet asserting that Harley Quinn has “franchise armor” in the film (meaning that DC would not let Gunn kill her because they have long-term plans for the character), Gunn said that’s not the case. “They gave me carte blanche to do what I wanted,” he said, assuring fans that he can kill anyone he wants to.

The “canon” on The Suicide Squad is a bit murky, regarding where it fits in relation to DC’s numerous other movies, so whether or not deaths in the film will have a long-term impact on future DC films remains to be seen. But, for this film at least, it sounds like a lot of characters are going to die.

Gunn fanned the flames more with a follow-up tweet, asking “what two characters” fans think will survive The Suicide Squad. That doesn’t mean he’s directly saying that only two major characters will make it through, but he’s certainly implying the possibility.

Adding up responses, one Twitter user found that Harley Quinn (113 votes), King Shark (58 votes) and Polka Dot Man (31 votes) led the way in votes. Sorry, Weasel.

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Efforts have been underway for a very long time to make a Halo movie, with the likes of Neill Blomkamp, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro all attached to the project during various stages of production on a film that would never come out. Some new details about del Toro’s version has now come to light, and it sounds pretty wild.

Paul Russell, who came up Halo’s title and was an artist at Bungie for years, shared a new detail from del Toro’s movie script with IGN. He said del Toro had an idea to give Master Chief a twin brother who was evil.

“Master Chief had a twin brother, and the twin brother sided with The Flood, and then the end of the movie was going to be brother against brother,” Russell said.

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Gears 5 is getting a next-gen upgrade, and it’ll launch alongside a big new update, bringing new content to the game on all systems (including Xbox One). It’ll feature a New Game+ mode, and–strangely–the option to switch Marcus Fenix with actor Dave Bautista for the entire campaign.

IGN reports that on November 10, this update will not only unlock the next-gen version for current owners and Game Pass subscribers, but it’ll also add these new features.

New Game+ will introduce the following changes:

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