Author: trafficblast

Dexter showrunner Clyde Phillips has confirmed that the upcoming revival will not rewrite the events of Season 8, but it will basically “start from scratch.”

Speaking on The Hollywood Reporter’s TV’s Top 5 podcast, Phillips, who was the showrunner on the first four seasons of the original series, and will be returning as the showrunner on the new limited series, said that the revival is being positioned as a “second finale” for the show after fans were left disappointed by the many failings of Season 8.

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“We basically do get to start from scratch,” Phillips said. “We want this to not be Dexter Season 9. Ten years, or however many years, have passed by the time this will air, and the show will reflect that time passage. In so far as the ending of the show, this will have no resemblance to how the original finale was. It’s a great opportunity to write a second finale for our show, and Showtime was very gracious about that.”

Dexter’s final season was widely criticised for having an ending that didn’t satisfy the show’s loyal fanbase. The last episode, titled Remember the Monsters?, saw Michael C. Hall’s serial killer starting over as a lumberjack in the solitude of the Pacific Northwest. Many fans felt that this move was out of character, including the lead actor who said that he would’ve rather have seen Dexter die in the end.

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“I believe that [Michael C. Hall] was not completely satisfied with it, and this is an opportunity to make that right, but that’s not why we’re doing it,” Phillips explained, referencing Hall’s distaste for the show’s ending. “We’re doing this because there is such a hunger for Dexter out there. We’re not undoing anything. We’re not doing movie-magic. We’re not going to betray the audience and say, ‘Whoops, that was all a dream.'”

He underscored his approach to the limited series, saying, “what happened in the first eight years happened in the first eight years.”

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While plot specifics are being kept firmly under (plastic) wraps right now, Gary Levine, Showtime’s President of Entertainment, made a statement in a press release for the upcoming 10-episode revival, in which he praised Phillips and Hall for finding a creative take that is “truly worthy of the brilliant, original series.” Intrigued? Read our thoughts on how the revival could redeem the show’s disappointing ending.

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

If you’re in the mood for some Halloween-appropriate reading material, Image Comics has a new graphic novel that might just fit the bill. The minds behind Grafity’s Wall – writer Ram V and artist Anand RK – have reunited for Blue in Green, a moody comic that combines elements of horror and jazz music.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for a preview of Blue in Green, including several never-before-seen interior pages:

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Here’s Image’s official description of the book:

The dark and haunting portrayal of a young musician’s pursuit of creative genius—the monstrous nature of which threatens to consume him as it did his predecessor half a century ago. From creators RAM V (Grafity’s Wall, These Savage Shores) and ANAND RK (Grafity’s Wall), BLUE IN GREEN is an exploration of ambitions, expectations, and the horrific depths of their spiraling pursuit.

“Blue In Green is the product of an attempt at doing what all the great Jazz tunes do—capturing a mood, trapping the complexities of that mood in the form and the aesthetics of the medium,” V told IGN. “When Anand and I first discussed making this book, I talked about my years in Philadelphia spent visiting old Jazz houses and my fascination with the black and white photographs hung on the wall. I think we’ve managed to capture that feeling while setting a truly haunting tale of obsession and ambition within it. Lovers of horror, drama and moody jazz will all enjoy this book that captures and hopefully pushes those things in interesting directions!”

Blue in Green will release on Wednesday, October 21.

You can also look forward to more new work from Ram V in DC’s upcoming Future State crossover, which temporarily shifts the entire DC line ten years into the future. V is writing both the Justice League Dark storyline in Future State: Justice League and the miniseries Future State: Swamp Thing.

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In other recent comic book news, we learned how exactly Star Wars: Darth Vader connects to The Rise of Skywalker and the identity of Spider-Man’s twisted nemesis Kindred.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Astro seems to have a habit of continuing product lines by releasing the same gaming headset year after year with the occasional minor update. The company has done that again with the Astro A20 Gen 2, which will look incredibly familiar to anyone who has the original A20 headset. The difference now is that this wireless gaming headset includes support for the PS5 or Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S depending on which USB dongle you pair it with – getting a second dongle costs $19.

At $119 (or effectively $140 for dual-console support), it still falls close to budget territory for a wireless gaming headset, and it has a headstart on next-gen console support, but let’s see if that really makes it worthwhile.

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Astro A20 Gen 2 – Design and Features

Like I mentioned, the Astro A20 Gen 2 doesn’t have a lot new going on style-wise. That said, it’s still a highly stylized headset, for better or worse. It has a boxy frame and a subtly curved headband. Much of the aesthetic is centered around hard angles and a tri-tone color palette, and it definitely borrows some ideas from the A20’s big brothers, the Astro A50 and Astro A40 TR, but feels like the edgier younger sibling.

The design unfortunately feels much cheaper. All the metal touches found in the A40 and A50 headsets are missing from this headset. It’s a very plastic affair, and it feels more like the sub-$100 headsets I’ve tried that take aspects of a brand’s more premium line and boil them down into something that’s affordable but still effective, like the SteelSeries Arctis 1 Wireless. Fortunately, the Astro A20 Gen 2 does seem well-built, as it doesn’t creak a bunch when I twist and flex it.

That said, flexibility isn’t the strong suit of the Astro A20 Gen 2. There’s about an inch of adjustment to the sliders on each side, letting the headset fit large and small heads. Though for smaller users, the top end of the yolks will actually stick up like little horns. Height adjustment is about all the Astro A20 Gen 2 headset offers though. The earcups’ angle adjusts a little, but there’s no rotation to speak of.

The comfort situation doesn’t improve much when it comes to the cushioning either. The earcups have padding that doesn’t feel as dense as I’d expect at this price point. The headband is worse. The headband cushion has a rubberized surface, and because the headband is nearly flat (except for an odd angular cutout), it creates a pressure hotspot. I’ve got a shaved head, and that really lets those pressure points stand out. At 318 grams, the headset is also on the heavier side.

In terms of features, the Astro A20 Gen 2 offers a flip-to-mute microphone that has a decent level of flexibility, a USB-C charging port, three EQ presets, and an on-ear volume dial. The memory stick-sized wireless dongle offers support for gaming PCs and a select console, and it has a button for switching between the two. Getting a second dongle allows the Astro A20 Gen 2 to pair with both a PS5 and an Xbox Series X or Series S.

Astro A20 Gen 2 – Software

Many of Astro’s devices use the Astro Command Center. The software allowed adjustments to the EQ presets on the previous A20, but the current software at the time of testing failed to recognize my A20 Gen 2 review unit. That may change in the future.

Astro A20 Gen 2 – Gaming and Performance

Gaming lets the Astro A20 Gen 2 regain a bit of ground. With line-of-sight and a short range, the wireless connection is stable and latency-free. Astro claims a 15-meter range. I was able to go about 20-25 feet away with some walls in the way before the signal cut out. That said, when I put the dongle at the back of my computer, the range fell closer to 15 feet.

I did find the headset living up to Astro’s claim of a 15+ hour battery life. When the battery gets low, the headset makes it pretty annoying to keep using though. It begins to play a bassy SOS in morse code on a very short interval. Fortunately, the headset still works while it’s charging.

I tested the A20 Gen 2 headset on PC, and throughout hours of Overwatch and way too many hours of Genshin Impact, the sound was respectable. Even with the bass-heavy EQ settings, the audio mix remained clean enough to hear all the audio cues I needed. I wasn’t getting caught off guard because I missed a Reaper’s footsteps nor did those footsteps overpower communications with my teammates. In Genshin Impact, the audio quality held up, letting the impact of my characters abilities ring through right alongside the musical score.

I also like to give headsets a nice musical challenge to really test the mix. The A20 Gen 2 headset manages some serious oomph with the bass. The slippery bass lines in of Montreal’s Skeletal Lamping rumble with full force, but they don’t muddy up anything like the faint sleigh bells or trebly keys in Wicked Wisdom.

The headset is missing any sort of digital surround sound on PC and Xbox, something often found at this price point. It will feature surround sound enhancements with PS5, but I haven’t been able to test this.

Unlike the sound output, the sound input isn’t quite so impressive. My Discord pals never complained, as the mic does an acceptable job keeping down unwanted background noise, but my voice comes through a bit thin even with the mic positioned as close as possible to my mouth. It certainly feels like a step down from the likes of a SteelSeries ClearCast microphone or the mic on the Sennheiser GSP 370

The discomfort over long play sessions gets to be pronounced though. Astro may get an edge because it’s early to the game with a next-gen-ready headset, but many more will be coming. If the next-gen support isn’t a worry, the PDP LVL 50 offers better value and the SteelSeries Arctis 1 Wireless outperforms it and costs less. And, when it comes to next-gen support, SteelSeries has the Arctis 7X/P which costs just a touch more but wins out, especially when considering the 7X will support both consoles, something that requires an extra $20 purchase for the Astro headset.

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Astro A20 Gen – Purchasing guide

The Astro A20 Gen 2 is available from Amazon and Astro for $119.99, and an additional wireless transmitter is available for $19.99.

PT will not be available to redownload on PS5, but Konami isn’t ruling out that it will be playable on the next-gen console through other means.

Speaking to GamesRadar, Konami confirmed that those who own PT on PS4 will not be able to directly redownload the game on PS5, as it no longer exists on the PS Store. PT, an influential horror demo designed as a teaser for the cancelled Silent Hills, was removed from the Store in 2015 after director Hideo Kojima left Konami.

However, redownloading PS4 games on PS5 is only one method of transferring current-gen games to next-gen, with local wi-fi transfer and external storage both confirmed as means to move compatible games across generations. That leaves open the possibility that PT could still be playable (and preserved on a new generation of consoles), and it’s a possibility Konami won’t rule out right now.

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Contacted for clarification by IGN, Konami explained that it can’t currently confirm or deny whether the other methods will result in the game being playable. Theoretically, a straight data transfer should work, but it’s currently unclear whether the game would play as intended on the new hardware.

That said, Sony has not included PT on the short list of games that definitively won’t be backwards compatible on PS5. We’ve contacted Sony for comment on that, and whether PT could work using data transfer methods.

It’s yet another step in the messy timeline of PT and Silent Hills – a timeline that’s helped turn the game into a modern gaming urban legend.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.