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This Star Wars Battlefront 2 Mod Replaces Han Solo With Joe Exotic

Calling all those who are fans of both Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Tiger King. Yes, that’s not a typo. There’s a new Star Wars Battlefront 2 Mod that reskins Han Solo as the infamous Joe Exotic from Netflix’s hit show.

Tiger King made our list of the biggest Netflix exclusives in 2020 and Joe Exotic’s popularity has skyrocketed accordingly. While a controversial figure amongst viewers, there’s no doubt that he’s made it into this year’s pop culture lexicon, so this Star Wars Battlefront 2 mod doesn’t come completely out of left field.

This mod is currently available on Nexus Mods, and it reskins the in-game Han Solo model to look just like Joe Exotic. We’re talking hairstyle changes, fashion faux pas, and more. Users who have downloaded the mod have been leaving comments requesting a Carol Baskin skin for another Star Wars Battlefront 2 character, but it doesn’t look like the original creator has delivered on that particular front.

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A Lost NES Game Based On A Tom Cruise Classic Has Been Found And Restored From Old Floppy Discs

Days of Thunder, the 1990 Tom Cruise film, received a spin-off game on NES back in 1990–but a different game based on the movie that was in development was scrapped, and never saw the light of day. Now, 30 years later, this alternate version of Days of Thunder has been reconstructed into a playable title by video game historians.

Chris Oberth was working as a programmer at Mindscape in 1990, and thanks to The Video Game History Foundation a never-before-seen game by him has been reborn. Oberth passed away in 2012, and the VGHF was later approached by a friend of Oberth’s family asking if its members could “make sense” of some of the materials Oberth left behind. In early 2020, the foundation was granted access to Oberth’s materials, in which they discovered a disc labelled “NINTENDO HOT ROD TAXI FINAL”.

Oberth was known to have worked on an unreleased Days of Thunder game, thanks to a three-part interview with The Retrogaming Times, and after some investigation and sorting through materials the team found close to 40 floppy disks, containing multiple encrypted and split files that would need to be reconstructed to get the game properly running.

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Borderlands 3 Update Delayed Due To Unrest Over Racial Injustice

Borderlands developer Gearbox Software has joined the chorus in supporting Black Lives Matter and pushing back some of its scheduled plans for Borderlands 3 in solidarity with the movement. In a statement on Twitter, the developer said it’s delaying the release of the Takedown at the Guardian Breach update.

Additionally, the studio is muting its Twitter channel–with the exception of this announcement–out of respect for “what’s going on in the world right now.”

2K Games, which publishes the Borderlands series, said it’s adding another $1 million USD to the 2K Foundations Program and expanding its scope to include fighting racial injustice and inequalities in black communities around the world.

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John Boyega’s Black Lives Matter Speech and Lucasfilm’s Response

Star Wars’ John Boyega delivered an impassioned speech Wednesday in London during a Black Lives Matter protest over the recent killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. During his speech, Boyega noted that his activism might hurt his career but that it’s a price he’s willing to pay. However, Lucasfilm has since come out in support of their Star Wars lead, declaring him a “hero” that they stand with.

“Look, I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this, but f*** that,” Boyega shouted to a crowd of fellow protestors assembled in London’s Hyde Park.

Hoarse and deeply moved, Boyega declared, “I need you to understand how painful it is to be reminded every day that your race means nothing — and that isn’t the case anymore, that was never the case anymore. We are a physical representation of our support for George Floyd.”

Boyega’s most recent employer, Lucasfilm, declared him “our hero,” promising that “Lucasfilm stands with John Boyega.”

John Boyega isn’t the only Star Wars actor to take to the streets and join the protestors. The Mandalorian’s Pedro Pascal participated in a march in Los Angeles this past weekend, documenting it on his social media accounts.

Check out this overview of ways you can donate, contribute, and support Black Lives Matter, such as contributing to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

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Path Of Exile’s Harvest Expansion Will Be Released On June 19

Path of Exile‘s latest expansion, Harvest, has been announced. It will be available to PC players from June 19, and Xbox and PlayStation players from June 24. This expansion will introduce a new challenge league, feature extensive balance changes to the existing game, and also visual improvements on top of other additions.

Harvest will revolve around an area called the Sacred Grove, which will provide players with both rare items and formidable foes to face down. Exploring new areas will grant you with items called Seed Caches, and their contents will have to be planted by players within the Sacred Grove. Planting rare seeds will grant you with rarer monsters to fight or harvest, and each will have specific rewards. Players will be able to use the Grove to their advantage to customize their builds and to obtain beneficial items that suit their individual needs.

This June expansion for Path of Exile will also introduce changes to the current crafting system. The Sacred Grove will allow players to have more control over directed crafting in the game by allowing you powerful crafting options upon defeating any monster in the area. Players will also have to tend to the Grove in order for it to dispense rewards to its fullest potential; think building pipes, systems, and other things to keep your harvest healthy.

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Lovecraft County Teaser Trailer Shows A Mix Of Supernatural And Very Real Horror Elements

HBO has released a trailer for Lovecraft Country, the new series from Misha Green (Underground). The trailer shows the show’s main character, Atticus Black (Jonathan Majors, a story-loving young man who goes looking for his “birthright”–a seemingly haunted house in Lovecraft Country.

The show, which is set in Jim Crow-era 1950s America, is executive produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out).

The trailer below shows off the spooky tone of the show, as well as its stellar cast, which includes Abbey Lee, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Courtney B. Vance, Michael K. Williams, and Wunmi Mosaku. This is the show’s second trailer–here’s the first.

It also shows that the show will mix imagined demons with realistic portrayals of racism and police violence. You can watch the full trailer below.

The show is scheduled to debut in August, although an exact date has not been set. It’s definitely on our to-watch list.

GameSpot would like to encourage readers to donate to Black Lives Matter, and to seek out black voices in media.

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LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Gets a Special Steelbook Case

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga doesn’t have a specific release date (though there’s been some confusion on the subject), but it will be available sometime this year for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The game is already available for preorder at number of retailers, and it comes with a bonus at one of them. Read on for the goods.

Preorder Bonus

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No universal preorder bonuses come with the game, but if you purchase it at Best Buy, you’ll get an exclusive steelbook case for free. It’s designed to look like a LEGO Han Solo encased in carbonite, which it pretty neat.

Preorder LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

PS4

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Xbox One

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Nintendo Switch

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PC

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the biggest game yet in the sub-series. It lets you play through the stories of all nine main films, with overhauled levels from the previous games. You don’t have to play them in order, either. The whole thing is laid out in an open-world format, and you can hop around from planet to planet at will, dropping into whatever scene you feel like playing from any of the films.

You take control of characters like Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rey and Finn, as well as villains like Darth Vader and Kylo Ren. Combat has been upgraded with a combo system, as well as enemy health bars replacing the old one-hit-kill fights.

Since LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the last game in the series, The Skywalker Saga represents the first time The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker have appeared in playable LEGO format. Check out our LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga preview for more details.

Other Preorder Guides

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Chris Reed is IGN’s shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

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Activision Blizzard Shareholder Calls Out CEO’s Excessive Pay

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is one of the highest-paid executives not only in video games, but across the entire entertainment media industry. He made more than $30 million in 2019. One of the company’s shareholders, The CtW Investment Group, is now calling on other stakeholders to vote against a measure that gives the company freedom to pay Kotick high rates.

In a filing with the United States government, The CtW Investment Groups’ director Dieter Waizenegger called on other stakeholders to vote against the “Say-On-Pay” proposal during Activision Blizzard’s upcoming annual meeting scheduled for June 11, 2020.

“Despite repeated low approval votes from shareholders, Activision Blizzard maintains multiple, overlapping opportunities for its CEO to earn outsize equity awards, even when performance-related vesting thresholds have not been met,” the note says. “Despite failing to disclose pertinent information on performance targets for its Short Term Incentive Plan, Activision Blizzard’s proxy statement reveals significant human capital management challenges.”

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