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Tim Longo, the creative director for Halo Infinite, has left 343 Industries. Longo previously worked as the creative director for Halo 5: Guardians.

As first reported by Kotaku, Longo was a part of a 343 Industries leadership shakeup, having previously been moved out of the creative director role to another position a few weeks ago. Following this change in position, Longo left 343 Industries voluntarily.

In a statement, Microsoft wrote, “Roles and responsibilities of various team members regularly evolve to meet the needs of a game, throughout development. We have recently had two changes to the Halo Infinite development team. Our Executive Producer, Mary Olson will now take charge of the Campaign team on Halo Infinite as the Lead Producer, utilizing her many years of experience at 343 to help craft a great campaign for fans.” The other change is Longo. Microsoft added that “creative vision and production of the game remains led by [Halo Infinite studio head] Chris Lee” and that no ill will is felt over Longo’s departure.

Prior to working at 343, Longo was the creative director at LucasArts where he worked on an unannounced Star Wars first-person shooter. After being cancelled, the game was revealed to be similar to 2005’s Battlefront II and codenamed First Assault. Before that, Longo held a few positions at Crystal Dynamics and worked on the Tomb Raider franchise.

Though this can be viewed as a troublesome omen for Halo Infinite, it’s important to remember that leadership changes like this do occasionally happen in the gaming industry. Just because Longo has left, it doesn’t necessarily mean Halo Infinite’s creative direction is going to completely change. For context, Cyberpunk 2077 creative director Sebastian Stępień (who previously worked on all three The Witcher games) left CD Projekt Red for a role at Blizzard back in January 2019–as reported by Variety–and that game still looked very impressive at E3 2019.

Halo Infinite is the sixth mainline game in the Halo franchise, scheduled to release for Xbox One and PC in Fall 2020. The game will also be a launch title for the next-generation Xbox, codenamed Scarlett. 343 Studios boss Bonnie Ross describes Halo Infinite as a “spiritual reboot” for Halo though further details have remained sparse. As of right now, we’ve only gotten cinematic trailers and previews of Halo Infinite, no actual gameplay.

The newly released Mindhunter: Season 2 has an unexpected connection to the recent Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Both projects feature actor Damon Herriman playing the role of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.

Herriman spoke about the odd coincidence on an episode of the podcast Back to One (via IndieWire). He said that he filmed his role in Mindhunter before appearing in Tarantino’s project. And because the two projects take place several decades apart (Mindhunter in the 1980’s and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 1969), Herriman said the experience was essentially like playing two different characters.

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Cliff Bleszinski tweeted recently that he had an idea for a new video game, and naturally this led to a lot of speculation and intrigue about what the Gears of War creator might do next, especially after he initially said he would probably never make another game.

Bleszinski has now clarified his comments, saying his new game would be “small” and developed “remotely.” It sounds like it would be very different from the productions he’s worked on in the past, including Gears of War and LawBreakers, both of which were made with relatively large development teams and published by big companies.

“I have some ideas gestating, but if I did something it’d be small and most likely done remotely. Indie stuff,” Bleszinski tweeted.

In other tweets, Bleszinski confirmed that he doesn’t want to make a battle royale game, though the ideas he have “won’t get out of my head.”

“I thought I was truly done. But then, stupid brain shows up. UGH,” he said.

Currently, Bleszinski is focused on signing a deal for his memoir, which he has positioned as “Kitchen Confidential” for the gaming industry. Kitchen Confidential was the late Anthony Bourdain’s breakout writing about what happens behind-the-scenes in professional kitchens.

Bleszinski said the deal-making process for his book “has been kinda painful,” but thankfully for him, he said he’s close to signing papers with a “major publisher.”

In his post-Epic Games life, Bleszinski turned his attention in part to another one of his passions: theatre. He was an investor/producer for the play Hadestown, which won eight Tony awards, including Best Musical.

After finding success with Hadestown, Bleszinski was approached to co-produce another Broadway play, a new version of Terrence McNally’s “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” The new version stars two-time Oscar nominee Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald.

Bleszinski is also involved in the restaurant business, having invested in The Raleigh Beer Garden and The Station in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“Make no mistake, though, games will always be my first love,” Bleszinski said in July.

Bleszinski was able to “retire” earlier than most in part because his career and investments in gaming and technology have proven to be lucrative. He saw a massive payday when Chinese internet giant Tencent bought shares in Epic. He was also an early investor in Oculus, and made a “very sizable chunk of money” when Facebook bought the virtual reality company.

He created and designed the massively popular Gears of War franchise while at Epic Games. After some time away, he set up a brand-new studio, Boss Key. The North Carolina studio would go on to release LawBreakers and the battle royale game Radical Heights. Both titles failed to capture a sizable audience, and Boss Key would eventually shut down. After that, Bleszinski said he would probably never make another game for a number of reasons, but now it appears he is at least entertaining the idea of coming back to gaming.

For the last four months, WWE Superstar Bray Wyatt teased his return with a series of “Firefly Funhouse” vignettes, in which he plays a creepy Mr. Rogers-esque kid’s show host.

As these segments continued, week after week, they got increasingly unsettling and began featuring a monstrous persona known as “The Fiend.” The buildup finally culminated in a legend-making entrance and match at Summerslam, where “The Fiend” took on and destroyed Finn Balor. Wyatt was a ball of energy, but most striking was his genuinely frightening clown mask and his new lantern: a likeness of Bray’s head, with the eyes stitched shut.

Both of these items were creations of Tom Savini Studios. Savini is a horror filmmaking icon, who made his name working on makeup and visual effects for Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980). He’s also recognizable for acting in several Robert Rodriguez-directed projects, including the Machete films and From Dusk ’til Dawn.

Jason Baker, who Savini credited as supervisor of the Wyatt’s mask’s construction, moved from Seattle to Pittsburgh to attend Tom Savini’s Special Makeup Effects Program at the Douglas Education Center as a young man. From there, he worked in movies until Savini called him to work on Triple H’s golden mask and crown for WrestleMania XXX. The co-designer of the original WrestleMania 27 mask, Gino Crognale, was busy with his new gig on The Walking Dead. Baker jumped at the chance, and the rest is history.

“[Tom Savini Studios has] been working with the WWE for almost ten years now,” Baker told Gamespot. “We have a great relationship with them. We coordinate with the wrestlers to find out what they want, so we spend a lot of time on the phone with them.”

They’ve since built props and masks for Erik Rowan, Luke Harper, Kallisto, Stephanie McMahon, and more. But for the past year, it’s been all about Firefly Funhouse and Bray Wyatt. Tom Savini Studios crafted the props, puppets, set, lantern, and mask for the vignettes, and Baker actually helped direct the segments. He describes the studio as a team effort. He and his co-workers (Baker specifically namechecks Elizabeth Farrington) are worker bees, and Savini oversees their efforts.

“Firefly Funhouse has consumed my life,” Baker laughs. “I don’t want it to sound like I’m complaining though. I’ve had a blast working on it. It’s like a dream come true.”

Baker gives Wyatt all the credit for the mask and lantern’s concepts.

“It’s all Bray’s brainchild,” says Baker “He had these ideas, and we did some concept art, but it wasn’t really hitting home with Bray. So he got a really, really good sketch artist named Kyle Scarborough, out of St Louis, to do some concept art for him. Those sketches were awesome, and we took those and brought them to life.”

They’re good blueprints, but we put our own stamp on the mask as well,” continues Baker. “It comes down to sculpting, logistics, and comfort. If the guy’s going to wear this while beating the living piss out of people, he should be able to see out of it and make sure it’s strapped to his head.”

But Baker is reticent about any additional details about their construction. He also doesn’t comment about the bigger picture–if he knows about Bray’s greater vision or concept behind the madness we see each week.

“I can’t talk about that,” says Baker. “That’s beyond my pay grade. And even if I did, I wouldn’t talk about it anyway, because that’s the fun of it. ‘Do you want to know what you got before Christmas or wait with your friends to open your presents?’ It’s about waiting every week and seeing what comes next.”

And he offers a tantalizing response, when asked if there’s anything he’d like to tell the WWE Universe.

“They need to keep watching because they haven’t seen anything yet,” says Baker. “If they think this is the greatest thing to ever happen, they just need to keep watching. It’s going to blow them away.”

Check out our first look and tour of The Bell – the official Taco Bell Hotel & Resort in Palm Springs, California!

Though it has been more than half a year since Travis Touchdown returned in the Nintendo Switch exclusive Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, Travis strikes once again on PC and PlayStation 4 this fall. Publishers Marvelous Inc. and Xseed Games have announced that the hack-n-slash spinoff will receive a digital Complete Edition on October 17.

Pre-ordering Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes Complete Edition on the PlayStation Store or Steam, which retails for $40 USD / $59 AUD / £33 GBP, nets you the game’s two DLC packs. One pack is Black Dandelion, which includes Shinobu Jacobs as a playable character, two Shinobu skins, and six Badman adventure mode chapters. The other, Bubblegum Fatale, comes with Bad Girl as a playable character, two Bad Girl skins, a new Killer Marathon stage, and one Travis adventure mode chapter. You also get a bevy of additional in-game shirts with your purchase. Both packs are only accessible after you have completed the main story at least once. PS Plus members get 10 percent off for pre-ordering ahead of release. Steam pre-orders do not require a membership to receive 10 percent off.

Travis Strikes Again takes place seven years after No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, and sees Travis Touchdown team up with Badman in an arcade-style, top-down hack-n-slash romp. The game is a departure for the series but retains many of the core elements the franchise is known for, particularly the bold self-awareness and over-the-top action.

In our Travis Strikes Again review, we said, “Once you’ve sifted through the references and callbacks, you have a competent action game with some great ideas that are only halfway there. However, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes doesn’t quite deliver on its potential, relying too heavily on repetitive encounters.”

During E3 2019, Nintendo and game director Suda51 unveiled No More Heroes III. Not much is known about the game, but we do know the anticipated sequel is currently slated for a 2020 release on Nintendo Switch.

Gamescom is one of the biggest video game conventions in the world, and it’s almost here. Microsoft, Google, and Nintendo will all be presenting with their own livestreams chock full of game announcements and reveals. This year, though, the event itself has a formal kickoff ceremony hosted by Geoff Keighley.

Gamescom: Opening Night Live will take place the evening of Monday, August 19 in Cologne, Germany. It promises announcements from major publishers and indies, new trailers, and surprise guests.

Keighley has been teasing announcements through Twitter in preparation for the big event. So far he’s promised appearances from Destiny 2 Shadowkeep, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Disintegration, Need for Speed Heat, the Gears 5 campaign, Predator, and Death Stranding.

Check below for the Opening Night Live start time and plan your watching accordingly, and be sure to look at our full schedule of Gamescom press conferences for more.

Gamescom Opening Night Live – August 19

• 11 AM PT
• 2 PM ET
• 6 PM GMT
• 4 AM AEST (August 20)