Monthly Archives: June 2018
Seasons Change Everything in Forza Horizon 4
Forza Horizon 4 developer Playground Games is doing a lot more than just bringing Britain to its lauded open world racing series; it’s bringing all four seasons along with it.
“’Seasons change everything’ sounds like a neat tagline, but it’s a really honest description of what actually happens from season to season… in our game,” says Playground Games creative director Ralph Fulton. “I think it’s testament to the production team and our tech art team, and our environment art team here at Playground who have managed to create basically four worlds the size of Forza Horizon 3, in one, for this game.”
Today’s IGN First video takes a look at some of the work involved in building four worlds instead of one, and also explores how seasons will effect and expand the traditional Forza Horizon gameplay experience.
Incredibles 2 Sets Box Office Preview Night Record
Incredibles 2 brought in an estimated $18.5 million at the domestic box office last night.
Deadline reports that set a new preview night record for an animated movie, flying past Finding Dory's $9.2 million Thursday night haul back in 2016. The latter also holds the top spot for domestic opening weekend for an animated movie with $135 million.
That standing could be overtaken by Incredibles 2, which has been tracking to make $140 million this weekend.
Star Trek: Discovery Loses Showrunners Ahead of Season 2
Star Trek: Discovery, the CBS All Access show that finished its first season back in February, is now undergoing its second showrunner change with the departure of executive producers Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, this change was not due to creative problems, but with "leadership and operational issues" between the showrunners and the staff.
Executive producer Alex Kurtzman (who has been with the series since the beginning and also served as as a writer and producer on J.J. Abrams' Star Trek and Star Trek: Into Darkness films) will be taking over as showrunner for Season 2. Kurtzman will also oversee the writers' room for the rest of the sophomore season.
You Can’t Win With Speed Alone in Team Sonic Racing
Racing along in Shadow the Hedgehog's sleek sports car, I was nearing the head of the pack, drifting around corners to gain short speed boosts and using block-shaped wisps to leave behind as hazards. I was able to scrape by in first place - but victory was short lived. As it turns out, my two teammates on Team Shadow had fallen behind. I neglected to keep an eye on their place, and because of this, another team managed to finish in 3rd, 4th, and 5th - and secured the gold cup. Clearly, I needed to shift my priorities into a different gear.
If you aren't playing as a team in the aptly named Team Sonic Racing, expect the coveted gold up to remain out of reach - but how exactly do you work as a team during a race. Back in the days of Mario Kart 64, I often played with a friend who had difficulty keeping up, and so our solution was for him to run interference from the back lines, causing havoc at the cost of getting lapped if it meant I'd stay in the lead. Sonic Racing has a different approach that if executed properly - can elevate everyone instead of just one good player. Each allied car creates clear and distinct trails that cover a good distance, and following in the slipstream of a teammate will earn you a sizeable boost.
Captain Marvel Hires MCU’s First Female Composer
The upcoming film Captain Marvel has signed on Pinar Toprak as composer, making her the first female composer to score a movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — or any superhero film, for that matter.
Variety reports Toprak has come on board for Captain Marvel. Brie Larson plays the titular character and will be the first female lead in an MCU film, with co-director Anna Boden as the first female director for an MCU film. Her frequent collaborator Ryan Fleck is the other co-director.
Toprak has scored dozens of films and even penned some additional music for last year's Justice League. She also composed the score for the ongoing Krypton series, as well as contributed to the wildly popular Fortnite, which was just released on the Switch earlier this week.
How DC’s Heroes in Crisis Is a Different Kind of Superhero Event
Normally, the word "Crisis" in the title of a DC comic means the story features a massive conflict with the potential to reshape the very fabric of the multiverse. But this word can also have a much smaller and more personal meaning. We saw that when 2004's Identity Crisis explored a murder mystery tied to a dark secret from the Justice League's past. The newly announced Heroes in Crisis, from writer Tom King and artist Clay Mann, seems to be cut from that cloth rather than more mindbogglingly expansive stories like Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis. And where Identity Crisis ultimately failed to live up to its promise as an intimate, character-driven DC crossover, Heroes in Crisis stands a good chance of succeeding thanks to the very real, very difficult subject matter it plans to address.
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Cyberpunk 2077 to Have More Diverse Romance Options Than Witcher 3
Cyberpunk 2077, the upcoming game by Polish developer CD Projekt Red, will have more diverse romance options than the studio's previous game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
In an interview with Game Informer, quest designer Patrick Mills confirmed that romance options for protagonist V will far exceed those that Geralt had available to him in The Witcher 3. Because players can choose V's gender and background, a whole host of options will open up that weren't available to Geralt, whose gender and sexuality were previously set by the books the game series is based on.
Inside Fallout 76’s Awesome Reclamation Day E3 Experience
Bethesda didn't show off any new Fallout 76 gameplay on the E3 2018 show floor, but it did have an elaborate booth for attendees to see what it's like to be in Vault 76 on Reclamation Day.
In this experience, attendees were given party hats, party blowers, a creepy Vault Boy mask, and a bottle of the Nuka Cola Quantum before getting some final instruction before leaving the "vault." Actors played the part of Vault-Tec employees and tested us dwellers on our survival knowledge and problem-solving skills with short puzzles. They also reminded us constantly to try not to die.
Check out photos of the Fallout 76 experience in the slideshow below.
Fallout 76 is Bethesda's "softcore" survival game that takes the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout entirely online. In it, players explore the Wasteland with friends or alone, build bases, hunt for nuclear launch codes, and a whole lot more. It's out on November 14 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
Cyberpunk 2077 Is Targeting Current-Gen Consoles
Cyberpunk 2077 may look incredible, and the next generation of consoles may be coming as soon as 2020, but you probably won't need new hardware to play the highly anticipated RPG. In fact, CD Projekt Red is targeting a current-gen release.
"I've heard a number of people say that," Quest Designer Patrick Mills told Game Informer at E3 today when asked if Cyberpunk might be a next-gen game. "The current console generation is what we're aiming for. We are aiming for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and of course PC as well."