Yakuza Creator Teases New Game Reveal in September

During the latest Sega-nama livestream (akin to Sega's version of a Nintendo Direct), Chief Creative Officer Toshihiro Nagoshi made the announcement that the company has been working on something new, and to expect a further announcement sometime in September.

Although few details were mentioned, Siliconera highlighted a few key details: Nagoshi indicated that the announcement would take place somewhere around Tokyo Game Show, which takes place September 19-23. Whether this would be part of a conference or whether Sega is planning a separate event isn't something he'd be drawn on, saying only that the announcement will take place "before the next Sega-nama", which is at the end of September.

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Nintendo’s Next Mobile Game, Dragalia Lost Gets a Release Date

Nintendo has announced that its next mobile game, Dragalia Lost, will be initially released on September 27, with a Nintendo Direct focused on it coming today.

Nintendo shared the news via Twitter, and announced that "service for Nintendo's upcoming mobile game Dragalia Lost begins in the U.S., Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau on September 27." There's no word at time of writing on release dates for other territories.

The Direct will air at 8:30pm PT / 11:30pm ET (that's 4:30am UK / 1:30pm AEST on August 30).

Dragalia Lost

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7 Iconic Locations We Want in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout Mode

The latest entry in Treyarch’s long-running Black Ops series is almost here, and with a traditional campaign officially scrapped (at least for launch), Black Ops 4 is doubling down on multiplayer in a big way. This year’s substantial inclusion is the Battle Royale-inspired mode Blackout — Call of Duty’s take on the wildly popular genre that’s taken the industry by storm over the last year and half.

One of the major components to a good Battle Royale game is, of course, the large map that players venture through in search of chicken dinners (or victory royales). PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds now has three maps in its rotation, while Fortnite alters its map significantly every three months via seasonal updates. Given Black Ops is one of the most successful Call of Duty sub-series to date — and as we’re still mostly in the dark about Blackout’s map and where Treyarch will go with it — now is as good as time as any to take a look back at the series and consider some memorable locations that would be a good fit.

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Black Adam Producer Explains Why Dwayne Johnson Isn’t in Shazam!

It turns out there's a good reason why Dwayne Johnson, aka one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, isn't going to appear in DC's Shazam! movie.

Speaking to Collider, Black Adam's producer Hiram Garcia said that the film's star won't be appearing in next year's light-hearted flick because he didn't want to compromise either of the heroes.

"So as we were developing an actual Black Adam and Shazam movie," says Garcia, "we were just realizing that both characters are so special that we didn’t want to compromise either of them by cramming them both into the same movie. So that’s why we made the decision to let Shazam have his own standalone movie and kind of launch him properly, and then we’ll do the same for Black Adam. And so that kind of really freed things up. It allowed us to develop the right version of both.”

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Bethesda’s Pete Hines on Playing Fallout 76 Solo and Why ‘Replayable’ is a Dirty Word

During an interview with Bethesda's Senior Vice President of global marketing and communications Pete Hines at Gamescom this year, I ask if he’s getting sick of talking about Bethesda’s position as the saviour of the single-player experience by now, several months since its ‘save player one’ campaign. “I mean, a little,” he says. “But single player is part of who we are. We're also the folks that make Elder Scrolls Online. We make Quake Champions. We make Elder Scrolls: Legends. But single player is part of who we are.”

Bethesda also makes Fallout 76, the first Fallout to be a shared-world experience. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it’s one that Hines plays solo.

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Amazon Reportedly in Talks With Paramount and Sony to Develop Original Movies for Prime Video

Amazon is reportedly in early talks with various major studios, including Paramount and Sony, to develop original movies for its Amazon Prime Video streaming service.

Per Deadline, no actual agreements have been made, though Amazon is reportedly hoping to use existing properties from these studios to create full films. Sources claim Amazon intends to imitate what Netflix did with Paramount on The Cloverfield Paradox - a film that went directly to the competing streaming service.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Finally Backward Compatible on Xbox One

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is finally a part of the Xbox One Backward Compatibility library and it is available to play on your Xbox One or Xbox One X starting today.

Announced via Twitter by Major Nelson, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 joins an ever-expanding library that includes every other mainline Call of Duty game, except the 2003 original, and is playable in some form on Xbox One.

In addition, if you don't already own Modern Warfare 2, it is on sale this week for $14.99 USD digitally on the Xbox store.

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Kin Review

Don’t be fooled by the plot description, or by the posters with a futuristic ray gun. Kin, directed by Jonathan and Josh Baker, is a serious, somber story about a 14-year-old kid torn between his father’s moral lessons and his brother’s criminal lifestyle… which just happens to have a futuristic ray gun in it.

It’s an interesting idea, taking some of the tropes of sci-fi superhero storytelling and using them to amplify an otherwise familiar, gritty coming of age and crime drama. But to get away with it, filmmakers need to have an uncanny sense of balance. The drama can’t be so dour that the ray guns feel out of place, and the science-fiction can’t be so out of this world that the characters can’t stay grounded.

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