Banner Saga 3 Promises Closure as Trilogy Draws to a Close
The biggest promise developer Stoic is making about Banner Saga 3 is that it will provide players with a feeling of “closure and accomplishment”, a fitting goal for the finale of a trilogy. Decisions you’ve made that date back to the original’s 2014 release have implications here, both in how this final act evolves and which characters are involved in it.
“We’re former Bioware, that’s how Stoic got together, and we talk about Mass Effect 3 sometimes and what it was that players thought was lacking in the ending that was provided,” explains Banner Saga 3 producer Zeb West, expanding on his desire to provide players with “closure”.
“Recently we were talking about the changes made to the Mass Effect 3 ending and how they were about delivering closure to elements of the story that weren’t shown at the end. We have tried to take that to heart with Banner Saga 3 and work out a way that we can deliver those details so that people aren’t left wondering what happened to their favourite characters.”
Activision Talks Marvel-Style Call of Duty Movie Universe
Call of Duty is already one of the biggest game franchises, and now Activision Blizzard wants the shooter series to dominate theaters.
In fact, Activision Blizzard Studios is planning a Marvel-style Call of Duty film universe. Hateful Eight producer Stacey Sher and former Disney executive Nick van Dyk, who co-lead the new film company, talked to the Guardian about their aims for the game franchise as it transitions to the silver screen.
Cars 3: Driven to Win Release Date Revealed
Cars 3: Driven to Win releases June 13, the same day as the upcoming Pixar movie upon which it's based.
Cars 3: Driven to Win picks up after the movie's "final big race," extending the story and taking players "through a high-speed competition." There are over 20 customizable characters from the Cars franchise, as well as "iconic settings" like Radiator Springs and the Florida International Speedway.
Local, split-screen multiplayer is also part of the upcoming game, so players can cooperate or compete "at home together."
Cars 3 is developed by Avalanche Software, the developer behind the Disney Infinity series. When Disney announced it would no longer self-publish games, some members of the studio joined castAR, a "mixed-reality entertainment" studio.
Blizzard Wins Lawsuit Against Cheat Making Company
Blizzard Entertainment has been awarded $8.5 million in damages after winning a copyright infringement case against German company, Bossland.
As reported by Torrent Freak, Blizzard has successfully sued the cheat-making company for distributing cheats and bots for several of their games.
The lawsuit began in July last year and the court has now agreed with Blizzard's claims that Bossland is responsible for causing detriment to the company by creating and distributing hacks designed for their games.
Daily Deals: Mass Effect: Andromeda Competition, Overwatch, EA Access
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Overwatch Director Reveals Rejected “Cat in a Jetpack” Hero
Overwatch features a talking scientist gorilla, but apparently another suggested hero design was a step too far - a "cat in a jetpack".
In an entertaining interview with Gamespot, Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan spilled the beans on the rejected hero from the game's development:
"We had done a lot of concepting
There was this one hero that was a huge internal debate on the team because we just loved it so much but it didn't make it. It was this jetpack and it had this cat that laid in it, like a cat does.
"Then every once in a while it would paw at the controls. It was a cat in a jetpack. That was one of those moments that helped define Overwatch. We just went, 'Yeah that's probably too far.' But yes. We had a cat hero."
Stories for 14 More Transformers Films Already Written
It seems Transformers: Bumblebee isn't the only spin-off planned in the blockbuster action series - producer-director Michael Bay has said there are 14 more Transformers movie stories already written.
When asked by MTV if he could speak to any other spin-offs in the works, Bay revealed just how much more we could see - and seemingly marked himself as interested in directing at least one more film in the franchise:
"There are 14 stories written, and there's good stuff. I would like to do one of them, though."
Bay's made something of a habit of saying that each Transformers film will be his last - he said the same of the upcoming The Last Knight in February - and it seems he might have reconsidered his decision once again.
Dumbo: Michael Keaton, Tim Burton Could Reunite After 25 Years
Batman himself (or at least a Batman himself), Michael Keaton is in talks to star in Tim Burton's upcoming live-action Dumbo remake.
Variety reports Keaton is up for the main villain role in the film. The story centers around an ostracized baby circus elephant - Dumbo - with Keaton potentially playing the owner of the circus who exploits the elephant and his mother. The character acquires the circus from the ringmaster, played by Danny DeVito, who recently joined the film.
Diablo 3 and the Glorious Return of the Necromancer
“There’s a certain appeal for a lot of people in playing the anti-hero,” says Diablo III Lead VFX Artist Julian Love. “And that’s what the Necromancer represents, the darkest of the classes in that world, but one that is also doing good everywhere they go. There’s a kind of juxtaposition between good and evil, and from there a grey line where the Necromancer lives.” The Necromancer is a Diablo II icon, and now, five years after initial release and three years since the excellent Reaper of Souls expansion, it’s coming to Diablo III.
Why now? Why not. After all, Blizzard is still supporting Diablo III with new content and regular updates. Even so, a new character class is a big deal. It requires not only the creation of a new and deep subset of skill and items, but also game design that plays nicely with everything else already in the game. Years of wonderful, and inventive stuff. The Necromancer actually comes to us from the same creative and experimental side of the Diablo team that also brought us some of the crazier things in the game, like the set bonus that activates a high powered meteor shower spell every eight seconds for each and every type of elemental skill you use.
Opinion: Diversity Isn’t the Problem at Marvel
From a PR standpoint, Marvel didn't have a particularly good weekend. The company held a retailer summit last Friday to discuss their shifting publishing strategy and address concerns about slumping sales. These retailer summits are always interesting because, ostensibly, they are private events where Marvel's reps seem more willing to speak frankly about industry matters. However, ICv2 was there to cover the meetings for the public, which is how we came to hear about the controversial remarks made by Marvel's Senior Vice President David Gabriel.
Essentially Gabriel said that, according to retailers he talked to and sales data, Marvel's push towards diversity was the reason for the sales drop. "What we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity. They didn't want female characters out there. That's what we heard, whether we believe that or not. I don't know that that's really true, but that's what we saw in sales." Gabriel later elaborated on those comments in an interview with ICv2. There he said, "We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against. That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked."