Yearly Archives: 2018
Update: Here’s What Rockstar Employees Have To Say About Working On Red Dead 2
Update 10/18/18: Added gallery with additional tweets from Rockstar employees. Please note that these tweets only come from those currently at the studio.
Following controversy surrounding Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser's comments on 100-hour work weeks during the development of Red Dead Redemption 2, the studio has seemingly given its employees the opportunity to speak openly about working conditions.
Experiences from several current Rockstar employees lined up with Houser's second statement, in which he claimed that only he and a select portion of the writing team "crunched" to this degree during certain points in the game's development.
Max Payne Was Originally Planned to Have Multiplayer
The popular Max Payne action games have almost always been revered for their blend of hardboiled crime drama and slow-motion, guns blazing shooting. When it came time for a fledgling Remedy Entertainment to pitch publisher and producer Scott Miller on their next game, a top-down version of Max Payne was only one of three possible ways the company might have gone. Miller and Remedy's other two options included a 3D racing game to follow up on their debut Death Rally, and a conceptual real-time strategy game set in space a la Homeworld.
Having learned a lesson about character-driven franchises with Duke Nukem Forever, Scott Miller was excited to turn Max Payne into something that he thought could last for a decade. Miller joined this month's episode of IGN Unfiltered to talk about behind-the-scenes details of Max Payne and more, including the changes Remedy made that had fans scratching their heads, but have become normalized in the modern era.
Mark Hamill Reconfirms He Will Appear in Star Wars: Episode 9
Mark Hamill has reconfirmed that he will be, as many suspected, returning to the role of Luke Skywalker in the currently untitled Star Wars: Episode IX.
Announced via his Twitter, Mark's reconfirmation follows an "avalanche of questions" about Episode IX in which, besides confirming that Luke will play some part in the next entry in the Skywalker saga, his response will be, firmly, "EPISODE NEIN COMMENT."
Spock’s Logic Will Be ‘Totally Fried’ in Discovery Season 2
Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 debuts on January 17, 2019, bringing with it not just the crew of the Disco -- Michael Burnham, Saru, Stamets, Tilly and the rest -- but also Mr. Spock and Captain Pike, straight from the USS Enterprise!
After debuting the latest trailer for the new season at New York Comic-Con, executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin chatted with IGN about what to expect from the sophomore voyage of the Discovery, including why they decided to add Pike and Spock to the show now, the mystery of the Red Angel, redesigning The Original Series uniforms, and much more. Read on for our full discussion…
How Spock 'Becomes' Spock
Kurtzman, who has some experience with recasting a younger version of Spock thanks to the 2009 J.J. Abrams reboot which he co-wrote, said that the first season’s set-up of Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) as the Vulcan’s adopted sister essentially raised canon questions that the creative team wanted to address now that the show has established itself firmly.
Why Daredevil Needs Kingpin
Daredevil Season 3 is fairly unique among Netflix's various Marvel shows in that it's the first to reuse a major villain from a previous season. Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk was the main antagonist of Season 1 and had a significant part to play in Season 2, and now he's once again going head-to-head with Matt Murdock in Season 3.
While it's easy to accuse Daredevil of going back to the same well too many times, we think it's a good thing that the Kingpin continues to be the dominant villain on the series. If a hero is only as strong as their greatest villain, then Kingpin makes Daredevil a better character. Here's why Fisk deserves to be the main villain in yet another season.
Daredevil’s True Strength Comes From Religion
A seasoned attorney. The Man Without Fear. The sworn enemy of The Hand. Daredevil wears a lot of hats, but all signs for the upcoming third season of his Netflix show point to one of his most consistent and intriguing characterizations: the tormented Catholic. It’s a tricky needle to thread — mixing religion and superheroes always is — but when it’s handled well, it’s been the source of some of the very best Daredevil stories. Maybe even the very best one of all: Frank Miller’s iconic 1986 storyline, “Born Again." Few Miller stories were darker, but fewer still had a more hopeful, uplifting conclusion. In “Born Again,” Daredevil’s triumph comes thanks to his religious beliefs just as much as his billy club and super senses.
What Did You Think of This Week’s Comics?
It was another big week for the comic book industry. DC wrapped up the latest Batman storyline in dramatic fashion, while Marvel launched a new miniseries for Shuri and delivered a Venom Annual featuring an all-star creative lineup.
Scroll down to check out our new reviews, and be sure to let us know your favorite books of the week in the comments below.
Batman #57 Review
Written by Tom King | Drawn by Tony Daniel & Mark Buckingham
Battlefield 5’s War Stories Have More Heart, Depth Than Battlefield 1’s
I’ll be honest: I didn’t care for Battlefield 1’s single-player vignettes – dubbed War Stories. Sure, they were fairly well-received in 2016, but I thought they were too short to convey any sort of real emotion or have any meaningful impact on the player, and instead they fell into stereotypical buckets like “tank level,” “airplane level,” etc. Hats off to Battlefield 5, then, because after playing one full War Story and pieces of a few others (on the PC version), it’s clear that developer DICE also thought that the ceiling on its solo Battlefield campaign was much higher.
The tutorial, which I’ve been asked not to spoil, does a good job of setting expectations for what Battlefield V’s solo mode will deliver. It moves briskly and confidently without overstaying its welcome, but what I really want to talk about anyway is the first full mission, Nordlys. Set in the harsh Norweigan winter of 1943 during World War II, it follows the story of two women from the Resistance who uncover a nightmarish plot by the Nazis to fuel an atomic weapons program. The early parts of the mission both support and encourage stealth gameplay, including the stash of a half-dozen knives you carry that can be used to silently take out potentially noisy – and definitely lethal – Axis scumbags.
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Blizzard Casts Doubt on Diablo 4 BlizzCon Announcement
BlizzCon 2018 is almost here, but a new post from Blizzard strongly suggests we won't see any new Diablo projects announced.
"We’ve seen a lot of rumors flying around about our plans for Diablo at the show," reads a post on the Blizzard forums. "These are very exciting times—we currently have multiple teams working on different Diablo projects and we can’t wait to tell you all about them . . . when the time is right."
The post goes on to say that "good things come to those who wait, but evil things often take longer". While Blizzard may not be ready to share all its projects, the company promised that it does intend to share "some Diablo-related news" at the show.