The rollout of new content in Destiny 2's Season of Opulence continues today with the next chapter in the Thorn-Last Word storyline. Another Exotic hand cannon, this one called Lumina, is now available in the game for Annual Pass owners. Here's what you need to know, how to start the quest, and some tips on more time-consuming aspects of it (such as an apparent shortcut involving Blind Well completions).Lumina is a hand cannon that, as the trailer below shows, both damages enemies and can be used to heal teammates, which would set it apart from any other weapon in the game. It's possible that, to get it, you'll need to have previously completed the Thorn questline. When you first log in after the latest weekly reset, you'll know you're on the right track if you're presented with a message teasing that you should return to a clifftop in relation to the man with the golden gun; it's referred to as the "same place as before."A Message From Shin Malphur -- Head To EDZTo get started, you'll want to head to the EDZ and work your way through the Salt Mines, located just north of Trostland. You'll come upon a Fallen transponder that transmats you to the next area. From there, make your way to the end of the path and hug the ledge; you'll see an opening with various abandoned camps. There, you'll find a chest you need to open. Once you've completed that step, you'll need to proceed through a series of additional quest steps to obtain the new Exotic.Visit The Original Thorn's Location (System Positioning Device)The Exotic quests step you receive--A Fateful Gift--tells you to "identify the location of the original Thorn using your system positioning device." You'll have an item called a System Positioning Device in your Triumphs; hover over this to see where you need to head. Based on what we've already seen, this location will move, possibly on the hour. One example we were told to visit is Excavation Site 2 on Io.Head to the designated area and search for a chest. It won't be marked on your radar, but when you're close, your Ghost will notify you in the upper-right corner of the screen, like when you're near an item that can be scanned.Bearer Of Evils Past -- Generate Orbs Of LightNext up is a quest step that asks you generate 250 Orbs of Light. That sounds like a lot, but thankfully the Orbs generated by your teammates count toward your progress. That makes an activity like Reckoning ideal; you can potentially complete this objective in a single go. Make sure to use a Masterworked gun to speed things up even further.Rose RevealedAt this point, you get the Legendary hand cannon Rose, as well as three Legendary quest steps found in your Pursuits. These are all available to you simultaneously. You don't need to use Rose to complete these:Defend The Light -- Kills Without ReloadingDefend the Light asks you to get 100 "streaks," which are achieved by killing multiple enemies in a row without reloading your weapon.Face The Hordes -- Blind Well, Black Armory Forge, And Escalation Protocol CompletionsOne of the other two steps at this point involves completing encounters at the Blind Well (in the Dreaming City), Black Armory Forges (scattered around, including the EDZ and Nessus), or Escalation Protocol (Mars). Any of these will do, so take your pick and knock it out--but based on our experience, your best choice is the Blind Well. Each "bubble" during a run counts as an encounter, comfortably making it your fastest option. It's unclear if this is intended functionality or if Bungie will patch this.Score 50k In A NightfallThe last of these tasks sends you to the Nightfall, where you must score at least 50,000. Moving quickly will help, as will avoiding death. You can use a challenge card from Xur to add modifiers that will increase the multiplier on your score; we used the Solar Singe and a 175 Power level handicap, giving us a 2.15x multiplier.Fireteam Leader -- Activities Completed With RoseAnother quest step with a fair amount of flexibility, this one asks you to complete activities of your choice, but you must have Rose equipped. You'll receive bonus progress if you're in a fireteam with other people wielding Rose.Dataminers have allegedly uncovered all of the steps and shared them on Reddit. As the questline only debuted a short time ago, we're still working our way through it and waiting to find out if the datamined steps are correct or were missing anything. We'll report back with additional information as it becomes available.In terms of backstory, this gun is the original Thorn, and you're now being tasked with cleaning it of the Hive corruption that caused Dredgen Yor to turn evil. It's tied to a long-running story that's actually quite fascinating, and among the best lore to be found in Destiny.Info from Gamespot.com

A match-three puzzle game, Dr. Mario World was announced back in February 2019. The game sees you using capsules to eliminate viruses like a good doctor, but there's more than meets the eye. We've now learned of the game's multiplayer offerings, which allows you to connect with friends to send hearts or viruses.Dr. Mario World lets you see your friends' progress in the game's single-player Stage mode. You will also be able to send your friends encouragement hearts, though these can only be sent once per day. Dr. Mario World features solo play, but it will also launch with a Versus mode in which you can challenge your friends in online, real-time matches.The crux of Versus is similar to previous Dr. Mario games: You eliminate viruses on your board to fill up an attack meter, which sends viruses in your opponent's direction, causing their board to fill. Whoever's board fills first loses. Each doctor has their own attributes, like attack power (which dictates the number of viruses sent) and skills (which act as special movies like clearing one whole column at random). Check out the trailer below.Blue: "If you play with your friends it's way more fun! #DrMarioWorld pic.twitter.com/CmxBaOWjfO — Dr. Mario World (@Drmarioworld_EN) July 2, 2019Microtransactions will make an appearance in Dr. Mario World in the form of Diamonds purchasable through the in-game shop. They can be bought in an assortment of packs--starting with 20 Diamonds for $2 USD / $3 AUD / £1 GBP running all the way up to 1,050 Diamonds for $70 USD / $100 AUD / £55 GBP--and are used to continue gameplay, obtain items, and restore stamina.Dr. Mario World releases for Android and iOS on July 10.Info from Gamespot.com

A new series of cast shots for Disney's The Lion King show a very different side to the characters, in more ways than one. The posters show almost every major member of the cast in profile, facing eye-to-eye with their animal counterparts.The pairings posted to Disney's Twitter include Donald Glover as Simba, Beyonce as Nala, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar, and Alfre Woodard as Sarabi. Other shots show ensembles of characters together, like Billy Eichner, Seth Rogan, and John Oliver as Timon, Pumbaa, and Zazu, respectively.This is the latest in a series of live-action remakes of Disney's classic catalog. But as the characters are still computer animated and no live actors are on screen, it has instead been commonly referred to as "photorealistic." It was directed by Jon Favreau, following his successful and similarly realistic take on The Jungle Book.Disney had released character posters in May showing each of the photorealistic animals head-on, not in profile with their human voice-actors. The original Lion King is one of Disney's top-grossing animated films of all time, and so anticipation--and expectations--are running high for the remake. Its initial teaser trailer almost matched Avengers: Infinity War in views in the first 24 hours.The Lion King releases on July 18. Info from Gamespot.com

Season 2 of Apex Legends is now officially underway on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and a lot has changed in Respawn's battle royale game. Not only is there a new playable character, the science genius Wattson, there's a new Battle Pass to purchase, which means a load of new rewards to unlock.Unlike Season 1's Battle Pass, Season 2's works much more like Fortnite's Battle Pass, offering a regular stream of challenges to complete as the season progresses. Clearing these tasks will help level your Battle Pass up, which in turn will allow you to unlock this season's new skins, emotes, loading screens, and other cosmetic rewards.While the general gist of the Battle Pass is similar to Fortnite, the new Season 2 challenges will work a little differently. Like in Epic's battle royale game, Apex Legends Battle Pass holders will have access to seven new challenges each week. However, three of these tasks will raise your Battle Pass by one full level when completed. On top of that, there will be three recurring challenges every week, as well as three random challenges (pulled from a pool of 200) to complete each day.Season 2's first weekly set of challenges is now live, and they're all fairly self-explanatory, so you should be able to complete them with a little persistence. The three that will level your Battle Pass up once completed ask you to deal 7,500 damage with assault rifles and finish in the top three using either Bloodhound, Lifeline, or Wraith. There's also a multi-step challenge that begins by having you to land in Relay. The remaining challenges run the gamut from getting 35 knockdowns to looting five care packages; you can see the full list below.That isn't all that's new in Season 2 of Apex Legends. The game's map, Kings Canyon, has also undergone some changes, and Titanfall 2's L-Star has been added as a Legendary Gold energy-based weapon. The more competitive Ranked Leagues are also now available. You can read more about Apex Legends Season 2 in our roundup.Apex Legends Season 2, Week 1 ChallengesLand in Relay (step 1 of 4) -- +1 BP LevelDeal 7,500 damage with assault rifles -- +1 BP LevelFinish in the top 3 as Bloodhound, Lifeline, or Wraith -- +1 BP LevelGet 25 kills -- 6,000 StarsLoot 5 care packages -- 6,000 StarsGet 35 knockdowns -- 6,000 StarsOutlive 200 opponents -- 6,000 StarsInfo from Gamespot.com

It should be a time of celebration for anime fans: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Hideaki Anno's seminal anime series, is finally streaming worldwide, as Netflix secured the rights to the classic anime. But the fans who should be cheering are not happy.Evangelion originally aired in Japan in 1995, and it quickly earned a reputation as a controversial, psychologically and philosophically complex series that deconstructed the mecha anime genre. Unfortunately, the series has rarely been widely available, as its English-language licensee, ADV Films, went out of business in the 2000s. The only way you could legally get the series in physical format was by spending over $30 on the VHS release that only had two episodes per tape, or by spending over $100 on the DVD collection in 2005--and aftermarket prices for those versions have skyrocketed since then.But many of Eva's most dedicated fans quickly voiced their concerns with the version of the show that was released on Netflix. Fans flocked to Twitter and Reddit to describe the changes made to the show. It all started with Netflix removing the covers of the song "Fly Me to the Moon" at the end of each episode, a change which The Wrap says is due to licensing fees. But that was just the beginning. We listed the biggest changes to Evangelion on Netflix, which includes the lack of translation of some on-screen text, a completely new and more literal script that takes away from the nuance of the original text, a new voice cast, the omission of swearing in the new translation, and the omission of a key piece of gay subtext.This resulted in many people recommending newcomers to skip the Netflix version altogether and instead seek out the long-available bootlegs in order to watch the show as they experienced it back in the day. This raises some interesting questions: Sure, some of the changes are significant, but is preserving the nostalgia for the original anime really more important than it being easily available for everyone? Are fans overreacting?I spent most of the weekend Eva hit Netflix debating whether my first experience with the classic anime should be with the apparently inferior version on Netflix, or the various lower quality but higher integrity bootlegs. The question instantly brought to mind memories of another big sci-fi franchise that was only available in low-quality VHS tapes before going through several controversial changes once it was made widely available for the second time. That's right, I'm talking about the Star Wars original trilogy Special Editions.The mere mention of the phrase "Special Editions" is one of the scariest and most controversial things in all of Star Wars. You can ask any fan of the franchise and they'll all have an opinion of the 1997 theatrical re-release of the original trilogy. Sent to theaters with great fanfare, the remastered and altered versions of the original trilogy are nowadays remembered with a predominantly negative connotation. George Lucas decided to update his iconic trilogy of films with updated effects, sounds, and scenes, few of which landed with hardcore fans. There's a reason those t-shirts with the phrase "Han Shot First" are sold everywhere. Like Evangelion, the changes to the Star Wars trilogy ranged from big ones like Greedo shooting first, the addition of "Jedi Rocks," and the loss of "Yub Nub," to kind of random changes like adding a ring of fire to the Death Star explosion and adding a bunch of new aliens on Mos Eisley. People hate the Special Editions so much that fans have taken it upon themselves to reproduce the original appearance of the movies with fan restorations.Sure, many of those changes were unnecessary beyond George Lucas wanting to show off his new special effects technology that wasn't available in the '70s, but look at the state of Star Wars fandom before the Special Editions. They're one major reason why Star Wars is still around.Before the Special Editions were released in early 1997, Star Wars was no longer a pop culture giant. Those who grew up watching the original trilogy had already moved on to new and shinier franchises like Terminator. Though there was Mel Brook's Spaceballs, Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, and the Dark Horse comics, the beloved galaxy far, far away hadn't been relevant since 1983's release of Return of the Jedi. Those who didn't get to watch the trilogy in theaters had it worse, as they could only watch the films in cropped pan-and-scan VHS copies. Then came the Special Editions. Say what you will about the changes made and how much you hated watching CGI Jabba meet Han in Episode IV, but the Special Editions put the original trilogy back in the public spotlight. The Special Editions also came out at a changing time for the moviegoing experience, as theater chains were expanding and the multiplex started to become the norm, with stadium seating preparing audiences to experience Star Wars in a new way years before DVDs became a thing. You may hate the changes, but those who hadn't seen the movies before didn't even notice them, and the re-release turned an entire new generation into fans. Star Wars was nowhere, and suddenly it was everywhere again.With Evangelion now available worldwide on arguably the most popular streaming platform, it will only help turn more people into fans. Maybe they'll finish the series and then seek out the original dub and listen to "Fly Me to the Moon" on repeat, or maybe they won't--but that doesn't take away from the fact that the Netflix release is doing more right than wrong.Preserving art is an important task. I'm not saying you should feel happy that they changed the lines you spent years memorizing. All I'm saying is that glorifying the version of a piece of pop culture you saw when you were younger, and getting in the way of a new generation experiencing that same piece of pop culture now, is not a battle worth fighting.The changes made to Eva won't stop brand new fans from enjoying the show, just like the Special Editions didn't destroy Star Wars, but instead set the table for a world of prequels, sequels, and spin-offs. Netflix didn't ruin Neon Genesis Evangelion, but it introduced millions of viewers to the magic of Cruel Angel's Thesis and "Get in the Robot, Shinji." Info from Gamespot.com

San Diego Comic-Con can be overwhelming. It's not only the biggest pop culture convention in the world, it's also packed to the absolute brim with panels, events, activations--you name it--for just about every major franchise under the sun. Sorting it all out to find what's happening with for your favorite shows, movies, games, and comics can be a nightmare. But never fear, the team here at GameSpot is comprised of SDCC veterans who are happy to help!So, if you're a Marvel fan who is San Diego bound this week, you're in luck. We've combed through all the announcements and schedules that have been made available so far to sort everything out into a nice, easy to read list to help you plan your week-long Marvel-focused extravaganza.Keep checking back for updates to this list as more panels and events are confirmed before the show!ThursdayMarvel Games, Hall H, 1:30 PM. "Get an inside look at the latest and greatest from Marvel Games! Attendees will see exciting new content from Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, Marvel's Iron Man VR, and Marvel's Avengers, with many unannounced surprises and panel exclusives. Host Greg Miller (of KindaFunny.com) will be joined by Bill Rosemann (VP & Creative Director, Marvel Games) and other special guests from titles throughout the Marvel Games family!"Marvel's Agents of Shield, Hall H, 3:30 PM "The cast and producers of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will return to San Diego Comic-Con in epic fashion as they take over Hall H for the first time ever! Be the first to hear the scoop about the show-stopping conclusion for season six and what awaits in season seven of Marvel’s flagship television show. With your favorite stars in attendance, including Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Elizabeth Henstridge, Iain De Caestecker, Henry Simmons, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, and Jeff Ward, along with executive producers Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, Jeff Bell, and Jeph Loeb, this is a must-see panel to celebrate seven seasons with the world’s greatest fans! This action-packed series from Marvel Television and ABC Studios airs Fridays at 8/7c on ABC. *Please note: talent is subject to change."FridayA Conversation With The Russo Brothers, Hall H, 11:00 AM "For the Russo Brothers, Avengers: Endgame was the culmination of an unprecedented four-film, seven-year journey through the Marvel Cinematic Universe that has included some of the most iconic experiences in modern cinema. Come hear directors Joe and Anthony Russo reflect on Endgame and their epic road to it as they segue into life beyond Marvel with their new company, AGBO, which happens to include an exciting array of new and old creative friends. This new independent studio develops and finances filmed projects in any medium while keeping creative control within the hands of artists. This discussion will be moderated by Collider’s Editor-in-Chief Steven Weintraub." (Note: this is not an "official" Marvel panel.)A Conversation With Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, Hall H, 12:00 PM* "The two writers — who also wrote Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Thor: The Dark World for Marvel Studios — are set to appear Friday, July 19, on a morning panel moderated by Jeff Goldsmith, publisher of Backstory Magazine and host of The Q&A With Jeff Goldsmith podcast." (Note: official panel time and description not yet confirmed, announcement via THR.)Marvel Comics #1000 Revealed: A This Week In Marvel Special Event, Room 5AB, 12:30 PM "Marvel’s flagship podcast comes to Comic-Con loaded with secrets, giveaways, reveals, news, guests, and more! And, if you think you’ve got the stuff and want some swag, you can challenge the Marvel crew in a special House of Ideas Throwdown! Join host Ryan Penagos (aka Agent M, VP & Creative Exec, Marvel) along with CB Cebulski (Marvel Comics Editor in Chief) and an array of Marvel creators as they dig into Marvel Comics #1,000, one of the biggest Marvel Comics projects ever assembled, and celebrate Marvel’s 80th Anniversary!"Marvel Comics: Spider-Man, Room 5AB, 1:30 PM "Get caught in Spider-Man’s tangled web along with Executive Editor Nick Lowe, Assistant Editor Kathleen Wisneski, as well as writers Nick Spencer (Amazing Spider-Man), Seanan McGuire (Ghost-Spider), and Frank Tieri (Absolute Carnage vs. Deadpool, Absolute Carnage: Lethal Protectors) to find out what’s on the horizon for all of your wall-crawling favorites! Spider-Man’s mysterious new foe sets his plan into motion! Ghost-Spider joins the Marvel Universe! And New York experiences Absolute Carnage! PLUS – Don’t miss an exclusive giveaway variant comic of Spider-Man: City At War #5! The stunning rendering by Skan depicts an homage to the classic Amazing Spider-Man #3 cover by Steve Ditko! "Marvel's Agents of Shield Signing Event, Marvel Booth #2329, 3:30 PM. Please note this is a ticketed autograph signing event. You will need to get a ticket to participate. They're distributed via first-come-first-served lottery on Friday morning when the exhibit hall opens.Marvel Animation Celebrates Marvel’s 80th Anniversary, Room 6A, 3:30 PM "Join Cort Lane (SVP, Animation and Family Entertainment), Kalia Ramirez (Director, Family Entertainment – Development & Partnerships), writers Mark Hoffmeier (Spider-Man: The Animated Series) and Marty Isenberg (X-Men: The Animated Series), and fan-favorite voice actors Josh Keaton (Spectacular Spider-Man, Marvel’s Avengers Assemble) and Jennifer Hale (Wolverine & the X-Men, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy) as they take a journey through highlights of over five decades of Marvel cartoons. Including behind-the-scenes dish on the making of classic shows, a run-down of all ten of Spider-Man’s series, and a 10th anniversary retrospective of Marvel’s Animation division, this is a panel you don’t want to miss! Plus a special in-memoriam look at Stan Lee’s greatest animation moments."SaturdayWomen of Marvel: 10 Years and 200 Episodes, Room 5AB, 10:00 AM "Celebrate ten years of Women of Marvel panels and 200 podcast episodes! Join hosts Sana Amanat (VP of Content & Character Development, Marvel) and Judy Stephens (Producer, Marvel) and special guests to talk 80 years of Marvel history, what it's like working as a woman in comics, and the future of the industry."Marvel Comics: Next Big Thing, Room 6A, 1:45 PM "Legendary writer Jonathan Hickman is joined by Editor in Chief C.B. Cebulski and other Mighty Marvel Guests to bring you all the latest and greatest news straight from the House of Ideas! Learn what comes next for the X-Men after the senses-shattering revelations of the House of X and Powers of X!! Plus, stick around for a few things we can’t even hint at yet!"Marvel Comics: Marvel Fanfare with C.B. Cebulski, Room 6A, 3:00 PM "This is your chance to meet the head of editorial at Marvel! In an exclusive and intimate panel experience, Editor in Chief C.B. Cebulski, along with superstar talents including Rob Liefeld and Skottie Young, will talk about anything and everything involved with Marvel Comics. What secrets are held in the House of X? Can Venom prove himself a true hero in Absolute Carnage? When is Dazzler’s next album coming out? What were C.B., Rob and Skottie’s favorite Marvel characters as kids, and how do they feel about those characters now? Ask these questions and more in the Q&A! Plus, don’t miss an exclusive giveaway variant of Silver Surfer Black #2, Giuseppe Camuncoli’s take on Carnage soaring the spaceways on Silver Surfer’s board!"SundayMaking Comics The Marvel Way, Room 5AB, 11:15 AM "A slew of Mighty Marvel guests take you behind-the-scenes and show you how a Marvel comic book is made! Learn about every aspect of production including writing, penciling, inking, coloring, editing, and more - with creators on hand to offer personal insights and anecdotes. If you’re interested in the ins-and-outs of the comic book industry, this is the one panel you can’t miss!"Info from Gamespot.com

The DC movie universe seems to be thriving once more, following the box office success of Aquaman and Shazam and with highly anticipated movies such as Joker and Birds of Prey set for the release over the next year. One project that hasn't had much luck getting to the screen however is the Flash movie. It has now been reported that It director Andy Muschietti might soon be attached to the movie.According to The Hollywood Reporter, Muschietti is in talks to helm the Flash film. If the deal goes through, his filmmaking partner and sister, Barbara Muschietti, will produce. The site states that an offer has not yet been made by Warner to Muschietti, but that will happen soon.The Flash will star Ezra Miller, who previously played the character in the 2017 flop Justice League. However, THR states that Warner will not use the script that Miller wrote with comic book veteran Grant Morrison. Instead the studio is looking to hire Christina Hodson, the in-demand writer who wrote the script for last year's Transformer spin-off Bumblebee and the upcoming DC female superhero team-up Birds of Prey.Muschietti is the latest in a long-line of filmmakers to be attached to the Flash movie. It was first announced in 2015, with Seth Grahame-Smith hired to direct. Grahame-Smith left the production in May 2016, citing "creative differences," with replacement Rick Famuyiwa quitting a few months later for the same reason. In January 2018, it was reported Spider-Man: Homecoming writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein were in talks to helm it.In related news, Muschietti's horror sequel It: Chapter 2 hits theaters in September. Check the latest trailer out here. He has also been attached to adaptations of two separate classic anime titles over the past couple of years--Attack on Titan and Robotech--but there has been no further news about these projects. Info from Gamespot.com

Writer and director Ari Aster has quickly become one of the foremost auteurs working in the horror genre today, and his latest film, Midsommar, cements that rise to prominence. Hereditary was no fluke--Aster is very, very good at making cerebral, tense, terrifying horror movies.Midsommar is another film filled with daring creative choices, one of which is apparent to anyone who's watched one of the movie's trailers: It's set almost entirely in daylight.This is a unique choice for a genre that so ubiquitously relies on darkness as a tool to create scares. The fear of what you can't see--of the unknown--is prevalent throughout horror movies, and setting movies at night, in dark dungeons, or in otherwise unlit circumstances is the easiest and most common way films tap into that fear. Daytime in horror films is usually when things like the basic premise are established--like during a horror movie's opening scenes--or when the threat is finally over, like when characters re-emerge back into the sunlight at the end.The fact that Midsommar manages to be tense and horrifying without the use of that common tool is remarkable. But the movie's lack of darkness is not a gimmick--it's a deliberate feature, one that Aster said he never felt hindered by."I don't feel that lighting is my primary tool to create a mood or atmosphere or a feeling of dread," Aster told GameSpot. "It wasn't really a hurdle for me. I don't know why."Midsommar's constant beating sunlight in fact frequently adds to the movie's sense of unease and unreality, as Sweden's very real "midnight sun" makes it difficult for the characters (and by extension, the audience) to determine what time it is at any given point, not to mention how many days have passed in the nine-day festival taking place throughout the film. As a viewer, you might start wondering about fundamental questions of time and place, and even whether something supernatural is going on in the remote Swedish village the characters are visiting--all of which adds to a pervasive feeling of anxiety throughout the movie. "For me it was enough to have this dynamic between these characters that was always unsettled, and if that carries into every scene, then no matter whether it's blistering daylight or utter darkness, there's still that tension," Aster said. "So I don't know. If anything, I tasked myself with forgetting about that and just doing my best to tell the story."Shooting in broad daylight did present other challenges inherent to the craft of filmmaking. "You're beholden to weather every day, and you're chasing the sun, which is a huge, huge nightmare for continuity," Aster explained. "I would say primarily, there's just the logistical nightmares that one deals with whenever you're shooting outside."We shot for three days outside in Hereditary, and those were without fail the hardest and most painful days. On this one, it was every day, which was--I'm not desperate to make another movie outside for a while. I'd love to just stay on a stage for the next couple of movies."Midsommar hits theaters Wednesday, July 3.Read next: Midsommar Spoiler-Free Review: It's Always Sunny In Swedish HellInfo from Gamespot.com

In Legion's Season 3 premiere, we spent a bubble gum-colored opening act with the new character played by Lauren Tsai, the time-traveling mutant Switch. Switch followed a trail of psychedelic bread crumbs to reach David Haller, who at this point is leading a cult of worshippers who get stoned on his psychic blue mind juice. All the while, she listened to an unaccountably specific book on tape--Lessons In Time Travel--the source of which has yet to be revealed.Centering Legion's third and final season around time travel is a choice with clear artistic intent. When you have characters with regrets as profound and fundamental as David and Syd, the ability to return to an earlier, simpler time is tantalizing indeed. But this is Legion we're talking about, and there's no way anything is going to be that simple.Switch herself is a big factor here. The teenage time traveler is no mere tool, although David seems intent to use her as one. When we meet her, she's as vulnerable and eager to trust David as the rest of his followers--worried she might simply be another of her father's pet robots. David, being the pretty bad guy that he's turned out to be, easily takes advantage of her. But given the direction Legion Season 3 seems to be going across its first two episodes so far, it's probably safe to assume she'll catch on to his bulls*** eventually."Now that we've discovered that David maybe isn't the hero, I wanted to try to reset the camera to show David not through his own eyes, but through the world's eyes," Legion creator and showrunner Noah Hawley told journalists during a recent visit to the show's set in Los Angeles. Hence the opening scenes not from David's usual perspective, but from Switch's. And if the goal is to make David a full-on, objective villain by the end, Switch's assessment of him will need to change."It sort of depends on which way the wind is blowing for David, as to whether he feels any humanity or empathy toward people, or whether he's just sort of blitzing through and destroying everything," Dan Stevens, who plays David Haller, said."But she's a wonderful, curious creation, Switch, and Lauren [Tsai], who plays her, is an amazing discovery," Stevens continued. "She comes with this incredible sort of curiosity and wonder and strange air about her, I guess--as you would, stepping into Season 3 of Legion, I think in any role. But it perfectly suits Switch."Switch's method of traveling through time is as unique as the character herself. She traces doorways, sometimes on solid surfaces and sometimes in thin air, and steps through into a gloomy but utilitarian hallway filled with doors that stretch backward through time. The door she picks determines where in her past she'll emerge, but the further back she goes, the more danger there is, as we've glimpsed so far in Season 3."At a certain point, we decided to give it rules."Legion producers John Cameron and Lauren Shuler Donner told journalists on the set visit that they try their best to impose logic on Hawley's crazy, unpredictable world. "I'll give you an example on time travel," Donner said. "At a certain point, we decided to give it rules, and to define it so that each door was 20 minutes in the past, one hour in the past, one day in the past, one month. It does help to find that device for the audience.""Although," Cameron interjected, "I will say by late in the season, those rules again fall apart. She causes those rules to fragment. So, like I said, it's always like, 'what now?' It's a lot of fun."Thoughts Of A Time Traveler"I can imagine it's been very fun for the writers to play with because you have this whole butterfly effect from every movement that you make," Tsai, a model and illustrator who's never acted before now, told GameSpot during the set visit. "I was honestly very nervous to work with such an incredible team and cast of people, but it's been nothing but a good time thus far. And it's not over yet."As we chatted with the actors, producers, set designers, and more on Legion's set, the cast and crew were busy shooting scenes for Season 3's seventh episode--scenes we caught a glimpse of, although we won't spoil them here.For her part, Tsai said she believes that, paradoxically, Switch is able to use her abilities to bring a sense of "normality" to Legion Season 3. "By the end of Season 2, we're all very familiar with this family of characters and their relationships to each other, and how they're all breaking off at the end. And then my character brings in this whole other world, by being someone completely from the outside, and giving David a whole new ability to go back and revisit any moment he wants to," Tsai said. "She is someone who doesn't have history with any of these characters, so we get to see these characters from a whole different point of view."As for the effect that Switch's abilities will have on what is already an extremely far out TV show, we're already starting to see it across the first two episodes: She was able to go back multiple times until she could save David, who relocated his entire commune thanks to her warning, and by the end of Episode 2, David has coerced Cary into working on a gadget that will let David travel with Switch through time."From my perspective, time travel is a whole different deal than from Lauren's [perspective]," Bill Irwin, who plays Cary, told GameSpot. "I work with Lauren [Tsai] and with Amber [Midthunder, who plays Cary's counterpart Kerry] and there are 50 years difference between us in age. So, time travel is a very, very deeply intriguing notion." Rachel Keller, who plays Syd, teased some of the ways Legion Season 3 will explore the concept in upcoming episodes. "On one hand, when you introduce time travel in a story, nothing matters anymore," she told GameSpot. "And yet, I think we have some nuances in dealing with time, and what that actually means, and losing time. There's some cool sequences of like, time being eaten around you."Aubrey Plaza, who plays the Breakfast Queen Lenny, said the addition of time travel serves Season 3's themes perfectly. "I think it's fitting that we end where we began, and I think that in a way, that's kind of where the story has always been leading," she teased. "I think that this season is all about exploring that, and exploring kind of--what are the stakes if you have the ability to go back and change things? And what are the consequences of doing something like that?""What are the stakes if you have the ability to go back and change things? And what are the consequences of doing something like that?"We're only a couple of episodes into Legion Season 3 at the moment, but it seems those consequences will be dire."[Switch] suffers terribly, just to help him," Dan Stevens teased. "It's that mutant bond, and this feeling that she can finally use her gift for something greater, which ultimately is just David really on his selfish journey."Legion Season 3 airs Mondays on FX.Read Next: Legion Season 3: Is David Haller Forgivable After What He Did In Season 2?Info from Gamespot.com

It might seem like the fighting game market of the current day is crowded with games looking to stand out, but it’s nothing compared to the early '90s. While Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat ruled the roost, everyone was trying to find a way to set their game apart. Among the competition was SNK’s Samurai Shodown, a weapons-based fighting game that emphasized careful movement, high damage, and rewarding patient, careful reading and reacting to your foe’s attacks--along with some fountains of blood from downed opponents for good measure. Over 25 years later, history is repeating itself as a new Samurai Shodown draws its blade, offering many of the same things that made it great all those years ago--only now it feels even fresher.The Samurai Shodown series is one of SNK’s most beloved properties, but also among its most inconsistent; the series has had some very high highs (Samurai Shodown II, Samurai Shodown V Special) and extremely low lows (Samurai Shodown III, Samurai Shodown Sen). Thankfully, the developers at SNK have understood the franchise’s mixed legacy, and worked to really focus on what makes Samurai Shodown special in the world of fighting games: the thrill of being in a high-stakes, life-or-death struggle where one wrong step could take you from a comfortable lead to lying on the ground with a sword in your gut.If you haven’t played Samurai Shodown before, the first thing you’ll notice is the relative simplicity of the game’s controls. You have four attack buttons (three strengths of weapon attacks and a kick), each of which has a very distinct feel when pressed; you’ll really feel the weight of a heavy slash’s slow, powerful arc as opposed to the quick hilt-smash of a light slash. Combinations of the buttons allow you to perform dodges, overhead slashes, and throws and even a special desperation-style mode. Special moves vary for each character, but are almost all easy-to-perform semi-circle, half-circle, and Dragon Punch-style inputs.Playing around with the various characters and seeing their unique moves and abilities really establishes just how good everything feels to control. The various attack weights feel substantial, and even basic standing, crouching, and dashing moves are a lot of fun to see executed onscreen as blades whoosh around in beautiful arcs--to say nothing of the flashy special moves. Simply doing things with your chosen fighter feels inherently enjoyable, even if you’re just getting the grasp of their moveset.Pressing buttons mindlessly might feel good, but you’ll soon discover that restraint is of the essence. Samurai Shodown was known in its heyday for extremely high damage, and if you’re coming off other fighting games, you’ll have a bit of a shock once you see how much life a well-placed heavy sword strike can chop off. Strong moves hit hard, and if you leave an opening for your opponent to take advantage of, you can very quickly find your life bar melting like butter in a frying pan under the pressure of their blade. If you try to go in furiously swinging, you’ll likely find yourself left open to a very, very painful counterattack as you’re stuck recovering from that heavy sword slash you just whiffed.To offset the high damage, there are a lot of defensive options that you can utilize. There’s good old-fashioned high and low blocking, but there’s also a special “Just Defend” block you can execute right as the opponent’s attack is about to hit that will very briefly stun them. There’s also a dodge attack, a universal parry, and multiple means to disarm your foes, leaving them weaponless and at a severe disadvantage. (Be careful, though--some characters are more capable when disarmed than others!) You also have forward/backward recovery when knocked down, allowing you to avoid a lot of pressure when getting up if used well.The big, flashy attacks and myriad defensive options combine to make a game with a much different focus than most other fighting games currently out there. Rather than mixups and combo strings (you’ll only rarely see double-digit combo hit counts), Samurai Shodown heavily emphasizes pacing, carefully reading and reacting to your opponent, and patiently waiting for the ideal opportunity to capitalize on your foe’s vulnerability. There’s not a lot of complex layered-on systems here, but that doesn’t matter; this isn’t about lengthy combos or executing multiple super attacks, this is about finding out how to make your opponent dead in the most effective way possible.The core gameplay, great as it is, is only part of a bigger package--one that might be a bit disappointing to those looking for a strong single-player experience. The roster is small in comparison to some other fighters, but it offers a lot of variety. Fans will appreciate seeing old favorite characters like wild-haired samurai Haohmaru, determined Ainu warrior girl Nakoruru, and even somewhat more obscure picks like the multi-sword-wielding Yoshitora and ethereal trickster Shiki. The game also introduces new characters to the franchise: hard-drinking, razor-sharp shipwright Darli Dagger, clumsy but deceptively cunning Wu-Ruixiang, and the bird-themed, aerial-attack-heavy Yashamaru.The big, flashy attacks and myriad defensive options combine to make a game with a much different focus than most other fighting games currently out there.But even though there's plenty of characters, the story mode is pretty weak, giving each character only an intro, ending, and few simplistic cutscenes, along with a final boss who doesn’t seem to have anything to do with a lot of the cast. (Said final boss can also be incredibly challenging if you don’t find an AI exploit with your chosen character--the term “SNK Final Boss Syndrome” exists for a reason.) There are training modes, along with gauntlet (fight every character) and survival (fight a bunch of characters on a limited lifebar), but beyond that, you’re going to need to either invite a friend over or hop online to truly enjoy what Samurai Shodown has to offer.Online play is a cornerstone of modern fighting games, and Samurai Shodown’s online dueling could be described as "pretty okay." The netcode is input-delay-based, so the quality of your online experience will mostly rely on the distance and connection quality of you and your opponent. Ranked mode allows for character switching after matches if you rematch, which is a nice consideration. Lobbies, however, are rather chaotic, forcing you to manually queue to play and spectate each match.Dojo mode allows you to download a player’s "ghost" data and play against a CPU fighter that mimics their play style--a novel concept. At the time of this writing, however, there’s not much to grab yet, and it’s hard to gauge the accuracy of ghost opponents if you haven’t played them live for a good amount of time. You can play against your own ghosts, which is an interesting experience, but it’s not recommended until you’ve spent a lot of time with a single character and given the game sufficient data. Samurai Shodown is a great reboot. It captures what made the original fun and unique, but also at a time when high-damage, high-stakes fighters like this are a rarity, making its combat feel both fresh and familiar. Its accessibility and easy-to-grasp gameplay belie a lot of strategic depth that makes for very intense, bloody struggles. While the single-player experience is a bit lacking, it doesn’t drag down the whole significantly--Samurai Shodown is a fighting experience well worth taking up the sword for.Info from Gamespot.com

Spider-Man: Far From Home released on Tuesday in the US and Canada, a date that Sony chose to have the superhero movie release just ahead of the 4th of July holiday.The superhero movie is doing exceptionally well, as estimates for its Tuesday, July 2, opening see it making between $40 million and $48 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter.That would be a new record for biggest Tuesday ever domestically, beating out The Amazing Spider-Man which made $35 million back on Tuesday, July 3, 2012.For the six-day period covering Tuesday-Sunday, Far From Home is tracking to make $150 million or more in the US and Canada. The movie has some extra push behind it, as it connects directly to the box office smash Avengers: Endgame, while it also represents the final movie in the MCU Phase 3.In other news, suits based on Spider-Man's appearance in the movie are now available for free in Spider-Man for PS4. For more on Far From Home, check out GameSpot's movie review here, while further stories--which contain spoilers!--are linked below.Spider-Man: Far From Home Ending And Post Credits Scenes ExplainedSpider-Man: Far From Home: Does The MCU Have A Multiverse?Spider-Man: Far From Home's Most Surprising Cameo ExplainedInfo from Gamespot.com

The Spider-Man: Far From Home promotional campaign teased one major post-Endgame revelation: the fact that the MCU may be part of a "multiverse" in which the Earth we've watched this past decade was actually only Earth-616, one of thousands of Earths all occurring in the same place at the same time in different dimensions. However, this information came to us care of Mysterio--a villain in the comics--making it a little harder to trust or take at face value. After all, who was to say Mysterio wasn't doing what villains do best and lying?Well, now that Far From Home is actually in theaters, we thankfully have an answer--and it's unsurprisingly a little complicated. So, does the MCU have a multiverse?This is your final spoiler warning.The short answer is: no. Mysterio was actually totally full of it and really was the bad guy all along. He lied about being from a different Earth, he lied about the Elementals--he lied about it all, just to get himself in the public eye as a hero. The basis for his plan was, partly, the absurdity of the concept--proof, in his eyes, that "people will believe anything these days." And who could blame them, after the Snap and Sokovia and the Battle of New York? Reality in the MCU has never been more precarious or up for debate.But the long answer is a bit less cut and dry. Director Jon Watts told GameSpot he's open to the possibility somewhere down the road. "What's exciting about making movies at Marvel is that you feel like anything is on the table. So who knows?" He laughed, "Mysterio may be bullshitting about it in this movie, but I don't know that that means that it's not true in the larger universe."After all, we can tell from the scene between Peter, Mysterio, and Nick Fury where the concept of a multiverse is first introduced that it definitely is something floating around the scientific zeitgeist in the MCU. Peter knows immediately what Fury and Mysterio are talking about, where it fits into the conversation, and what it could potentially mean in the realm of quantum physics. It's clearly not a totally unheard of idea. And, with both time travel and splintered timelines definitively in the mix after Endgame, actually going for a multiverse may be the quickest and easiest way to buff out some of the larger blemishes in the MCU at this point.But the introduction of the multiverse would come with complications, especially now. Bringing up a multiverse only to have it disproven creates an interesting conundrum in which the general population of the world will have to first be convinced that they were lied to, and then later be convinced that no, wait, actually it was the truth all along--or, at least, part of it was the truth. Not exactly the cleanest or easiest narrative to sell, especially when distrust and confusion are at an all-time high.It will be interesting to see just how this particular debacle pans out, especially given the mystery surrounding Phase 4--does the MCU have the bandwidth to incorporate an actual multiverse somewhere down the line? Or should it remain a giant scam perpetrated by a fraud making a selfish grab at superheroic fame? One thing is certain: No matter how it shakes out, we can't wait to see where things go. Info from Gamespot.com

Cyberpunk 2077's fictional in-game band, Samurai, will be portrayed by none other than Swedish punk band Refused. CD Projekt Red announced the partnership today, confirming that Refused will write, record, and produce an EP of Samurai's greatest hits.The songs will include tunes inspired by the Cyberpunk 2020 source material, along with brand-new songs that Refused wrote for the game. That's a big deal because Refused haven't released new music since 2015's Freedom album.You can listen to the new Refused song "Chippin' In" through the YouTube embed above. If it sounds familiar, that's because it's the song that played as Keanu Reeves walked onto the stage during Microsoft's E3 2019 briefing; apparently no one noticed it was a new song.Reeves plays the character Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2077; he's the singer and guitarist for the band Samurai. In June, Reeves cryptically said he wouldn't do any singing in Cyberpunk 2077, and now we know it's because Refused did the music.CD Projekt Red's music director, Marcin Przybyłowicz, said the Polish studio has a lot of Refused fans within it. One of the game's composers, Piotr Adamczyk, is a big fan of the group, and it was his idea to approach Refused for the collaboration."I'm very happy he did, because the massive riffs, powerful drums, and hard-hitting vocals the guys from Refused deliver as Samurai have blown me away," Przybyłowicz said. "I can wholeheartedly say the punk factor of Cyberpunk 2077's music is through the roof!"Refused lead singer Dennis Lyxzén said, "Like us, Samurai is a group of rebels, albeit in a different time and place. Working together with CD Projekt Red, writing music and song lyrics for Cyberpunk's chrome rock icon was fun, but also very different in the creative sense. It was an unexpected challenge that turned out to be right up our alley and really got us going. The songs turned out great and the game looks insane."This is not the first time the band Refused has been connected to video games. Bethesda used the band's biggest song, "New Noise," for its "Fight Like Hell" trailer for Doom.Cyberpunk 2077 releases on April 16, 2020 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Info from Gamespot.com

In the years since Castlevania: Symphony of the Night helped define the genre, "Metroidvania" has gone from a bold archetype to a bullet-point feature. Quite a few games have iterated and riffed on Metroidvanias. But Castlevania series producer Koji Igarashi isn't riffing on the genre with his latest project, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, so much as returning to convention. But despite being relatively safe, Bloodstained is more than just its creator; its impeccable craftsmanship in level design and combat, quality-of-life improvements, and unique flavor help it stand on its own in a crowded landscape.Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night feels comfortable and familiar, even down to the color-coded map that reveals itself during the course of the game. Like its predecessors in the Castlevania series, your hero Miriam needs to strike even the most basic of enemies four or five times to defeat them, and the lack of agility at first can feel stiff and restrictive. This can actually seem discordant with memories of games like Symphony of the Night, but the familiarity will return as Miriam grows more powerful and the game becomes more recognizable along with her.This isn’t to say that Bloodstained has left the formula entirely untouched. A series of Techniques found in tomes around the castle teach weapon-specific move sets similar to a character-action or fighting game. With the increased emphasis on differentiated weaponry, the game introduces "Shortcut" loadout slots that allow you to quickly swap between different sets of equipment. It's a small quality-of-life touch, but it's smartly implemented.The biggest addition comes from Shards, or pieces of the demons and other monsters that imbue you with extra powers. The Shard system combines the Spells, Relics, and Familiars from Symphony of the Night into one system that’s more robust and versatile. Shards come in five forms: Conjure, Manipulative, Directional, Passive, and Familiar. Conjure summons a weapon or creature, while Manipulative makes more lengthy changes to your current state. Passive offers buffs and other benefits, and Familiars accompany you, giving aid. Directional has the most variety by far, offering tons of projectile-like weapons that can be pointed anywhere using the right-stick. Unfortunately, Directional shards are also used for a few abilities that are crucial to navigation, forcing you to manually swap them when needed or take up a couple of Shortcut slots.By the nature of its Shard system and other power-ups and abilities, Bloodstained isn’t often a terribly challenging game. Gaining a few more levels to take on a challenging new area or boss is quick and breezy, and the sheer variety of weapon types makes it easy to fit the game around your play style. Like many old-school games, seeing your way past the challenges requires patience in learning the enemy patterns, cheesing your way through with special abilities, or some combination of the two.Other additions like crafting weapons and cooking meals for permanent buffs add a little more nuance to Bloodstained, and a nice variety of ways to improve your stats. In general, the powering up only goes in one direction. You aren’t often forced to make tough decisions about trade-offs, aside from a point or two from one stat or another in choosing equipment. This feels unusual by modern standards, but helps drive home the idea that the genre is about empowerment. Going from weak and overwhelmed to a capable and professional monster slayer makes for more satisfying progression.Occasionally, Bloodstained does show slight technical issues. It suffers from slowdown at points, especially given certain Shard abilities, and some areas are noticeably more plain than the lush gable rooftops of Arvantville or the gaudy brilliance of the Dian Cecht Cathedral. The interior of the castle on the whole is gorgeous, and the disparate environments show a keen eye for design with differentiation. The less ornate parts of it stand out, but only because the rest is so well put-together. [Editor's note: The Nintendo Switch version fares worse, with a number of technical problems including reduced visual fidelity and an unstable frame rate that affects gameplay. Stay tuned for our separate Switch review.]True to its lineage, Bloodstained is full of secrets to uncover and nooks to explore. The castle design unfolds beautifully over the course of several hours, instilling a constant sense of curiosity and exploration. The layout is subtle and inviting; points that are meant to be accessed sometime later are clear without feeling restricted or frustrating, and it rarely leaves you at a loss for what to do next. A pin feature lets you mark points of interest to return to later, too (though its unintuitive button mapping means it’s easy to place a flurry of them accidentally). Accessing the "true" ending is a clever puzzle within this platformer formula, which opens up even deeper layers of the castle that beg to be explored.The castle design unfolds beautifully over the course of several hours, instilling a constant sense of curiosity and exploration.Being a Castlevania game in all but name places some restrictions on how explicit the game can be with its references and callbacks. Some are more blatant than others, but Bloodstained consistently impresses with creative solutions to raise the specter of Castlevania while skirting just on the right side of originality. From weapon descriptions to a hidden 8-bit-styled stage to one of the super-tough optional bosses, Bloodstained pays homage to its legacy with too many Easter eggs to count. These fun winks are clear messages to long-time fans, but not so obvious that they should be distracting for newcomers.That cheeky tone informs the entire game. While the story itself is bland and unremarkable, the style and trappings around it are anything but. This is gothic horror at its most silly, with demons occupying the castle corridors alongside giant puppy heads and homages to the indie hit Shovel Knight. Even some of the dialogue is clearly in on the joke. A quest giver in the main hub has a comical level of bloodlust over her revenge quests. An undead ferryman drops an unsubtle hint about how you could open a path for him if you only had a giant hand. A demon barber who opens up cosmetic options is conspicuously named Todd. Bloodstained is full of little touches like these, which let you know that despite its dour name and setting, the game is comfortable enough with itself to be absurd.It’s that sense of comfort in its own skin that makes Bloodstained such a treat. This isn’t a bold modernization of the genre or a departure from its roots. It is exactly what it set out to be: a return to the style of a bygone era, with a few modern improvements. Its perception was always going to be affected by how well it invoked the feeling of a classic Castlevania game, but Bloodstained does that and better. With more flexible combat and level design that always beckons to check just one more room, Bloodstained shows that a modern Metroidvania can stand alongside its predecessors as an equal.Info from Gamespot.com

Part tower defense, part city builder, They Are Billions is a real-time strategy game whose flow swings between cautious turtling as you hunker down to fend off the zombie hordes and well-considered dashes to expand your territory and exploit vital new resources. Introduced into Steam Early Access last year with a survival mode that challenged you to endure a certain number of days on a randomly-generated map, the game now features a hand-crafted campaign mode as part of its Version 1.0 release. The result is a hybrid RTS that shines when it plays to its strengths even if several of its new additions feel like unnecessary distractions.When you first start a new map and see your isolated base surrounded by zombies, the game's title will feel accurate, if an understandable exaggeration. Stray zombies take refuge in the fog of war, milling around in small groups until you alert them and occasionally shambling towards your settlement. There aren't really billions, but it looks like there could be. Fifteen days later, the klaxon blares to signal the arrival of the horde and soon, as a seemingly relentless river of undead lay siege to your defenses, you start to suspect billions may well be an understatement.The survival mode and the majority of maps in the campaign offer a similar experience. First, you establish a perimeter with patrol routes to pick off encroaching zombies, scout the immediate area to identify chokepoints and nearby resource deposits, build structures around your base to grow the economy, and secure it all with enough troops and fortifications to fend off the first wave of attack. Survive that, and the second step is an expeditious land-grab to claim whole swathes of fertile new ground, clearing away the errant undead and managing your production to generate all the resources required to populate and work your expanded colony.The ebb and flow at play here is lovely. The arrival of each new wave of zombies is clearly signposted, so you always know precisely how many days you have to prepare for the attack. How you use that time is where the interesting strategic choices arise. Weighing up whether it's wise to expand northward towards the iron that will let you build soldiers or eastward, where there's a large forest that provides natural cover and wood required to repair fencing and guard towers; such choices arrive with every wave and your prospects for surviving the next one hinge on the decisions you make.It's incredibly tense, too. Outside of the horde attacks, a single zombie that manages to elude your patrols and wander into your settlement can mean game over. If just one manages to attack a dwelling, everyone inside will become infected and proceed to join the assault, multiplying the danger to unmanageable levels in an instant. Death is swift. I lost entire colonies thanks to my failure to spot a gap in my defensive setup. Next thing I know, death is spreading across the camp and weeks of desperate survival count for nothing.Survival mode is based around permadeath, as you'd expect. But the campaign, too, incorporates various degrees of permadeath and iron-man elements in an effort to force you to accept the consequences of your choices. If you get overrun and fail a campaign mission, for example, you have to restart that mission from the beginning rather than reload a save from mid-mission before it all started to go wrong. There's even a penalty applied to the mission reward for each time you fail. Somewhat ironically, an option to back up your campaign save has been added since its 1.0 launch, and the developer has indicated it may continue to adjust its approach in this area in future updates, which makes these decisions feel unconfident.The campaign falters with the inclusion of survival elements, which don't mesh well with the flow of exploration. The campaign maps are hand-crafted--they're the same every time you play them. They are, essentially, puzzles in which the solution is discovered through increasingly efficient resource management. Most of the maps here deliver satisfying challenges, and the permadeath aspect punishes you for experimentation within these maps. When you know you messed up between 60 and 65 days, having to restart from day zero can be tough to swallow.The campaign fares better as a more gentle introduction to They Are Billions. The tech tree locks away many of the game's structures, units, and bonuses behind research points accumulated by completing missions. This means the early missions let new players learn the ropes by only having to worry about a handful of buildings and a couple of units, rather than potentially overwhelming them with too many concepts to understand at once. As a new player myself, I also appreciated the adjustable difficulty settings which let you advance more slowly through the research tree while at the same time serving up missions that let you progress with the lesser tech at your disposal. Then, once I was comfortable, I was able to bump up the difficulty to match my improved skills.Adding variety to the campaign are a couple of non-traditional mission types. There are Hero missions in which you control just one unit infiltrating a small base and Swarm Attack missions that are pretty barebones tower defense skirmishes. The elimination of much of the base-building and economic management--or indeed all of it in the case of the Hero missions--exposes the remaining combat as shallow. Worse, stripping out the core mechanics simply misses the whole point. As a result, neither of these mission types are particularly enjoyable, and quickly become irritations you have to wade through to get to the proper missions. Adding variety for variety’s sake, in this case, only serves to diminish rather than enhance.At its best, though, in both the original survival mode, across the bulk of the campaign and in the one-off challenge of the week maps, They Are Billions remains a tight and compelling strategy game. The knowledge that you're always just one misstep away from disaster creates a gripping, tense atmosphere that's unusual for the genre. And the cycle from defense to offense and back again as you progress from one wave to the next offers both well-paced urgency and the ability to set clear short-term goals. It's a smartly designed game at its core. It just needed to realize that sometimes that's enough. Info from Gamespot.com