Destiny 2 is seeing a slate of changes this fall. It starts with a new content expansion called Shadowkeep. That'll launch in September alongside a new free-to-play version of the base game and new cross-play support that lets you move your character around between (some) platforms. And there's another big change coming for Destiny 2 PC players: with the launch of Shadowkeep, the game will head to Valve's Steam platform.Bungie made the announcement ahead of E3 2019 during a livestream detailing all its plans for Destiny 2 going forward. Destiny 2 was previously only available on PC via Battle.net, Activision Blizzard's PC portal, when Activision published the game. But Bungie split with Activision earlier this year, and Tuesday marked the release of the Season of Opulence, the final piece of Destiny 2 content from that partnership.Starting with the release of the Shadowkeep expansion on September 17, Destiny 2 will leave Battle.net and head to Steam. It will also support cross-saves on all platforms, which include PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Google's cloud-based Stadia platform. Bungie also laid out a new approach for how it'll sell Destiny 2 to players: each new content expansion, starting with Shadowkeep, will be standalone and sold a la carte. That means you'll be able to pick and choose which Destiny 2 expansions you buy, and you won't be required to own all previous expansions in order to get the new ones.Up until recently, Steam would have seemed like the obvious choice for Bungie to take Destiny 2, but Valve's grip on the market recently was shaken by the emergence of the Epic Games Store. The new platform has attracted a lot of developers and publishers with exclusivity deals, and that created a lot of ire among Steam fans.Bungie said in its press release for the new Destiny 2 changes that it wants to move away from segmenting its player base across separate platforms, which might explain why it picked the more dominant Steam as a home for Destiny 2. Then again, Bungie is doing away with all platform-exclusive content, so maybe it'll show up on the Epic store at some point in the future.Info from Gamespot.com

Longtime Xbox gamers are used to shelling out a monthly subscription fee for playing games online with Xbox Live Gold. That also means that they'll appreciate what a great deal it is to buy one whole year of the service for $40 on MassGenie, down from the sticker price of $60. Don't let that ticking counter scare you--it resets every 24 hours, and the deal is actually available until the end of June "or while supplies last"--whichever comes first.GET A 12-MONTH XBOX LIVE GOLD SUBSCRIPTION FOR $40 » Here's how to claim the Power Deal: On the product page, click the Power Deal circle. You'll be prompted to sign in or create a free account (there's no guest checkout for Power Deals). After you've signed in, you'll be redirected to checkout, where you'll see that the coupon XBLIVEGLD12M has automatically been applied, dropping the price to $40. After the Power Deal ends, your digital code will be in the tracking ID located under your order history and via email under digital code.In addition to allowing you to play online games such as Overwatch and Sea of Thieves and granting discounts on purchases from the Xbox Store, Xbox Live Gold grants subscribers access to a monthly rotation of free games to permanently add to their libraries (even after their subscription lapses). The most recent round of games shared through the program includes indie Smash-like Rivals of Aether and the all-time classic puzzler, Portal: Still Alive (which was simply the Xbox 360 port of the original PC game). Games are typically rotated in and out in half-month shifts, so be sure to check in every few weeks so you don't miss any gems.Xbox fans are bracing themselves for another big year at E3 soon, expecting to learn more details about xCloud, Microsoft's remote game streaming service, a few more studio acquisition announcements, and possibly an initial reveal of the next generation Xbox console. Sony is stepping back from the show this year, giving Microsoft a lot of room to flex, so we're all curious to see what they bring to LA. Microsoft is also having its own big sale in celebration of E3, including deep discounts on games, consoles and services.Info from Gamespot.com

Borderlands 3 is just a few months away from its release date in September, but it looks like fans of the looter-shooter franchise will have something to tide them over in the meantime. Just before E3 2019, DLC for the seven-year-old Borderlands 2 has leaked and is likely to bridge the gap between the game and its upcoming sequel, according to Game Informer.Titled Commander Lillith and The Fight for Sanctuary, the DLC leaked via a Steam listing and is reported to launch on June 9, the same day as Microsoft's E3 presentation. The page has since been removed, as noted by Game Informer, but we managed to glean some information about the upcoming expansion. The listing said the DLC would be free and has Vault Hunters teaming up with Lilith and the Crimson Raiders to save Pandora. Check out the details below."Return to the award-winning shooter-looter for a new adventure that sets the stage for the upcoming Borderlands 3. Sanctuary is under siege, the Vault's map has been stolen and a toxic gas is poisoning Pandora. Fight new bosses, explore new zones, get new loot (including an entirely new tier beyond Legendary) and join up with Lilith and the Crimson Raiders to take on a deranged villain hell-bent on ruling the planet."Lilith is the Siren in the original Borderlands. She's remained an NPC since her reintroduction in Borderlands 2, guiding Vault Hunters throughout the treacherous environments on Pandora. With her return in Borderlands 3, it's likely this DLC will have some connection between the events of Borderlands 2 and the adventure Vault Hunters will embark on this September.Gearbox has been in hot water for a few months now. Last month, the original Claptrap voice actor levied some serious accusations against Pitchford, which includes a physical altercation at GDC back in 2017 and more. The Texas-based company has been in an ongoing legal battle with former general counsel Wade Callender over financial disputes, company information misuse, pornography, and more. Gearbox seems to be backing down for the lawsuit, retracting some claims and filing no grievances.Borderlands 3 will land on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on September 13. It was confirmed that the upcoming looter-shooter will also launch on the Google Stadia day one as part of today's Stadia Connect Event, kicking off this year's E3.Info from Gamespot.com

We're now in Week 5 of Fortnite Season 9, which means there's a new set of challenges to complete and Battle Stars to earn in Epic's hit battle royale shooter. As usual, this week's tasks are divided up into two categories: those that are available to everyone, and a premium set reserved for players who've purchased a Season 9 Battle Pass, which runs for 950 V-Bucks (roughly $10).As has been the trend this season, most of Week 5's challenges are fairly self-explanatory. In the free category, you'll have to deal damage to opponents with Grenades, Dynamite, or Stink Bombs; search seven chests either in Salty Springs or Frosty Flights; and eliminate an opponent in five different matches. All of these should be easy enough to complete with a little persistence.Battle Pass holders will have to do a little more work. Their challenges involve placing a trap item in five different matches and racking up three eliminations at Sky Platforms. There's also a multi-stage challenge that first asks you to complete a lap at the desert race track, as well as one to visit five Wind Turbines in a single match. If you don't know where those can be found, we've put together a Wind Turbine locations guide.FreeDeal damage to opponents with Grenades, Dynamite, or Stink Bombs (200) -- 5 Battle StarsSearch chests at Salty Springs or Frosty Flights (7) -- 5 Battle StarsEliminate an opponent in different matches (5) -- 10 Battle StarsPremiumStage 1: Complete a lap of the desert race track -- 1 Battle StarPlace trap items in different matches (5) -- 5 Battle StarsVisit different Wind Turbines in a single match (5) -- 10 Battle StarsEliminations at Sky Platforms (3) -- 10 Battle StarsAlongside Week 5's challenges, Epic has released Fortnite's 9.20 update. This week's patch introduces yet another new item to the game: the Storm Flip. As its name suggests, throwing it into a storm zone will create a temporary spherical pocket of safety, and vice versa--you can also throw it into a safe zone to create a storm zone. To make room for the Storm Flip, however, Epic has vaulted all hunting rifles. You can read more in the full patch notes on Epic's website.Info from Gamespot.com

Yooka-Laylee developer Playtionic Games has been relatively quiet since launching the mascot-platformer back in 2017. It's been two years since Playtonic mentioned working on anything new, and while the independent studio is remaining quite tight-lipped, Playtonic did tease something slated for tomorrow, June 7 ahead of E3.The tease is nothing substantial. It's a short, 30-second video of various comments aimed at the indie studio with a similar message: what is Playtonic working on next. Halfway through the clip, a myriad of emoji eyes fills the screen before fading to black. Playtonic isn't saying anything, other than something of some sort is coming from the studio on Friday, June 7.Bee back tomorrow. 👀 pic.twitter.com/tstlh3T92F — Playtonic (@PlaytonicGames) June 6, 2019This tease suggests Playtonic will unveil something new before the chaos that is E3. This year's E3 started a little earlier than normal, with Google leading with its Stadia Connect Event. Similarly, EA Play will be held on Saturday, June 8 just before E3. The main show starts with Xbox on June 9 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST (6 AM AET on June 10).Yooka-Laylee launched in April 2017 for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. In December of the same year, the bat-chameleon duo made their way to the Nintendo Switch. The mascot-platformer has surpassed more than 1 million sales since then. In our Yooka-Laylee review, we said, "If you’re looking for a faithful return to the Banjo-Kazooie formula, Yooka-Laylee certainly delivers--from the font to the music to the wealth of collectibles, it’s worthy of the title of spiritual successor."Info from Gamespot.com

Google has revealed much more about its Stadia video game streaming service, including price, launch information, and a partial game lineup. You can get in on the ground floor by getting a Founder's Edition to launch this November. But if you do put down your money, what you can you expect right out of the box?The Founder's Edition is the high-end version of the service and hardware rolled into one package, so if you purchase it you can expect the full functionality of the Stadia service. It will cost you $130, and it's already available for pre-order. Unlike a traditional console like Xbox or PlayStation, the Founder's Edition doesn't include a large hardware box. Instead, it will pack a relatively small Chromecast Ultra streaming dongle and a limited-edition Night Blue Stadia controller--both of which are regularly priced at $70.Pre-order Stadia Founder's Edition now »Since Stadia is a streaming service, the real functionality comes through playing online. Right out of the box, the Stadia should be able to stream any game in its library, either through a direct purchase or through free games included in the three-month Stadia Pro subscription included in the Founder's bundle (regularly $10 per month). Stadia Pro allows you to stream at 4K and 60fps with 5.1 surround. The only announced game included with Pro so far is Destiny 2, with all previous expansions and an annual pass to include the upcoming Shadowkeep expansion. If you've already started Destiny 2 elsewhere, you can import your character to Stadia.A separate Stadia Base tier won't launch into 2020. That version will be able to play games at 1080p with stereo sound, and there is no subscription fee. You can just buy your games a la carte, similar to any other digital marketplace, and play them through the cloud. This can be done on any Chrome browser, and you can use most existing controllers or purchase a Stadia controller separately.Any game in the Stadia launch library will be available to stream on day one. Google has already announced a partial list of its launch games, which you can see below. The company has suggested that more launch games will be announced at a later date, including some from Capcom, EA, and Rockstar at their own discretion.For more on Google Stadia, check out our wrap-up of all the news out of the recent event.Google Stadia Launch GamesAssassin's Creed OdysseyBaldur's Gate 3Borderlands 3Darksiders GenesisDestiny 2Doom 2016Doom EternalDragon Ball Xenoverse 2Farming Simulator 19Final Fantasy XVFootball ManagerGet PackedGRIDGyltJust DanceMetro ExodusMortal Kombat 11NBA 2KPower Rangers: Battle for the GridRage 2Rise of the Tomb RaiderSamurai ShodownShadow of the Tomb RaiderThe Elder Scrolls OnlineThe Crew 2ThumperTomb Raider Definitive EditionTom Clancy's Ghost Recon BreakpointTom Clancy's The Division 2Trials RisingWolfenstein: YoungbloodInfo from Gamespot.com

Last year's reboot of the classic horror Halloween was one of 2018's biggest horror movies, making more than $225 million at the worldwide box office. Given this was already the 11th movie in the long running franchise, it's expected that producers Blumhouse Films will want to make another one. Now, studio boss Jason Blum and star Jamie Lee Curtis have hinted that work has started on a sequel.Blum posted an image on Twitter of him and Curtis with the caption "We're discussing stuff," as Curtis holds a doll of her character Laurie Strode. While it doesn't necessarily mean they're discussing a new Halloween movie, let's face it, it's a very high possibility. Check it out below:We’re discussing stuff. @jamieleecurtis pic.twitter.com/gs3gw5r95k — Jason Blum (@jason_blum) June 5, 2019This isn't the first time that a Halloween sequel has been (possibly) discussed. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly last year, co-writer Danny McBride spoke about how he and director David Gordon Green had initially considered shooting two Halloween movies simultaneously."We were going to shoot two of them back-to-back," he said. "Then we were like, 'Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. This could come out, and everyone could hate us, and we'd never work again. So, let's not have to sit around for a year while we wait for another movie to come out that we know people aren't going to like.' So, we were like, 'Let's learn from this, and see what works, and what doesn't.' But we definitely have an idea of where we would go [with] this branch of the story and hopefully we get a chance to do it."Curtis herself has spoken about returning to the role that she first played back in 1978, in John Carpenter's hugely influential first Halloween, but admitted that finding a reason for the character to appear in yet another movie might be an issue."I'd be happy to do it, sure," she told EW in December. "This 2018 40th anniversary [movie] was Laurie's story, and obviously there are now other people's stories that would need to get told. But Laurie's story was told beautifully this year, and I would have no way of knowing how they would incorporate her into future."For more on Halloween, check out our list of Michael Myer's most brutal kills and our ranking of every movie in the series.Info from Gamespot.com

The Epic Mega Sale kicked off a few weeks ago with some great discounts on PC games, and it's also been giving away a free game on a weekly basis. The latest freebie is available now: Kingdom: New Lands, which builds on the story and gameplay of 2015's Kingdom. Kingdom: New Lands is selling for $15 elsewhere, but you can claim it at no cost from now until June 13, which is also the last day for the Epic Mega Sale. You'll just need a free Epic account to claim the game.Kingdom: New Lands released in 2016 as a new, updated version of Kingdom with added content and various gameplay improvements. The game is a kingdom-building simulator where you control a monarch who must build up their kingdom across six unique islands, traveling via boat or various mounts. The screen is two-dimensional, and you can only move the monarch left or right, gathering coins and resources as you go. Exploration is key, but the further you move away from your central kingdom, the more dangerous the environments become.Starting June 13, Kingdom: New Lands will be replaced by Epic's next free game, Enter the Gungeon. At that point, Epic will resume giving away free titles every two weeks, rather than every week, as it's done during the Mega Sale. So go ahead and grab Kingdom: New Lands while it's available; once it's added to your account, it'll be yours to keep.Get Kingdom: New Lands for free »Create a free Epic Store account »And if you haven't checked out the Epic Mega Sale yet, don't miss out on the great PC game deals available for just one more week. The store is offering discounts of up to 75% off some games, and all games over $15 are available for $10 off. That includes pre-orders for upcoming games, like Borderlands 3, Control, and Afterparty.Info from Gamespot.com

Numantian Games' They Are Billions has been out for a couple of years now, launching on Steam Early Access back in December 2017. Since then, despite receiving a "very positive" reception on Steam, the post-apocalyptic RTS has lacked a full campaign mode--until now. They Are Billions' campaign will arrive just after E3 for free to those who own the game.The news comes via a tweet from the independent studio. The campaign for They Are Billions, titled The New Empire, launches on June 18. Check out the official two-minute trailer below.Alongside the campaign addition, They Are Billions will receive two new scenarios for its Survival Mode: The Deep Forest and The Caustic Lands. The Deep Forest is the easier of the two, while The Caustic Lands will provide more of a challenge with players facing the Doom Colony that can take up to 30 percent of the map, according to the game's Steam store page.In a separate tweet, Numantian announced that They Are Billions will make its way to PS4 and Xbox One on July 1. Porting studio BlitWorks--who's responsible for ports of Bastion, Fez, Spelunky, Wargroove, and many more--will handle the console port of They Are Billions.They Are Billions coming to PS4 and Xbox1 in July!! #theyarebillions #ps4 #XboxOne https://t.co/bn6cVBlcfs — They Are Billions (@theyarebillions) June 6, 2019Back in March 2018, we wrote that They Are Billions picks up where Starcraft 2 left off. We said that the game "took the PC world by surprise, providing fantastic real-time strategy elements and a nuanced take on the seemingly endless horde of zombie games," and our editor Mike Mahardy argued that They Are Billions continues the legacy of stellar RTS games like Age of Empires and Command & Conquer.E3 is just a couple days away. Google already held its Stadia Connect Event, and EA Play starts on Saturday, June 8. The official show kicks off with Xbox's press conference on Sunday, June 9 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST (6 AM AET on June 10).Info from Gamespot.com

Baldur's Gate 3 is indeed happening and it's being developed by Larian Studios, makers of Divinity: Original Sin 2. Coming off of such a critically acclaimed RPG, it seems like the perfect match--and the partnership between Larian and Wizards of the Coast (license holders of Dungeons & Dragons) has quite the story. Ahead of the official reveal of Baldur's Gate 3, GameSpot video producer and D&D aficionado Dave Jewitt was able to catch up with the founder and head of Larian Studios Swen Vincke. And they talked about almost everything that led up to this point; from how Divinity was influenced by Baldur's Gate and the creative approach when handling a storied franchise to the office dynamics at Larian and what it's like to work on the cloud-based gaming platform Google Stadia.While Baldur's Gate 3 was announced within the Stadia Connect stream ahead of E3 2019, Larian plans on bringing it to PCs as well. There's also no release date quite yet, so it's likely we won't see the game launched alongside Stadia--as Vincke says, it'll be ready when it's ready. For now, enjoy Dave's conversation with Swen Vincke about all things Baldur's Gate below or check out the trailer breakdown they did together in the video above.A shot from the announcement trailer; introducing mind flayers.What was the mood in the studio after Divinity: Original Sin 2, given its reception after the definitive edition and everything else?Swen Vincke: Ecstatic. That pretty much sums it up. Super proud. People worked very, very, very hard on it and so, it was very rewarding to see all the critical acclaim, and from then the fans, and from the sales. It was just fantastic.Did that factor into Baldur's Gate 3 at all or have you been working on it alongside D:OS2?SV: The team already knew that we were working on Baldur's Gate 3, so they were really excited to start, actually impatient to start working on it. One of the things that we needed to do to get this deal done was to get the script of the story to Wizards of the Coast before Original Sin 2 shipped, actually. I think it must have been July or August [2017], just before it shipped.With the writers, we went to a hotel room and sat there the entire weekend and just churned out the entire script that we then sent through to Wizards of the Coast.What did Wizards of the Coast say?SV: They said, "You guys should finish Divinity: Original Sin 2!" [laughs]It's the second version, but the core ideas were there already. It was just that we didn't have the time to work everything out, but then afterwards, once D:OS2 shipped, we had all the time in the world to focus on Baldur's Gate, so, we spent a lot of time at their offices.What made you want to pursue the Baldur's Gate license?SV: There's a bunch of reasons. Dungeons & Dragons is something that's super loved in the studio. Obviously, we're making RPGs, and it's been around for 40 years. The second is that, if you think about what D&D is, it's a game system in which you're given an adventure, a reason to go do things and use the gameplay systems to overcome challenges. Typically you're going to do all kinds of crazy things to overcome the game master. And if the game master's any good, they're going to make sure they can just manage to do it.If you think about Original Sin 2, that's literally what we're trying to do also. There's a very, very close match in offering systems to players and reasons to do things, then giving them the very big question which you get in D:OS2 and in D&D: what do you do? The fit was very natural and something started talking about with Wizards of the Coast quite some time ago.The third thing is that it's an incredible challenge. People have been waiting for it for more than 20 years now. It's something for the team to overcome, it's to make them even better than they already are, and say 'can we manage to do this?' People are super motivated to demonstrate that they can because they're all very talented. So, hopefully we will manage.Is this something that Wizards of the Coast approached you with, or was this something that you wanted to do with your lineage and approach them with the idea?SV: It goes in both directions. I originally approached them after Divinity: Original Sin 1, but they felt I was still too green back then. As we were making Original Sin 2 and I guess as they were seeing what we were doing, Nathan from Wizards approached me and asked, "Do you still want to do this?" I said, "F*** yeah!"I said, "I want to do this." So, he said, "Here's what you need to do." Then we did all those things, and out of that came the deal.What was the reaction? Did you sit everyone in the studio down and say, "We've got Baldur's Gate 3"--what was that like?SV: There were two reactions. It was quite funny actually. So, we have four studios. And I also told Steve not to tell the other guys, because I wanted to have the joy of being the one telling them and seeing their faces.We gathered everybody around and we had two reactions. We had the guys that were completely freaking out. But then surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, the younger ones that said, "What is it? [whispering]" They actually didn't know what it was.It shows you how long it's been since people actually played Baldur's Gate. Then when people explained it to them, the reaction became, "Oh my god, okay, that's really cool." But they didn't have the insane reaction that you see from the ones who played it when they were young.For a lot of them, it was their first RPG that they ever played. That was actually eye opening and told us instantly of something that we would have to overcome. If we want to make this game, we have to educate people on what this actually is.Is three a reimagining? A straight sequel? How much are you taking from the originals?SV: The previous Baldur's Gate games were based on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. We're now Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition. A lot of stuff has happened in Forgotten Realms. A lot of stuff has happened in Baldur's Gate, so this is going to be a new entry.There will obviously be references to everything that happened in the first and the second, but this is very much its own story. You needn't have played the previous Baldur's Gates to understand what's going on, but if you have, you will recognize the references. For example, if you just look at the teaser trailer, you will notice the guy's from the Flaming Fist, he has a flaming fist on his chest.So, this game is more keeping in the tabletop lore than it is directly coming from Baldur's Gate 2.SV: Yes. It's very much set into Forgotten Realms and where the universe is at now, but it is its own story. We worked very closely with Wizards, they actually adapted certain things for us so that it would work in the video game also. They've been very, very flexible in that. There are adaptations that we had to make to turn it into a video game, but it features a lot of the iconic stuff that people love about Dungeons & Dragons.Larian, of course, having a lot of expertise in this genre, what do you think that your studio's going to be able to add to what's already a dense franchise with a history to it?SV: I think that our systems focus that we had in previous games we've made is going to add a lot. You're going to have a lot more agency available because of all the freedom we're going to offer you when you have overcome challenges. The effect of that is going to be a big thing.We're also in 2019 now--so it's not going to necessarily launch this year--but in 2019, the world has moved on tremendously. With Divinity: Original Sin, we've demonstrated that we can make what people call classic RPG values, that we can make modern. You will see a modern version of Baldur's Gate, but it's going to be true to the core of Dungeons & Dragons more than anything. It's going to feature tough decisions, player agency, systems, strong narrative, companions, gather your party.All those things will be present and you'll be able to play it in single player and in multiplayer, like the original ones, but then in our way and much more evolved than it was back then.The evolution of games over the past 20 years since the original is obviously going to influence how Baldur's Gate 3 is.SV: Yeah. We try to not go backwards, but going forwards. I think that we'll be bringing a bunch of new things to the genre also. There's a whole bunch of stuff, ideas that we've been sitting on that we haven't been able to put in our previous games that nobody has put in RPGs. You'll see that come through in Baldur's Gate 3.When you worked on the original Divinity, was that at all inspired by the Baldur's Gate series?SV: It's funny that you mention it. Just before that, we made a game called The Lady, The Mage, And The Knight (LMK) which was canceled. And we discovered that Baldur's Gate was in development as we were making LMK. Then obviously it got canceled and it just went on the backburner.When it came to pitching the first Divinity to publishers, what we told them was that it was a cross between Diablo and Baldur's Gate just to explain to them what the concept was. Yeah, there was definitely some inspiration there. Diablo was the one that had the action RPG focus. Baldur's Gate was more about all the systems and stats that you had, and the party and them joining the exploration. There was a lot more world exploration to Baldur's Gate than you had in Diablo because you could interact with people, you could actually talk to them whereas Diablo was really about the character progression and action.Being that this series was something that influenced your earliest games, it must feel pretty amazing now to be building the next iteration of that series.SV: Yeah, it's a very big responsibility. I mean, this is the type of game people have been already defining for themselves what it should be. So, we're going to be fighting against those expectations but we'll make it our way, what we think is the right way of doing it. Then we'll see what the community will say. I think they'll have a lot of fun with it, but yeah. We'll see.What are you're expecting to come out of the official announcement?SV: We wanted to talk about it because we've been very bad at keeping it a secret, so that's been clear. We want to start talking to our community also. We've made all of our games together with the community. This will be no different. Obviously, we'll have the entire Dungeons & Dragons community also that we will start engaging with and somehow, together, we're going to evolve towards the RPG that it deserves to be.Are you doing the same route that you did with Original Sin 2? Are you going with a Kickstarter or are you fully taking this and running with it with some community involvement?SV: It's not going to be a Kickstarter, that I can tell you. Original Sin 2 was so insanely successful that it wouldn't make sense to take it [Baldur's Gate 3] to Kickstarter, except for the community. We're going to do other things to involve our community and we'll announce them over the coming months.What stage of development is it in at the moment?SV: We're in production. This is the biggest RPG we've ever made, so our team is now over 200 people internally and together with all the externals, we're heading over 300 people. It's a very big production. It's the biggest that we've ever done.Being the biggest RPG you've ever made, do you have an overarching goal of what can you expect to see in terms of scope?SV: Freedom of choice, agency, that's the key pillar. Whether you're playing single player or in multiplayer, having the freedom to affect the world and the world reacting to your actions as you embark on this fantastic narrative and having many, many different ways to play such that when you talk to one of your friends about how your session went, you say, "Are we playing the same game?" Mostly because of of the choices you make, that's the ideal scenario.Production values are very high also. Back in the days, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 were actually accomplishments when you see the size of the world. It has to be the same thing again when you look at it.Then, lots to explore, right? When you play Baldur's Gate, you were exploring a lot of things, so this has to be the same when you get that feeling of exploration, there's one more thing to discover and say, "Oh my God, that leads to this thing, I didn't expect that." Then preferably, when you get there you'll say, "Oh, because of what I did there, this happened here." Right? If we can get that feeling, then you'll feel as if the adventure is yours or your party's.Since it's so inspired and based on tabletop Dungeons & Dragons, is that influencing the way you're approaching multiplayer? Is it going to be like you're sitting down with a dungeon master? Or is it going to be a set number of party people?SV: It's a video game, so you want your video games to react rapidly to what you're doing and you want it to be presented to you in a visual way. A dungeon master appeals a lot to your imagination, so here we have to show things. In that sense, it will be different.When it comes to multiplayer, you can expect us to make sure just as you have in a traditional tabletop session, each person is they're own hero. We're together as a party, but we each have our own story and we each define parts of what's going to happen in this adventure and maybe some conflicting. That should be very present.For anyone who's not familiar with Baldur's Gate, as you said before there are people that are new to this franchise, can you kind of break down what we're seeing in the teaser that will catch us up and get us ready for Baldur's Gate 3?SV: All right. You're seeing the city of Baldur's Gate 3 to start with, which I think is it's first 3D rendition actually, ever done. Then, you see a knight who belongs to a group of mercenaries called The Flaming Fist, who are law and order in the outer sides of the city and into parts of what's called lower city. You have also an upper city part which is where all the rich live in Baldur's Gate. They're governed by somebody else called The Watch.Then you see that there's been conflict clearly. There's dead bodies everywhere and then something's happening to this knight and he's actually undergoing a version of what we would call accelerated ceremorphosis, which is basically a way of reproduction that these creatures called the mind flayers have.They stick a tadpole in people's heads, that tadpole grows, and then it turns a human being or any humanoid being into a mind flayers and these are the guys you may know from Stranger Things, maybe. They're these psyonic creatures with tentacles and very intelligent but they're hive creatures. They have elder brains that command them.They used to have an incredible empire called the Mind Flayer Empire but things went wrong, so they've been in hiding ever since in a place called The Underdark, which is like the deep underground of this world of Forgotten Realms. Somehow, they've managed to get people into Baldur's Gate that are turning into mind flayers and you see some shots where they're flying in the distance, so it's an invasion of mind flayers, too.In the very last shot, you see that big thing with tentacles, that's called a naulitoid and that's the thing that they used to have when they had their ancient empire. Think of it as a spaceship that was capable of navigating the astral plane, which is...almost like quantum mechanics to explain how that works [laughs].Yeah, that's what you're seeing. Time to gather the party.What you're doing in Baldur's Gate 3, is that now influencing the tabletop version of the world of Baldur's Gate?SV: Yeah, and we worked very closely with Wizards on this and the people that worked on what used to be called Eclipse, Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus. They spent a lot of time with us and we spent a lot of time in their offices.There's been close collaboration on planting the seeds of what we needed in Descent Into Avernus, which starts just before Baldur's Gate 3 the video game. There's a lot of stuff that you will find in there that you will see referenced back inside of the game and vice versa. There's seeds planted for stuff that will evolve into the video game.This is one of the first games we've heard about it being on Google Stadia. Can you tell us about how it's going to work on an unknown platform like that?SV: It's not so unknown for us [laughs]. We've been at it for some time. The thing about Stadia is that it's going to be accessible to anybody, at least if you have Stadia services within the country where you are. It's going to allow you to play the game at really high settings on a very shitty PC, which is going to solve one of the problems that we have with this game because the production values are so high. We've always tried to make the games fairly low specs, so that solves that.Stadia will also allow a whole bunch of community features that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do. I don't know if you've been paying attention to what's happening in the streaming sphere when it comes to Dungeons & Dragons, but there's a lot going on there. Things like Stadia allow you to do much more.We're implementing Stadia fairly deep into the game, actually. In due course, we will announce the features and demonstrate it. I don't think people understand, yet, exactly how transformative Stadia is going to be. Not in a corporate way, I actually mean it. Because they haven't seen it, they haven't touched it, but it is quite special.I suppose that's a great way of bringing something like Dungeons & Dragons that's supposed to be accessible to anyone, Stadia seems like a perfect match for that. Like you said, anyone with a shitty PC can still play and get involved.SV: It democratizes it. I mean, you'll be able to access it anywhere and if you have an RPG which lasts over 100 hours that you play in multiplayer, one of the biggest problems that you have is when can I join my party? When will the party be online together?If you can access it from anywhere with something like Stadia that will increase the chances that you can be able to continue your adventure together, I think that's a really good thing.You literally just showed me the teaser but do you have any timeframe whatsoever as to when people can get their hands on Baldur's Gate 3?SV: When it's ready, yes. You could've seen that one coming [laughs]. We're going to take all the time we need to make this one really, really good. I think people have been waiting for 20 years, so they can afford to wait a little bit longer.There will be a lot of excitement once people discover it. We've seen some excitement already because of the leak, but I think that it deserves to be really good and I really think my team is capable of delivering.Info from Gamespot.com

E3 is upon us. While a few announcements have leaked (such as Roller Champions and Watch Dogs Legion) and a few titles are no-shows (like The Elder Scrolls 6 and Skull & Bones), the news keeps trickling out. Ahead of the big conference, toy manufacturer Funko has revealed an announcement of its own: exclusive E3 Pops.The news comes via a tweet from the Original Funko Twitter account. The Washington-based, pop culture collectible manufacturer lists a variety of E3-exclusive Pops, including lion-form Sora from Kingdom Hearts 3, Ciri from The Witcher 3, the Siren Maya from Borderlands 3, a Kingdom Hearts 3 Donald Duck PEZ pen, and more. You can check out the announcement tweet below.Here's a closer look at our E3 exclusives! Which one is your favorite #FunkoE3 pic.twitter.com/R4WeLOkH6h — Funko (@OriginalFunko) June 4, 2019Geralt of Rivia voice actor Doug Cockle teased on Twitter that a Nintendo Switch port of The Witcher 3 could be in the cards. When replying to a fan's wish of the critically acclaimed action-RPG appearing on the console-handheld hybrid, the man behind the White Wolf asked "Who else wants to see this" and added a suggestive smiley emoticon. Nintendo's E3 Direct takes place on Tuesday, June 11 at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET / 5 PM BST (2 AM AET on June 12), so we'll see if the rumor comes to fruition.E3 started a little early this year, with Google leading with its Stadia Connect Event. On Saturday, June 8 EA will host its annual EA Play Event. But the big E3 conference kicks off on Sunday, June 9 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST (6 AM AET on June 10) with Xbox's press conference.Info from Gamespot.com

Legends of Tomorrow and Doom Patrol are the two most imaginative superhero properties currently available, in an era where comic book adaptation are everywhere, on TV and in the theaters. Both series are spin-offs of other shows and deal with less-than-perfect people with abilities forced to come together as a group to face evil. Though the two shows deal with camp, they do so in very different ways.Where other superhero shows like Daredevil, Arrow, and even The Flash (which started as a fun alternative to the incredibly angsty Arrow) all turned into character dramas that focused on the toll of being a superhero, Legends of Tomorrow dared have its characters be hypnotized by a possessed nipple in one episode and have a Furby-like giant fight a demon in another. When DC launched its own subscription service, its first live-action show was teased with a Robin so gritty his motto has become "F*** Batman." When Doom Patrol followed it up, it used the dark and gritty tone of Titans to provide grounded and emotional character development, while still giving us a make-out session between a giant cockroach and a giant rat.Legends of Tomorrow lets its characters have funOriginally thought of as a spin-off for Ray Palmer/The Atom (Brandon Routh), Legends of Tomorrow started as a sort of lifeboat, taking characters who had outlived their usefulness on Arrow and The Flash, and giving them a time machine to go off on adventures. Though the first season was noticeably still a spin-off of the Arrow-verse and it mostly adhered to the same darker tone, by the time season two began, the Legends creative team embraced the weirdness of the show's premise.From Season 2 on, the writers started throwing every weird idea and the kitchen sink at the audience while still somehow making sense. Season 2 dealt with the Legends fighting of the Legion of Doom, who were trying to find the biblical Spear of Destiny that pierced the side of Jesus (really), while Season 4 introduced demons and an amusement park for magical creatures.Because of the liberties that come with time travel, and a lack of a fixed cast due to it not being based off any established property, Legends of Tomorrow has been able to freely use any character from Arrow or The Flash and add them to their roster. From the original team, only Routh, Caity Lotz (as Sara Lance/White Canary) and Dominic Purcell (as Mick Rory/Heat Wave) remain on the show. Characters come and go every season, adding versatility to the show since they don't run out of stories to tell with the characters, with Kid Flash and later Constantine joining the team for a while. Even the original three have grown since their introduction-- – most notably, Mick has become a science-fiction erotic romance novelist.Beyond an ever-rotating cast, Legends of Tomorrow is different from other superhero shows by embracing the insignificance of its leading characters. In the very first episode, Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) says he chose the Legends because of how inconsequential they are to history, so no matter what they did or what happened to them, no one would care--a sharp contrast to the Green Arrow working with the police department, or The Flash getting a parade in Central City.Legends of Tomorrow uses the extraneousness of its heroes to test their heroism. Though they still triumph at the end, the Legends create more problems with their little mess ups along the way than they can fix. By Season 3, the Legends have messed up so many times that they literally broke time itself. It got so bad Rip Hunter helped create an entire government branch to deal with the Legends and their "time aberrations" (like Gorilla Grodd from killing Barack Obama when he was in college). But usually, they created more problems in the process, like dropping Helen of Troy off in Themyscira instead of Greece.This constant breaking of eggs to make a semi-decent omelet is the show’s greatest strength. Unlike Arrow or The Flash, which use the failures of their heroes for drama, Legends of Tomorrow mines those failures for comedy--as well as character growth. Even in an episode where Constantine tries to change the past to save a loved one, breaking the timeline and going through scenarios as weird as having the entire team turned into singing puppets, the show still finds the time to have Constantine learn to bond with the team and accept his failures.Doom Patrol isn’t afraid to let you laugh and cryLike Legends of Tomorrow, Doom Patrol started as a spin-off of the gritty, brooding, and ridiculously violent Titans. Though it did feature some moments of levity, Titans explored some dark themes and featured the goriest and most brutal fight sequences on a superhero TV show to date. It was, therefore, kind of a surprise when the first episode of Doom Patrol premiered, and it featured a skywriting-farting donkey that is actually a doorway to another dimension. Like Titans, Doom Patrol doesn’t shy away from some dark themes, but it does that while also giving us such bonkers scenes as a giant eye in the sky that disintegrates people à la Thanos, or a superhero flexing the wrong muscle and accidentally giving everyone on the team and a literal sentient street an orgasm.Doom Patrol also plays with the audience’s expectations for what a superhero family is. The characters certainly look like they have abilities of some kind, but there's nothing heroic about them. The first episode goes through the origin story for the entire team, focusing on how dysfunctional and broken they all were even before getting powers.Former ace pilot Larry Trainor/Negative Man (Matt Bomer) has an immortal negative energy spirit that burned his body in radiation now living inside him, but his closeted homosexuality broke him long before the radiation did. Rita Farr (April Bowlby) was a major film star that already struggled with her identity and the ways the studio system of the Golden Age of Hollywood turned artists into monsters way before she was forced into hiding after an accident turned her into a giant blob of flesh. Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero) suffers from dissociative identity disorder as a result of an abusive childhood and now has 64 different personas, each with their own superpower--eat that, James McAvoy. Likewise, Cliff Steele (Brendan Fraser) may be angry and resentful for being just a brain inside a robot body, but his rage and self-hatred started long before the accident that killed his wife and destroyed his body. Before they can save anyone, the characters must learn to cope with their past trauma.The series acknowledges that you can’t fully heal from your trauma, but instead has the team aspire to heal just enough to be able to live with their own demons for another day. Larry can't fully reclaim what he lost in the accident that ruined his life, but we see him start to make peace with his past and embrace who he is through a karaoke session while at a cabaret inside a sentient genderqueer street named Danny. The scene is completely bonkers, yet it doesn't feel out of place. After all, this is a show that spends as much time inside our protagonists' psyches as it does with disembodied butts with legs that eat people or the aforementioned mass orgasm on a sentient street. By the end of the first season, the Doom Patrol isn’t yet a fully-fleshed team, but they’re on the way to accept what has happened to them and finally move on.Plenty of superhero shows and movies try to cram in as many jokes as possible, even interrupting the crucial emotional scenes for the sake of a joke. Legends of Tomorrow and Doom Patrol prove that you can not only do scenes that are simply cuckoo bananas and make you cry with laughter, but you don’t have to do that at the expense of character development.When people talk about “superhero fatigue” they usually refer not to the big amount of superhero movies and TV shows that are coming out all the time, as much as to how similar they’re becoming. As the Marvel Netflix shows all became very similar in story and tone, and the Arrowverse is basically just one gigantic entity, we need more TV shows and movies that show how versatile the genre at giving us emotional stories at the same time as singing superhero puppets and cockroaches making out with rats. Legends of Tomorrow and Doom Patrol are not only the two most fun superhero shows out there, but they also show us what the genre is capable of. Info from Gamespot.com

Some have worried that the rise in popularity of live service games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and others could inspire publishers to move away from story-based, narrative games. That's not going to happen at Sony, according to Sony Interactive Entertainment president Jim Ryan.He told GameSpot sister site CNET ahead of E3 2019 that Sony is enjoying huge success today with its story-based games like Spider-Man, God of War, and Days Gone. You can expect Sony to continue to make these games on an ongoing basis, Ryan said."We've never had greater success with our own narrative-driven, story-based games than we're having right now," he said. "We feel good about that, and it's certainly not a genre of gaming we'll ever walk away from."Ryan said live service games are still growing in popularity, and it's contributing to the "overall gaming ecosystem" getting bigger and bigger."If you're going to do this you have to do it really well," he said about live service games. "It's a form of entertainment that has to be built incrementally, you can't sort of plunge in and build one of these live service games and get it right from day one. It's got to be evolved and iterated and it's not easy. It's really not easy."Sony's next big story game is Naughty Dog's The Last of Us: Part II, which appears to be nearing the end of its long development period. Sony is not attending E3 2019 this week, so it might be some time before it announces more details, like a release date.While Sony won't be at E3 this week, Microsoft, Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft, and others are coming to the show with new game announcements and more on tap. For more on the big show, check out GameSpot's E3 2019 hub to follow along with all the big news.Info from Gamespot.com

Sony's Uncharted movie starring Spider-Man actor Tom Holland finally has a release date. The film will hit theatres on December 18, 2020.The movie has been in the works for more than half a decade already, but this is the first time Sony is committing to a release date. Holland joined the movie in 2017 when it was reported that the film will focus on a young Nathan Drake. Directing the film is Dan Trachtenberg, who took over for the previous director, Shawn Levy (Stranger Things, Night at the Museum).Jonathan Rosenberg and Mark Walker wrote the latest screenplay draft for the Uncharted movie, but there are no details on what the story will be or how it may be connected to the video games. Variety reports that the film will follow a young Drake who meets Victor Sullivan, or Sully as he's known in the games, for the first time. As such, it's not a story already told by any of the games.Releasing on December 18, 2020 puts the Uncharted movie up directly against Steven Spielberg's West Side Story remake.Uncharted 4: A Thief's End wrapped up Nathan Drake's story and it was the final Uncharted game that Naughty Dog plans to make. However, the studio says Uncharted 5 could happen with a different studio.A movie based on Naughty Dog's other big franchise, The Last of Us, is also in the works.Info from Gamespot.com

Week 5 of Fortnite Season 9 has arrived, and it's brought a new set of challenges to complete in the battle royale shooter, whether you're playing on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch, or mobile. Each task you finish will reward you with Battle Stars, which in turn will level your Battle Pass up and unlock more of this season's new cosmetics. There's an extra bonus for those who clear all seven challenges from a given week, however: You'll also complete one of Season 9's Utopia challenges and earn a special loading screen.What makes these loading screens so desirable is each one features some kind of clue that leads to a free item hidden somewhere around the game's map. Clear an even-numbered Utopia challenge and you'll be able to find a Fortbyte, a new kind of collectible that Epic introduced in Season 9. However, if you complete an odd-numbered Utopia challenge, you'll have a chance to collect a free Battle Star, which will level your Battle Pass up by one full tier.If you've managed to finish five full sets of weekly challenges, you'll unlock the loading screen pictured below, which will point you to another free Battle Star waiting somewhere around the island. This screen features a character passing through a Slipstream, new wind tunnels that can be found by Neo Titled and Mega Mall. However, the Slipstream itself isn't the clue; rather, if you look closely at its outer rim, you'll be able to spot the coordinates B2, B3, C2, C3, which converge near the castle in Haunted Hills. That's where you'll need to go.The coordinates meet at an otherwise unassuming patch of grass. Make your way there and the Battle Star will appear when you approach. Interact with it as you would any other item in the game, then finish the match and you'll level your Battle Pass up by one tier, bringing you another step closer to unlocking all of Season 9's rewards. If you need more help finding it, we've marked the Battle Star's exact location on the map below. You can also check out our video walkthrough above.Unlike the aforementioned Fortbytes, which can be collected by any Battle Pass holder so long as you know where to look, there's an important caveat to keep in mind before setting off to find this Battle Star. The item will only appear in your game if you've completed the required number of weekly challenges; you can't simply go to the right place and find it if you haven't done the necessary work. If there are any previous tasks you need help with, however, you can find guides for the trickier ones in our full Fortnite Season 9 challenges roundup.Alongside the Week 5 challenges, Epic rolled out Fortnite's 9.20 update. This week's patch introduced a new item called the Storm Flip, which will create a temporary safe zone when thrown into the storm--and vice versa. To make room for it, Epic vaulted all hunting rifles. The publisher also brought back the infamous Infinity Blade as part of the Sword Fight limited-time mode. You can read more in the full patch notes on Epic's website.Info from Gamespot.com