Fortnite is known for its big in-world seasonal changeover events, but the one this weekend didn't quite go as expected. While many players got to see the event unfold just as Epic intended, some players were unable to attend and participate in a community vote for a new item.The May 4 event had players gather for the Unvaulting, which finally opened the mysterious vault underneath Loot Lake. Players could then enter the vault and choose to "vote" on an item by striking it with a pickaxe. Once one item--a Tommy Gun--was freed, players were ejected and got to witness the smoldering volcano finally erupt and destroy Tilted Towers.Players who were locked out of the event, however, saw none of that. They didn't get to vote on the item that was eventually freed, and they didn't get to see Tilted get wrecked. To make up for the error, Fortnite has set up an open folder with a replay file, and instructions in various languages for how to use it. Essentially it involves downloading the file, dropping it into the Replay menu, and then refreshing to view it.As an extra freebie for your troubles, Epic is also giving away the Arcana Glider. If you've already bought the glider, you'll get refunded the 1200 V-Bucks so you can use it on something else.All of this was to set the stage for Season 9, which will kick off on May 9. The studio teased a theme as usual, with the tagline "The Future Is Unknown." It also shows a new skin, presumably one you'll be able to earn through the next season's Battle Pass. The future would be a big departure from its current season, which is themed after pirates and treasure hunts, but there's no telling just what it means until the update goes live.Info from Gamespot.com

Ubisoft is getting ready to pull back the curtain on something new for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. The publisher announced it is hosting a Ghost Recon World Premiere event this Thursday, May 9, beginning at 11:30 AM PT / 2:30 PM ET / 7:30 PM BST, which will give fans around the globe their first glimpse at what's next for the series.Beyond the date and time of the event, Ubisoft hasn't shared any other details about its Ghost Recon stream, so it remains to be seen what it'll reveal. The fact that the publisher isn't linking the event to 2017's Ghost Recon Wildlands, which it has supported since launch, indicates the reveal could be something entirely new. Curiously, the link associated with the upcoming stream leads to a Skell Technology website, which fans will recognize is the recurring tech company that has appeared in various Ubisoft games, including the aforementioned Wildlands.Calling all Ghosts.Tune into the #GhostRecon World Premiere event May 9 at 11:30 am PT.❤️ this Tweet to watch the Official Announce Trailer on May 9! pic.twitter.com/n7emQ6M0p7 — Ghost Recon (@GhostRecon) May 6, 2019The Ghost Recon World Premiere announcement arrives on the heels of Wildlands' latest expansion, Operation Oracle. That content update notably added two new missions to the tactical shooter, which involve extracting a Skell Tech engineer who was arrested by Unidad--potentially tying it to this week's upcoming Ghost Recon event, although that remains unconfirmed.In addition to the two new missions, Operation Oracle introduced a new Ghost Team Leader, Major Cole D. Walker. Players who complete the operation will also earn two new rewards: Walker's Bracelet (which equips a new CQC Finisher) and Walker's Tattoo for your arm. You can find the full patch notes for Operation Oracle on the official Ghost Recon Wildlands website.Ghost Recon Wildlands is available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. GameSpot called it "a squad based Tom Clancy game that plays by the numbers" and gave it a 7/10 in our original Wildlands review, writing, "While its main strength is its mission diversity, it doesn’t take long to lose the motivation after reaching El Sueno's doorstep. Even with a foursome of highly trained friends, Wildlands eventually reveals its diminishing returns."Info from Gamespot.com

Last year, five lawsuits were filed against Riot Games for the company's violation of the California Equal Pay Act, citing how in-house sexism was affecting the workplace and creating a "bro culture." According to Kotaku, this past April, Riot filed a forced arbitration for two of them. In response, Riot Games' employees are preparing for the first of several planned walkouts.An estimated number of 100 employees are set to participate in the walkout today. To Kotaku, one employee said, "I'm walking out as a symbolic action to signal to leadership that I care about this issue. I hope leadership takes the time to seriously listen to the issues."In response to the walkout, a Riot representative told Kotaku, "While we will not make a change to our policies while in active litigation, last Thursday we announced that we've made the call to pivot our approach. As soon as active litigation is resolved, we will give all new Rioters the choice to opt-out of mandatory arbitration for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims. At that time, we will also commit to have a firm answer on potentially expanding the scope and extending this opt-out to all Rioters. We are working diligently to resolve all active litigation so that we can quickly take steps toward a solution. As we have been for the past week, we will continue to listen to Rioters regarding their thoughts on arbitration and we're thankful for everyone that has taken the time to meet with leadership about this issue.""It's been eight months since the original [Kotaku] article was released and so far I haven’t seen a single outcome of our diversity and inclusion efforts at Riot," one Riot employee told Kotaku. "I haven't seen a single metric or number to indicate things have improved and I haven't seen a single project get finished."Another employee told Kotaku, "I think having executives get up for two hours and do the classic, roundabout series of denials helped other Rioters wake up to the fact that this is actually happening here. The impression most Rioters got is that [the executives] do care about it, a bit. They care about being publicly humiliated."This walkout is the first major protest seen in the game industry since the bulk of Crytek USA quit for being underpaid back in 2014. The gaming landscape of today is very different from previous years, as talk of studio employees unionizing has become a larger focus amongst the many reports of crunch and other poor working conditions within the industry. The shift has put many studios under the microscope, including big names like Fortnite's Epic Games and Mortal Kombat 11's NeatherRealm. In response, numerous teams, such as Apex Legends' Respawn, are sticking to certain development practices in regards to updating their games in order to avoid putting their employees through crunch.Info from Gamespot.com

Though Avengers: Endgame may be jam packed with Easter Eggs and references, and feature not one, not two, but three whole endings over the course of its three hour runtime, it turns out there were still scenes that wound up on the cutting room floor.Directors Anthony and Joe Russo revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that they cut the role of Katherine Langford (Love, Simon, 13 Reasons Why) from the finished film while simultaneously confirming she had been cast to play an older version of Morgan Stark, Tony's five-year-old daughter.The scene, the Russos explained, was supposed to mirror the moment back in Infinity War where Thanos was confronted by baby Gamora after he first snapped his fingers. The directors called the place where this scene took place a "metaphysical waystation," rather than the Soul World like some fans had theorized the space to represent. Apparently, Langford and Robert Downey Jr. recorded a scene together in which an adult Morgan Stark forgives her father for leaving her behind as he sacrifices him with with the Infinity Stones. However, after being shown to test audiences, who found the moment confusing, the scene was cut entirely."What we realized about it was we didn’t feel an emotional association with the adult version of his daughter. It wasn’t resonating with us on an emotional level, which is why we moved away [from] it," The Russos said. "The intention was that his future daughter forgave him, and gave him peace to go. And the idea felt resonant, but there were just too many ideas in an overly complicated movie."Avengers: Endgame stars Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Rudd, Jeremy Renner, Karen Gillan, and Josh Brolin. It is is rapidly closing in on the record currently held by James' Cameron's Avatar as the highest grossing movie of all time. Info from Gamespot.com

With less than a month to go before Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opens at Disneyland, the excitement for the new section of the park is at an all-time high. The Walt Disney Company knows that and used this year's Star Wars Day (May 4) to its advantage with the release of a new theme song for the theme park land.The new song, "Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Symphonic Suite," is written by composer John Williams, the man behind the scores of Episodes 1-8 of the Star Wars saga. At this point, it's unclear how the song will be incorporated into the land. However, given Disney's penchant for having theme music play throughout its parks, chances are the "Symphonic Suite" will be heard by visitors as they wander around Batuu, the planet Galaxy's Edge is set on.According to StarWars.com, the new track will "will complement the immersive world" that the land is set in, further bringing visitors into the Star Wars universe. That world will include themed food and drinks, a variety of interactive experiences, and--upon the grand opening--a new ride that lets guests pilot the Millennium Falcon on a mission.There's more in store for Galaxy's Edge, though, as a secondary ride--Rise of the Resistance--will open later this year. A press release calls it "the most ambitious, immersive, and advanced attraction ever imagined, which will place guests in the middle of a climactic battle between the First Order and the Resistance and will blur the lines between fantasy and reality."Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opens at Disneyland on May 31. The land then comes to Disney World Resort's Magic Kingdom on August 29. If you love theme parks but Star Wars isn't your thing, don't worry. There's also a new Harry Potter roller coaster coming to Universal Studios and the Hagrid animatronic is a little too real.Info from Gamespot.com

GameSpot reviews come in all shapes and sizes. There are the standard game reviews you're used to seeing; there are reviews in progress; there are updated reviews of ongoing games; and now, there are scored reviews of other kinds of entertainment, like movies and TV.All that sounds complicated, but it's really quite simple. While our approach to reviews can and will grow and change over time, the purpose of any GameSpot review remains the same: to provide a well-argued, honest, and thorough opinion about a game, movie, or TV show. But what's an "updated" review, exactly? And what do those numbers mean? This guide is here to help.GameSpot Review ScaleReviews don't boil down to just "I like it" or "I don't like it." GameSpot reviewers--which includes editors, video producers, and talented freelancers who fill in the gaps--are dedicated to thoughtful, robust criticism that takes a number of factors into account. The score is a point of reference, but if you want to really understand whether a game (or movie or TV show) is for you or not, you'll find what you need in the content of the review itself.GameSpot uses a 10-point review scale with no increments--so there are no .5s. Here's a quick breakdown of what our scores represent:10 - Essential9 - Superb8 - Great7 - Good6 - Fair5 - Mediocre4 - Poor3 - Bad2 - Terrible1 - AbysmalReviews In Progress and Early Review ImpressionsIf you've been on GameSpot in the last few years, you've likely seen a review in progress or two before. Game reviews are published "in progress" if we've played a significant amount of the game but haven't been able to see some aspect of it fully--in many cases, it's the online component, which we of course can't experience properly until after the game has officially released. This way, you can get a good idea of what the game is like and what we think of it around the time of launch, keeping in mind that a few aspects might still be question marks.You'll know it's a review in progress because of the headline, but just in case you miss that, the score is also blue instead of orange. We also make sure to include in the text of the review what we still have left to do before we can finalize the review--and keep in mind that details, including the score, are subject to change before we flip the switch.In rare cases, we won't have access to a game until right before or even at launch. In these situations (which mostly consist of online-only games), we may publish "early review impressions" based on our first day or so with the game. These early impressions are unscored and a little less formal, and you'll know exactly what we've done and what we still have to do before we're comfortable moving on to the review in progress or even the final review.Updated ReviewsWe've been saying a lot about "finalizing" reviews, but in reality, a lot of games are not final at launch or even two weeks after launch, once servers are stable and bugs are patched out. More and more games change over months and even years, and so while a final GameSpot review is mostly final, there are some cases where we will want to revisit a game down the line and then write a new, updated review to reflect the times.In these cases, a game will have to have changed significantly from the version we critiqued in our original review. But not every game that has changed gets this treatment--there are only so many hours in a day and so many GameSpot reviewers, so the decision to write a new review of a game comes down to the interests of both our staff and our readers. We use our best judgment based on our own experiences with a game and what people in general are playing, plus what needs fresh criticism as opposed to news about live events and updates.Finally, an updated review is not a chance to "undo" a previous score or opinion. The original review still lives on GameSpot, and you'll be able to read both to get a picture of where the game was and what it is now.If you have any questions about game reviews on GameSpot, feel free to contact reviews editor Kallie Plagge or editor-in-chief Randolph Ramsay. For questions about TV and movie reviews, reach out to senior entertainment editor Mike Rougeau.Info from Gamespot.com

Following their surprise appearance in the wild last week, Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie have made their way into Raid Battles in Pokemon Go. The Legendary Pokemon will appear in Gyms from now until May 27, but which one you'll be able to catch will depend on where you live.Just as when they first appeared in the wild, each of the three Legendary Pokemon is currently exclusive to a specific region. Azelf is appearing throughout the Americas and Greenland; Mesprit is available across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East; and Uxie is only spawning in the Asia-Pacific region.Each of the Legendary Pokemon will appear in their respective parts of the world until May 27. It's unclear if Niantic plans to rotate them after that point, as it has done in the past with other region-exclusive Pokemon. However, the developer teases that players will have a chance of coming across the Legendaries in the wild in their regions even after their Raid event ends--although you'll need to be "extraordinarily lucky" in Niantic's words, suggesting the odds of finding one will be incredibly low.Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie were first introduced in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl for the DS. Together the Pokemon are collectively known as the lake trio, so named due to the fact that each one guards a different lake in the Sinnoh region. All three of the Pokemon are pure Psychic-types, which makes them vulnerable to Dark, Bug, and Ghost Pokemon like Tyranitar, Gengar, and Scizor.In other Pokemon Go news, Niantic is kicking off a Detective Pikachu event in the game this week to celebrate the live-action movie's theatrical release. From May 7-17, Pokemon that are featured in the film, such as Bulbasaur, Jigglypuff, and Snubble, will appear in the wild and in Raid Battles. You'll also have a chance of finding a Shiny Aipom and a special Pikachu wearing a detective's hat.Shortly after the Detective Pikachu event ends, Niantic will host Pokemon Go's next Community Day. That event is set for Sunday, May 19, and will star the Gen 3 starter Torchic as its featured Pokemon.Info from Gamespot.com

The first trailer for It: Chapter Two, the sequel to the well-received 2017 Stephen King horror movie, is coming very soon. A billboard spotted in Times Square reveals the first trailer is coming on Thursday.That's all there is to go on at this stage, so right now it's not clear what time in the day the trailer will arrive. The billboard does, however, contain what appears to be the movie's tagline: "Witness the end of It." Keep checking back with GameSpot; we'll post the trailer as soon as it arrives.Here's a nice quality shot of the IT: Chapter Two billboard in Times Square today. Trailer Thursday!Photo Credit: Matthew Cody https://t.co/zV3hnCaeqv pic.twitter.com/kuzwyt6jlx — Bloody Disgusting (@BDisgusting) May 6, 2019Chapter Two picks up 27 years after the events of the first movie. The kids are now adults, and Pennywise the Clown is back to terrorise them once more.The cast is full of big names. James McAvoy plays Bill and Jessica Chastain portrays Beverly, while Bill Hader stars as Richie, Jay Ryan as Ben, James Ransone as Eddie, Andy Bean as Stanley, and Isaiah Mustafa as Mike. Bill Skarsgard returns to play Pennywise. The children who played the child characters from the original movie will return as well in flashback scenes.Andy Muschietti, who directed the original, is back as well for the sequel. It: Chapter Two hits theatres on September 6.The 2017 movie It made more than $700 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing horror movie in the history of cinema.Info from Gamespot.com

If you didn't know much about the long-running pop culture phenomenon known as Pokemon, it would be easy to assume that the blockbuster Japanese franchise is mainly for kids. But ask any of the now-adults who have been fans of Pokemon since the series' debut on the Game Boy in the late '90s, and you'll find out that there are Pokemon fans who are young, old, and everything in between. And Detective Pikachu, the first ever live-action Pokemon movie, was made with all of them in mind.Detective Pikachu director Rob Letterman has made plenty of films that you would most likely categorize as kids' movies, from Shark Tale to Goosebumps. But as he told GameSpot, his approach to making any movie is simply to try and tell a good story, without any particular audience demographic in mind."I grew up with the movies in the '80s that people say are family films, but they're not really," the director said. "Like Back to the Future, E.T.--when I was growing up, those were just movies, and the filmmakers didn't target them for kids at all. They were just doing great stories and great characters. That was my childhood, loving that style of filmmaking, so that's my approach.""I have kids. I'm a parent," he said. "I go to movies with my kids, so I know what it's like."Letterman's kids have been into Pokemon cards and games for much longer than he's been working on this movie, but the director himself missed the craze by a generation or so. The same isn't true of Detective Pikachu star Justice Smith, who was into Pokemon as a kid just like so many fans were."I grew up with Pokemon," Smith, who was born in 1995, told GameSpot. "I had all the original cards. I played Pokemon Gold growing up--that's the first game I got for Game Boy Color. I had Pokemon Crystal. I had a lot of Pokemon games. I watched the anime."I have Pokemon Go on my phone right now," he laughed.Smith plays Tim Goodman, who teams up with his father's former Pokemon partner, the titular sleuthing Pikachu, after Harry Goodman is killed in a car crash. It's a dark premise that kicks the movie off on the right foot--Tim and Pikachu work to unravel the mystery of Harry's death while navigating the perils of Ryme City, a gritty environment where Pokemon and people live together side-by-side.Smith agreed with Letterman: Their approach was to simply tell a good story, and they focused on getting the humor right, not to mention the inherent "magic" of creating realistic-looking CG Pokemon in a live-action world."I think that the people who are going to go see this movie are people my age, who grew up with Pokemon, who had that nostalgia factor, who always wanted to see a live-action Pokemon film," the actor said. "And then everyone else is like, 'No, kids are going to go see this movie.' I'm like, 'Oh, are they?' But I think it's cool that this franchise just spans multiple generations. It bonds people regardless of age."The filmmakers also tried to fit in plenty of references to the original games and anime so that longtime fans would feel at home."I really wanted to connect it to the overall Pokemon universe," Letterman said. "There's a lot of references to [Pokemon: The First Movie] because that was the first Pokemon movie I watched with my kids, so that one was important to me, and Mewtwo plays a big role in this film...There's a lot of subtle hints in there that connect us to the rest of the universe--there's mention of the Kanto region, there's posters in Tim's bedroom in the background that true hardcore fans will start to read into and see how it all ties in."Smith was hesitant to say too much before the film's release."There's a lot of things that I really liked that we paid homage to from the anime that I don't really want to say, because I don't want to spoil anything," the actor hinted--although he did point out that much like the original anime's Ash and Misty, Tim and Lucy (Smith's co-star, Kathryn Newton) have a Pikachu and a Psyduck. In addition, Smith pointed out that Lucy wears the red hoodie worn by Tim in the Detective Pikachu game. "There's just Easter eggs all throughout the film--from the games, from the anime--that I think fans will enjoy--especially hardcore fans." "The idea is to make a movie for an audience of all ages," Letterman explained. "That's always been my approach. And, I also forget about that and just try to tell a story with character and human emotion in it.""I can't tell you if that's the best way to do things, but it's the only way I can get into it," the director continued.Detective Pikachu hits theaters May 10. For more, check out our full movie review, our report from the movie's set, the Pokemon Go tie-in event this week, and all the Pokemon we've spotted in trailers so far.Info from Gamespot.com

The filmmakers behind Avengers: Endgame painted themselves into a pretty tight corner with the conclusion of the movie's predecessor, Avengers: Infinity War. The Mad Titan Thanos managed to get all the Infinity Stones together, and with a snap of his fingers, erased half the life in the universe from existence. But this is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the heroes always had to make an attempt at undoing the damage Thanos did. The question was: How could they?The answer, as we now know, is time travel. But time travel is confusing in movies (not to mention theoretical physics) on the best of days, when you're not dealing with space magic that can rewrite the rules of reality on top of it. It's so confusing, in fact, that it seems like the directors and writers of Infinity War and Endgame have differing (and mutually exclusive) ideas of how it works.Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, directors Joe and Anthony Russo described time travel in Endgame as creating alternate timelines--essentially, every time the characters return to the past, the changes they make to the past createnew, complete universes with new events, with the original universe staying intact and unaltered. That's how the Avengers can go back to, say, the Battle of New York and accidentally release Loki. It creates a new timeline where Loki didn't go back to Asgard, as he did in the original MCU timeline (depicted in Thor: The Dark World). The timeline were Loki is loose with the Tesseract in 2012 is its own separate universe, and the Avengers are able to travel between them somehow. This roughly matches up with how Bruce Banner explains time travel within the movie itself, so that's good so far.The Russos use that model of time travel to explain Captain America's ending, one of the more confusing and controversial events of the movie. At the end of the film, Cap goes back in time to return the Infinity Stones to where the Avengers found them, but he stays in the past to spend his life with Peggy Carter, the woman Cap has said was the love of his life.The time machine seen in the movie is less about getting people to the past, it seems, and more about helping them find their way back to their original universe, the one we've been watching in the MCU all along. But that raises the question: If Cap was in another timeline, how did he get back to the original timeline to give Sam Wilson his shield at the end of the film? The Russos covered that question in their EW interview, without giving a definitive answer:"If Cap were to go back into the past and live there, he would create a branched reality. The question then becomes, how is he back in this reality to give the shield away?" Joe Russo asked with a smile. "Interesting question, right? Maybe there’s a story there. There’s a lot of layers built into this movie and we spent three years thinking through it, so it’s fun to talk about it and hopefully fill in holes for people so they understand what we’re thinking."We also know that Peggy was married and had kids while Steve was supposed to be frozen in a glacier, so wouldn't Cap's presence in her life fundamentally change those events?The Russos agree that that's true--but the Peggy Cap ends up with is in another timeline, which is how you get around the ethical questions that fans have raised about Cap wrecking Peggy's family for the sake of his own happiness."If you went back to that timeline, between the point where Steve went into the ice [in Captain America: The First Avenger] yet before Peggy met her husband, Peggy was available," Anthony Russo said in yet another interview, this time with The Hollywood Reporter. As for Peggy's family, "They exist in a different timeline," the directors said. So Cap didn't erase her family in the original timeline, just the new one, which is maybe better, because they technically still exist somewhere?Anyway, the way the Russos explain time travel is the way we interpreted it in Endgame as well (and really, it's the only way it makes sense). But Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, the movie's writers, have a totally different take. The pair gave an interview to Fandango, in which they explained the movie's time travel as being completely different. Instead of a lot of new timelines and alternate realities created by each of the changes the Avengers make when they travel through time, the writers said that only removing the Infinity Stones creates branches--which is similar (and similarly confusing) to what the Ancient One told Bruce Banner during the movie."We are not experts on time travel, but the Ancient One specifically states that when you take an Infinity Stone out of a timeline it creates a new timeline. So Steve going back and just being there would not create a new timeline," Markus said. "So I reject the 'Steve is in an alternate reality' theory. I do believe that there is simply a period in world history from about '48 to now where there are two Steve Rogers. And anyway, for a large chunk of that one of them is frozen in ice. So it's not like they'd be running into each other."So Markus and McFeely say that Cap could just be in the past, living his life, and that his presence would not change the timeline--and therefore, he could just show up in 2023 to give the shield to Sam. That doesn't seem to account for issues like Loki escaping with the Tesseract or Cap pretending to be a HYDRA agent, but it seems like the movie attempts to explain that with the conversation with the Ancient One: essentially, the Infinity Stones are magic, and since they create "the flow of time," it's impossible for alterations to mess up the timeline. Or something.Lost? Yeah, us too. Maybe the overall point is that time travel is a beast for even talented Hollywood writers and directors to tackle, and trying to add it to something as huge and unwieldy as the MCU was even tougher. But while time travel might add an element of logical weirdness to Endgame, it seems like the greater MCU going forward will have something different to contend with, from what we saw in the latest trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home. That's the idea of multiple parallel universes, something that's straight out of Marvel Comics (not to mention last year's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse). Here's hoping it doesn't get too confounding.Info from Gamespot.com

A new Minecraft game is in the works, it appears, and it might not be what you expect. The company today posted a teaser video for what looks like a Minecraft augmented reality game.The brief teaser video shows some kind of Minecraft AR game similar to Pokemon Go or Harry Potter: Wizards Unite with its blending of real and virtual world elements. Whatever it is, it looks like it'll be announced on the Minecraft website on May 17. Check out the teaser below, and yes, the man (who looks strikingly like Xbox pioneer J. Allard) does not appear to give the woman back her phone. We don't know why.What’s @Minecraft up to? Tune in to https://t.co/E7ZPoCQKus on May 17 to find out. #MSBuild pic.twitter.com/CVurJW4eWw — Microsoft (@Microsoft) May 6, 2019At E3 2015, Microsoft showcased a stunning Minecraft experience for the company's AR HoloLens headset. But given that the new teaser video doesn't show anyone wearing an AR headset, it looks like the Minecraft AR game could be more akin to the aforementioned Niantic games in its headset-free blending of the real and digital worlds.According to noted Microsoft insider Brad Sams, who has accurately reported on unannounced Microsoft stories before, the Minecraft AR game is code-named "Genoa."That Minecraft AR game is code-named Genoa — Brad Sams (@bdsams) May 6, 2019Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told The New York Times in 2015 that one of the reasons Microsoft spent $2.5 billion to acquire Minecraft and developer Mojang was due to the potential benefits of marrying Minecraft and augmented reality. "Let's have a game that, in fact, will fundamentally help us change new categories," Nadella said. "HoloLens was very much in the works [when Microsoft announced the deal in 2015], and we knew it."The May 17 reveal date for the new Minecraft AR game is not random. It presumably aligns with the Minecraft 10-year anniversary celebration scheduled for the same day. Minecraft's creator, Markus "Notch" Persson, is being excluded from the event over his "comments and opinions."The official Minecraft Twitter account cheekily reacted to the Minecraft AR news today with the thinking face emoji.🤔 https://t.co/0f7XtLAZJR — Minecraft (@Minecraft) May 6, 2019In addition to the rumored new Minecraft AR game, Microsoft is working on a Minecraft dungeon-crawler called Minecraft Dungeons. The title, which doesn't have a release date, appears to take a more linear approach rather than the open-ended sandbox nature of the mainline game.Minecraft remains one of the most popular games on Earth. By Microsoft's latest count, it had 91 million monthly players, which is many millions more than Fortnite has.Info from Gamespot.com

Dante is coming to Nintendo Switch. Capcom has announced that the very first Devil May Cry is coming to the platform sometime this summer. The announcement didn't give word on whether this will be a straight port of the PS2 original or based on the more recent HD Collection.While the announcement was short on details, though, the implications are huge. Devil May Cry has never been on a Nintendo platform before in any capacity. Series head Hideaki Itsuno pointedly said in an interview in February that for Dante to appear as a guest character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, he'd sensibly have to appear in a game on the platform first."Devil May Cry has never been on a Nintendo platform," Itsuno told VG247. "So it seems like the first thing to do would be to get Capcom to put Devil May Cry on a Nintendo platform in some way, shape or form--whatever game that might be."This would appear to fulfill that criteria, and Itsuno would have likely known about any pending Smash Bros. guest spots at the time he made that comment. Dante may not be destined for Smash at all, but this at least raises the possibility.The first and so-far only announced guest DLC character is Joker from the Persona series, who went live with an update in April. Meanwhile Dante has continued making devils cry with further adventures and a growing cadre of allies, most recently with the altogether excellent sequel Devil May Cry 5.Info from Gamespot.com

Even if you're only casually aware of the DC Universe, either through the comics, the TV shows, or the movies, there's a pretty good chance you've come across some sort of shadowy top secret organization at some point or another. Some of them are all about that dubiously ethical paramilitary science--think Supergirl's ARGUS or Young Justice's Cadmus. Others are fixated on murder, like the League of Assassins or Kobra. Some don't fit in one niche or the other, like Checkmate or Spyral.The point is: The DC Universe is filled to bursting with clandestine secret societies, and depending where you land in terms of your comic book consumption, they can get pretty confusing--even redundant--if you try and keep track of them all.But not for long.The legendary creative team of Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev are teaming up for the first time in the mainline DC Universe for a brand new event series called Event Leviathan, and it's going to shake the secret societies of the DCU to their very core--but maybe not in the way you expect. Far from the macro-cosmic Crisis-level events DC is known for, Event Leviathan is going to be, in Bendis's words, "more like [Agatha Christie's mystery novel] And Then There Were None."At DC's offices in Burbank, the writer sat down with journalists to talk about the new project, Maleev's iconic artwork, and the potential repercussions for the DCU at large.Bendis described the tone of the six-issue mini series as the opposite of a "disaster movie," focusing entirely on a group of DC's finest detectives, who, Bendis assures, will "solve a case every issue." So don't worry about too much wheel-spinning or time-wasting. These are characters on very specific missions.The larger case--the inciting event that brings them all together--might be a little bit harder to crack, however. The setup, which can be found interwoven through both the ongoing Superman and Action Comics titles, revolves around the mysterious "Leviathan," a masked supervillain of unknown identity and origin who is making "pitches" to various heroes around the DC Universe to try and bring them over to their side. Leviathan's identity is a complete mystery--but it won't be forever."[By the end of the story] Leviathan will have risen and what it is and what they've done will have landed," Bendis said. "And so there are a lot of pieces that are going to shift and a lot of heroes are going to have a kind of a new purpose--like a new motivation, because the enemy will have revealed itself. He's not selling villainy and he's not selling antagonism. There's heroes and there's villains and then there's this other thing right now. And that other thing isn't playing by the rules dictated by the rules of the genre. That's going to mess up a lot of people's heads."Even Leviathan's design was meant to evoke a specific reaction--both from readers and from the characters themselves."This is a character who's dealing with a icons in psychology and with imagery, specifically. This is a character who is very aware of [pop culture characters like] Darth Vader and very aware of what images do for people and how they respond to them," Bendis elaborated. "That [mask], it looks scary to some people and it looks not scary to other people. They designed it that way. There's a psychology behind it, but, OK. There's gonna be a lot of stuff in this that is going to reflect a more modern sensibility than you may have seen in [classic espionage and spy stories of] the past, where people are wearing the white carnation or sliding an envelope across the table."Bendis went on to tease some of the key players in the upcoming event, specifically highlighting the starring role of Lois Lane, who Bendis calls "the most dangerous woman in the DC Universe," thanks to her unfiltered access to the Daily Planet's publishing platform and ability to literally control the flow of information. Alongside Lois will be some of DC's most brilliant detectives--Batman, Plastic Man, The Question, and so on--all working to crack the case: Who is Leviathan, what do they want, and most importantly, how can it be stopped?Event Leviathan #1 (of 6) hits shelves June 12 everywhere comics are sold. Info from Gamespot.com

The new J.R.R. Tolkien biopic, Tolkien, comes to theatres this week. The film stars Nicholas Hoult as Tolkien and Lily Collins as Edith Bratt in a story that covers the events of Tolkien's formative years, including his time at school and the fellowship of friends he found there, as well as his serving in World War I and his personal and romantic relationship with Bratt.The movie covers Tolkien's major life events that inspired his acclaimed fantasy novels including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The movie also teaches us the correct way to pronounce Tolkien. Hint: it's "Tol-keen."If you're looking for an action-oriented, grand spectacle film like The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, this is not it. Tolkien is a dramatic retelling of some of the key moments in Tolkien's early life as an author, friend, and partner to Bratt.To help you get an idea about if the film is worth your time and money, we've collected review excerpts from around the internet. You can see a rundown of Tolkien review excerpts below, while more information on the film's critical reception can be found on GameSpot sister site Metacritic.It is also worth mentioning that the Tolkien Estate has distanced itself from the Tolkien movie, though it reportedly issued its statement before viewing it. This was no surprise, as the Estate has for decades declined to endorse dramatizations of Tolkien's life and works.TolkienDirected By: Dome KarukoskiWritten By: David Gleeson, Stephen BeresfordStarring: Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Craig Roberts, Patrick Gibson, Pam Ferris, Anthony Boyle, Tom Glynn-CarneyRelease Date: May 10 (United States)Runtime: 111 minutesEntertainment Weekly"Hoult brings a quiet, romantic intensity to the young Tolkien (pronounced 'Tolkeen,' who knew?), Lily Collins does a lot with a little as his first love Edith, and the Hobbit horde will gobble up all of the easter-egg references peppered throughout the movie. But Karukoski occasionally tries too hard to juice up his fustier Dead Poets Society-esque stretches with fevered battlefield visions of German flamethrowers transforming into fire-breathing dragons. Tolkien was never what anyone would call a subtle writer, but even he’d probably find those CGI flourishes a bit too much." -- Chris Nashawaty [Full review]The Wrap"... a biopic that hits so many familiar notes that it's practically a cover song. It's the ceaseless parade of foreshadowing, suggesting that every microscopic part of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels was based on a specific, real-life event. It reduces everyone Tolkien knew to supporting players in someone else's shameless 'great man' narrative. If you were trying to produce a parody of what a Tolkien biopic would look like, you'd get the exact same film." -- William Bibbiani [Full review]The Hollywood Reporter"Handsomely made in the customarily fastidious style of most period biographical dramas, Tolkien is strongly served by Hoult, who, after four X-Men outings (and a supporting role in last year's The Favourite), demonstrates that it's high time he moved on from that sort of thing to more interesting and challenging dramatic characterizations." -- Todd McCarthy [Full review]Hoult as Tolkien Variety "The film--stately, well-acted, and ultimately insubstantial--dilutes its considerable charms with hoary literary biopic conventions, and then risks strangling them entirely with its reductively literal takes on the vagaries of artistic inspiration." -- Andrew Barker [Full review]The Washington Post"The movie is a capable and attractive enough biopic, if also less than riveting cinema." -- Michael O'Sullivan [Full review]The Guardian"This refreshing origins story, starring Nicholas Hoult, traces the early life of JRR Tolkien as he makes friends at Oxford, finds love and faces the horror of war." -- Peter Bradshaw [Full review]Info from Gamespot.com

If you like your consoles extremely textured and spiky, you're in luck: Microsoft has announced a promotion for the upcoming film Godzilla: King of the Monsters, with four custom-themed Xbox One X consoles as the prizes. Each one is modeled after an iconic creature from Godzilla lore, including the King of the Monsters itself.You can enter the sweepstakes by retweeting the promotional Xbox tweet by June 7. You have to be age 14 or over, and minors need a parent or guardian's permission. If you win you'll be notified via Twitter direct message. Four winners will get one of the specialized Xbox One X consoles.Those consoles are modeled after Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, and of course, Godzilla. The film, which releases on May 31, refers to this collection of monsters as "Titans" and has them brawl for monster supremacy. It's directed by Michael Dougherty and stars Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things), Vera Farmiga (The Departed), and Charles Dance (Game of Thrones).These consoles are all the Xbox One X, the more powerful revision of the original Xbox One. Microsoft also offers the Xbox One S, a revision to the Xbox One size that doesn't boost its power. It also recently introduced the Xbox One S All Digital Edition, which is similar to the standard S model except it lacks any disc drive.Info from Gamespot.com