Borderlands developer Gearbox Software has joined the chorus in supporting Black Lives Matter and pushing back some of its scheduled plans for Borderlands 3 in solidarity with the movement. In a statement on Twitter, the developer said it's delaying the release of the Takedown at the Guardian Breach update.Additionally, the studio is muting its Twitter channel--with the exception of this announcement--out of respect for "what's going on in the world right now."pic.twitter.com/WBAxx870ul — Borderlands 3 (@Borderlands) June 4, 20202K Games, which publishes the Borderlands series, said it's adding another $1 million USD to the 2K Foundations Program and expanding its scope to include fighting racial injustice and inequalities in black communities around the world.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

HBO has released a trailer for Lovecraft Country, the new series from Misha Green (Underground). The trailer shows the show's main character, Atticus Black (Jonathan Majors, a story-loving young man who goes looking for his "birthright"--a seemingly haunted house in Lovecraft Country. The show, which is set in Jim Crow-era 1950s America, is executive produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out).The trailer below shows off the spooky tone of the show, as well as its stellar cast, which includes Abbey Lee, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Courtney B. Vance, Michael K. Williams, and Wunmi Mosaku. This is the show's second trailer--here's the first.It also shows that the show will mix imagined demons with realistic portrayals of racism and police violence. You can watch the full trailer below.The show is scheduled to debut in August, although an exact date has not been set. It's definitely on our to-watch list.GameSpot would like to encourage readers to donate to Black Lives Matter, and to seek out black voices in media.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Days of Thunder, the 1990 Tom Cruise film, received a spin-off game on NES back in 1990--but a different game based on the movie that was in development was scrapped, and never saw the light of day. Now, 30 years later, this alternate version of Days of Thunder has been reconstructed into a playable title by video game historians.Chris Oberth was working as a programmer at Mindscape in 1990, and thanks to The Video Game History Foundation a never-before-seen game by him has been reborn. Oberth passed away in 2012, and the VGHF was later approached by a friend of Oberth's family asking if its members could "make sense" of some of the materials Oberth left behind. In early 2020, the foundation was granted access to Oberth's materials, in which they discovered a disc labelled "NINTENDO HOT ROD TAXI FINAL".Oberth was known to have worked on an unreleased Days of Thunder game, thanks to a three-part interview with The Retrogaming Times, and after some investigation and sorting through materials the team found close to 40 floppy disks, containing multiple encrypted and split files that would need to be reconstructed to get the game properly running.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Hello everyone! Jordan here. You may have noticed something rather odd about GameSpot's homepage right now--pretty much none of the content being promoted at the top is new. Strange right? Yeah, we know, but we have our reasons.GameSpot initially went into this week with plans to kick off Play For All, a combo platter of gaming celebration and charity effort to raise money for COVID-19 relief. And we're still doing that, don't worry. But we're taking a break for today.There's a lot more going on in the world than COVID-19 right now. Cities across the US are now witness to massive protests against the ongoing violence towards black individuals suffering police brutality. In support of the protests, GameSpot has shifted the message of Play For All. We're still raising money for COVID-19 relief, but we want to also show our support for the Black Lives Matter movement.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

This article, originally posted on March 29, 2020, has been republished to amplify black voices in GameSpot's support of Black Lives Matter. Donate to the effort to fight systemic racism here.With the release of Guns, Love, and Tentacles: The Marriage of Wainwright & Hammerlock, the second story-focused DLC for Borderlands 3, I figured that now would be the best time to jump back into Gearbox's latest entry in its first-person loot shooter franchise, seeing as I hadn't found an opportunity to do so since writing GameSpot's Borderlands 3 review. The Borderlands franchise has typically had a decent track record when it comes to post-launch campaign expansions after all--so I figured, "Why not?"However, I wasn't particularly enthused by my time with Guns, Love, and Tentacles, largely because Gearbox's interpretation of H.P. Lovecraft's work incorporates some of the problematic parts of the author's worldview and then does nothing to address them.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

This article, originally posted on May 11, 2020, has been republished to amplify black voices in GameSpot's support of Black Lives Matter. Donate to the effort to fight systemic racism here.In 2013, I was a high schooler with way too much free time on my hands. It was the last few weeks of school and a bunch of my friends and I would routinely skip class to play video games in the back of the library. It was a forbidden gamer paradise. Animal Crossing: New Leaf just dropped and we were all desperate to play it. There was a game where you could go to a town with your friends, become a home makeover demi-god, talk to animal neighbours, and be the mayor? Why wasn't every video game built exactly like that?Self-expression is the core element of ACNL; it's a feature embedded into every aspect of the game. You choose the colour and style of your clothes and the location and architecture of your dream house, and since there are no pressing time constraints like other social simulators, you even choose what you do all day, every day. It's a game about freedom. I was so incredibly excited when I picked it up, but that feeling dwindled fast. There were no options to have black skin colour or any black hairstyles. A game all about freedom and customization refused to let me be me. It was beyond alienating; out of all the things that could have been excluded, why those things?Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

This article, originally posted on October 31, 2019, has been republished to amplify black voices in GameSpot's support of Black Lives Matter. Donate to the effort to fight systemic racism here.Death is such a major part of video games, but rarely in a way that's constructive--it's most commonly a failure mechanic for you or the ever-present goal for you to enact on others, regardless of whether you're facing other players or NPCs. A story-driven game's most dramatic moment may use the death of a beloved character to create a severe emotional response and plenty of horror games rely on surprising character deaths to produce jump scares. But that's usually the extent to what games do with death. So in the few cases when games actually do deal with death and grief as a reality, it's almost always surprising.Video games should talk about death more. And I don't mean just show it; more games should really talk about it and explore how normal it is. Video games too often gloss over or demonize death but that's not an accurate reflection of real life. We're all going to die someday, as are the people we know. And as frightening as that may be, those deaths will probably be boringly normal. So too, in turn, are the emotions associated with coming to terms with that, whether it's depression, grief, anger, or acceptance.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

On June 1, GameSpot began hosting Play For All--a celebration of all things gaming. We asked that you join us as we bring you the summer's hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. But we're also taking this opportunity to state our support for the recent protests that have popped up across the US in response to the continued police brutality against black people.To that end, GameSpot would like to highlight black creators in our industry, whether they specialize in writing video essays, producing hard-hitting articles, or hosting good podcasts. Below, we've listed the work of notable black creators--regardless of whether or not they work at GameSpot. We hope you'll take a few moments to read and watch them and maybe gain a new perspective into your favorite video games. And keep checking this page, as we'll continue to update it with more voices over the coming days and weeks.Projects By Black Creators About The Black ExperienceLong Reads Borderlands 3's Lovecraft DLC Hand-Waves Major Issues With The Author's Work (Jordan Ramée, GameSpot)Animal Crossing: New Horizons Has Afro Twists, And I Love 'Em (Jordan Ramée, GameSpot)Far Cry 5's New American Setting Made Me Feel Like An Outsider (Alessandro Fillari, GameSpot)She Dreams Elsewhere is The First Game That Feels Made Specifically for Me (Cameron Hawkins, Dualshockers)Finally, I Can Be Me In Animal Crossing--But I'm Exhausted (Funké Joseph, GameSpot)Where Are Our Black Gaming Journalists? (Jeffrey Rousseau, USGamer)The Trouble Portraying Blackness In Video Games (Evan Narcisse, Kotaku)9 Black Superheroes Who Deserve Their Own Shows (Malcolm Venable, TV Guide)Marvel And DC Stars Reflect On Their Black Superhero Roles (Keisha Hatchett, TV Guide)Cheo Hodari Coker Reflects on Luke Cage's Legacy (Malcolm Venable, TV Guide)Black Creators Are Hopeful for a Future Where Black Superheroes Aren't "Niche" (Malcolm Venable, TV Guide)Treachery In Beatdown City Review (Funké Joseph, GameSpot)Black Work Matters (Mike Williams, USGamer)Videos/Podcasts A Lesson In Blackness (Kahlief Adams, Parris Lilly, Blessing Adeoye Jr., Zombaekillz, Pikachulita, and Cameron Hawkins, Spawn On Me)What It's Like Building a Company for Marginalized Voices (Austin Walker, VICE Games)From GTA to Call of Duty | What Makes a Great Black Character? (Elle Osili-Wood, BBC)Info from Gamespot.com

This article, originally posted on March 20, 2020, has been republished to amplify black voices in GameSpot's support of Black Lives Matter. Donate to the effort to fight systemic racism here.I'm happy that Animal Crossing: New Horizons includes the option to play as a black character. I'm overjoyed the game actually gives you a decent option when it comes to giving your character a traditionally black hairstyle.I've gotten to the point where I'm not really angry anymore whenever I see a video game character creator think that good diversity is making sure to include options for an afro or cornrows. I'm just tired of yelling about it.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

June is here, and Netflix has a lot of new movies, TV shows, and original content coming your way. The first week of the month will see the final seasons of two shows and the introduction of a tournament fighting animated series.On June 4, Netflix has a new animated series you may want to check out featuring shirtless fighters punching each other. Baki: The Great Raitai Tournament Saga follows a fighting tournament that happens once every 100 years. Baki is the main character, and he beats everyone up. Check out the trailer below.On Tuesday, June 2, the Full House saga comes to an end with Fuller House: The Farewell Season. How will it all come to an end? Will Uncle Jesse allow everyone to touch his hair? Will Danny let the house get messy? Will Uncle Joey bring out that creepy woodchuck doll? All of these questions will probably not be answered as the revamp of the '90s sitcom comes to a close.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Update: Pokemon Go is currently offline as developer Niantic performs server maintenance on the popular mobile game. The maintenance period is expected to run for approximately seven hours, from 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET to 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET. The game will be completely inaccessible during this time, so you won't be able to log in and play for much of the day, but you'll have plenty of June events to look forward to once the maintenance period concludes. The original story follows.Pokemon Go will be unplayable for much of Monday, June 1. Developer Niantic has announced it is taking the game offline around the world that day while it performs extended server maintenance.The maintenance period is expected to last for about seven hours, from 11 AM PT (2 PM ET) to 6 PM PT (9 PM ET). During that time, the game will be inaccessible, so you won't be able to log in and play until the maintenance concludes.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

The Epic Games Store has continued giving out free games weekly since its inception, and Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney says game developers are seeing better sales after they've put their game up on the store for free.In an interview as part of our Play for All coverage, Sweeney explains that giving players the choice to try a genre for free has led to many recognizing their love for it, and inspired additional sales as a result. He doesn't mention specifics, but does say that developers have noticed an increase in sales across other platforms and stores after their games have been included as part of the free initiative."You're not going to go out and buy if you're not into games like Satisfactory, you're not going to go out and spend money to buy Satisfactory but if you get it for free you realize it's an awesome game," Sweeney explains in the interview, which you can watch above.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

A new Legendary Pokemon has arrived in Pokemon Go. Reshiram, the cover monster from Pokemon Black, is appearing in five-star Raids until June 16, making this your first chance to capture one in Niantic's hit mobile game. Even a seasoned Pokemon Master needs a little assistance now and then, however, so we've rounded up some tips to help you battle and catch Reshiram below. You won't be able to challenge the Legendary right now, though, as Pokemon Go is currently down for maintenance, but servers are expected to go back up at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET.Reshiram Raid HoursReshiram will periodically appear in Gyms as a five-star Raid boss until 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET on June 16. These Raids can occur at any time, but you'll receive a notification before a nearby one is about to begin, so you shouldn't have much difficulty tracking a Raid down.Niantic will also hold a handful of Reshiram Raid Hour events on Wednesday evenings. From 6-7 PM local time during these events, nearly every Gym will host a Reshiram Raid, giving you a much better chance to find the Legendary. You can see the Reshiram Raid Hour schedule below:Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Back in 2018, licensing issues caused music to be removed from Grand Theft Auto IV. Now, a new update for Grand Theft Auto IV: The Complete Edition on PC reportedly added cut music back into the game but also corrupted some Steam users' saves according to a discussion on Steam. The update rolled out early on May 28 and was quickly met with users upset about corrupted save files. According to other users the game was rolled back to a previous version within a couple of hours, no longer corrupting save files.However this wasn't the end of GTA 4's recent issues on PC with players reporting a new bug on May 30, as the game reportedly began giving players an "Error 1001" when attempting to play. Users say the game fails to connect to Rockstar Social Club and is unplayable in its current state. Other users have posted saying that they have bypassed the issue by changing the date on their computers prior to when the issue started.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

A new update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now available, but it doesn't make any major changes to the game. According to the patch notes on Nintendo's support website, the 1.2.1 update "addressed issues to further ensure an enjoyable gaming experience." The notes don't delve into any specific changes, but one of the issues that appears to have been resolved is the item duplication glitch.You'll need to install the latest update to continue playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons online. If the update isn't installed automatically, you can do so manually by highlighting the game's icon on the Switch dashboard, pressing the Plus button, and then selecting Software Update.That's not all that's new in New Horizons. Now that June has arrived, Wedding Season is officially underway in the game. Throughout the month, you can meet Reese and Cyrus at Harv's Island and help them take anniversary photos to earn some "wedding-themed" rewards. New bugs and fish have also emerged.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com