Two boys, two films. Krupa and Joe cover Ready Player One and brilliant new horror anthology Ghost Stories before, like all the best horror films, we pull the rug right out from under you.
Krupa sat down with Ghost Stories’ creators, Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson to talk through adapting their play as a movie, how it uses conjuring to frighten you, and the rise of anthology stories. Enjoy!
IGN UK Podcast #428: Two Boys’ Ghost Stories
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PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is getting a new map, and its first testing window is about to open on PC. The map, currently called Codename: Savage, will be 4 km x 4 km, smaller than the game’s existing two maps. Early details about Codename: Savage have been emerging, but the map will enter its first full testing phase next week, and players will get the chance to give it a try.
Codename: Savage’s first testing phase starts Monday, April 2 at 7 PM PT / 10 PM ET / 3 AM BST Tuesday. It will go until Thursday, April 5 at 4 AM PT / 7 AM ET / 12 PM BST. This phase will be a closed, limited test, but players will be able to sign up to participate on Steam. Developer PUBG Corp. says it will provide more details on how to take part in the test on Monday, and says players should “keep an eye on [PUBG’s] social channels to maximize your chances of getting a key.”
PUBG creator Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene unveiled some details about the new map during a panel at the Game Developers Conference. He said the smaller, island map is coming this year, and “should give you all a much more intense and faster paced Battle Royale experience.” He also shared a sneak peak on his Twitter account at the same time.
PUBG Corp. is stressing that the map is in its early development phase, and it’s opening Codename: Savage up to players so early to gather as much feedback as possible. “We haven’t released content so early in its development since our alpha testing stage. We’re doing this because we want to start getting your feedback as soon as possible and drive the development in the right direction,” the developer said on Steam.
In other news, PUBG Corp. has just released a new PC update that adds a weapon skin system and a few other features. We also recently got the chance to sit down with Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene himself to ask him about the incredible success of the game, how it spawned out of a series of mods, and how it plans to stay relevant with increasing competition in the future. Check out the interview in the video above.
Ever since the All-New, All-Different Marvel relaunch in 2015, there’s been a giant, Fantastic Four-shaped hole in Marvel’s comic book lineup. At long last, Marvel is finally filling that hole with the announcement that Dan Slott and Sara Pichelli are launching a new Fantastic Four comic in August. But as nice as it is to see Marvel’s First Family returning to prominence again, it’s hard to ignore the shabby way they’ve been treated over the last three years. Marvel has a long, uphill battle ahead of it if it’s going to prove to readers that the Fantastic Four are truly a priority again.
Marvel hasn’t published a dedicated Fantastic Four comic since canceling the previous series in May 2015. And while Human Torch and the Thing have popped up here and there in the years since, Reed Richards and his family have essentially been MIA since the end of Secret Wars. A series that once served as one of the fundamental pillars of the Marvel Universe quietly disappeared from the shelves. Not even the arrival of a new Fantastic Four movie was enough to revive the team’s comic book prospects.
Ronda Rousey and Kurt Angle will defeat Stephanie McMahon and Triple H at Wrestlemania 34 by submission. The match will end with a memorable visual: Kurt Angle will lock Triple H into an Ankle Lock, Rousey will lock McMahon into an armbar, and both victims will scream and tap in the center of the ring at the same time. The photo and video footage of this submission will be blasted to every major news outlet in the world as the signature “Wrestlemania moment” of the evening.
WWE has run this story playbook multiple times over the past 20 years. It’s the tale of the disgruntled employee vs. the sociopathic boss, epitomized in the late ’90s when “Stone Cold” Steve Austin began feuding with the evil Mr. McMahon. And since then, the McMahon family–Vince, Stephanie, Shane, Linda, and now Triple H–have excelled at playing villainous authority figures, who use their money, influence, and corruption to keep the good guys down. Remember Stephanie vs. Brie Bella, Vince vs. The Rock, or the McMahon family vs. Daniel Bryan? The opponents change, but the basic storyline stays the same.
The key part of this classic storyline is its finish. The WWE fictional universe is, with rare exceptions, a just universe. When all is said and done, the villain gets his comeuppance–usually on a massive stage to maximize its impact.
This narrative of this match is built on a kernel of truth, as all great WWE matches are. At Elimination Chamber, Rousey came out to the ring to sign her WWE Raw contract. Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were all smiles at their latest acquisition. And that’s when Kurt Angle had to ruin everything.
The Olympic gold medalist let it all spill out in the ring. He said that Triple H wanted Rousey under his thumb. He recalled that backstage, Stephanie McMahon dismissed Rousey as washed up, boasting that even she could take her on. WWE had anticipated the inevitable backlash against Rousey and spun it into a storyline–a better strategy than waiting for the fans to start chanting, “Holly Holm!” And this way, Ronda could address the elephant in the room directly; Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were the stand-ins for every social media naysayer.
The match at Wrestlemania 34 will probably start off slowly; Angle and Triple H, both ring veterans, will work the majority of the match to create suspense and some back-and-forth drama. Rousey won’t be in the ring for very long–she’ll probably get the hot tag at the end to close things out–but at any point that she is in the ring, she’ll be a house of fire. WWE is doing its best to recapture the old Rousey–the pre-Holm Rousey that teamed up with The Rock at Wrestlemania 31.
That’s the Ronda Rousey that WWE wants for the foreseeable future. Because eventually, someone is going to break Asuka’s neverending streak. And if Ember Moon doesn’t get the honor of doing so (she should have already done it at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn III, but life isn’t fair), Rousey is the likeliest candidate. She’ll be the Brock Lesnar of the women’s division, but with more appearances and a better attitude.
Before she was handed back-to-back losses by Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes, Ronda Rousey was the reigning “baddest woman on the planet”–the queen of one-round submissions. A bronze medalist of the Beijing Olympics, Rousey was an undefeated UFC champion in the bantamweight division. This, combined with her good looks, her take-no-prisoners scowl, and her signature arm bar, made her an MMA icon. Writers dedicated thousands of words to “what she meant” for women in sports and for women in general.
How, exactly did it all to go to hell? The told-you-so critics would have you believe she was always bad and always overrated, but that’s a gross oversimplification. To put a slightly finer point on it, she wasn’t well-rounded–she had incomparable grappling skills on the ground, but in a stand-up fight, trading punches and kicks, she was completely outclassed. MMA fighting evolves quickly, and today, the top fighters must be impeccable in multiple areas rather than prodigal in one.
Rousey believed her own hype. When she faced Holm and Nunes–a boxing champion and a hard-hitting specialist–Rousey tried to beat them at their own game, toe-to-toe, rather than leaning on her Olympic-level skills. It was pure, reckless hubris, and perhaps she didn’t even know how outgunned she was. Her terrible coach, Edmond Tarverdyan, didn’t teach her to strike properly or move her head, as many observers, including Rousey’s own mother, noted.
Rousey admitted to suicidal thoughts after her loss to Holm. And professional wrestling is the perfect career for someone who is too psychologically fragile to handle the self-doubt that comes from real, crushing loss.
Rousey will never have the dread or burden of expectation that she had in the UFC. She’ll be able to live the outsized myth that fans want to believe about her and that she wants to believe about herself. And Wrestlemania 34 will be the beginning of that myth making.
A new patch is now available for Fortnite. Coming on the heels of the big v3.4 update, developer Epic has deployed another fairly minor patch for the popular battle royale game, which primarily resolves a handful of bugs and makes a few other performance improvements.
Specifically, update v3.4.1 fixes the delay in the Pump Shotgun animation. It also resolves an issue with the game not displaying the distance for Sniper Rifle eliminations. Finally, the patch implements “multiple” unspecified crash fixes.
Patch v3.4.1 is available to download now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Epic says it will roll out a similar update for the mobile version in the “near future,” which will also include some platform-specific fixes. You can read the brief patch notes for the new update below or on the official Fortnite forums.
The latest patch arrives shortly after the release of Fortnite’s v3.4 update. That introduced new content to both Battle Royale and Save the World modes. The former received a new weapon, the Guided Missile, and brought back the temporarily disabled Boogie Bomb. Epic also shuffled the rarity of shotguns, although they’re functionally identical to before. Meanwhile, Save the World players can now take on a new Easter-themed quest line.
Update v3.4 also kicked off a new limited-time mode for Battle Royale: Sniper Shootout v2. Likewise, a new batch of weekly challenges are now available for Battle Pass holders. Be sure to check out our guide on how to complete Fortnite’s Week 6 challenges.
Every studio wants its own shared movie universe, but building the next Marvel Cinematic Universe is no simple task. It seems like the only other studio to really figure it out so far is New Line, thanks to the Conjuring franchise. What began as an unexpectedly successful haunted house movie has ballooned into a full-fledged series with multiple sequels and spinoffs and a continuity all its own.
As we gear up for the release of The Nun later this year, now is probably a good time to brush up on your Conjuring — and Annabelle! — history and learn how all these horror films tie together to form a shared universe. Spoilers of course follow for all the films to date.
A Series of Unfortunate Events Season 2 starts out on the wrong foot. Even though Season 1 mixed melancholic monologues, heartwarming caretakers who met ill fates, and ridiculous yet delightful Neil Patrick Harris performances to great effect, its rinse-and-repeat formula of the Baudelaire orphans outrunning Count Olaf began to feel a little overdone by the season’s end.
Season 2’s first two episodes, based on the fifth ASOUE book, The Austere Academy, fit too much into this mold. While it’s been more than a year since I watched the first batch of episodes, a sense of familiarity immediately overcame me as the Baudelaires’ time at Prufrock Prepatory school carried on. But as the season progresses, thanks to the introduction of a few key characters and episodes that deepen the lore of the Baudelaires’ lives, overall Season 2 ends up capturing the magic of Season 1 while transforming the shape and flow of the show.
DC just wrapped up the massive crossover that is Dark Nights: Metal, and while there was plenty to like about this epic storyline, there were also a few head-scratching moments over the course of the series. From Batman’s bad behavior to a questionable Sandman cameo, these are the biggest questions we have in the aftermath of Metal.
The first issue of Metal turned a lot of heads thanks to its cliffhanger, which saw Batman turning to none other than Dream of the Endless for help in his quest. Considering how rarely characters from the Sandman franchise interact with the lowly heroes of the DCU, that was a pretty big deal.
And then… nothing. We barely caught a glimpse of Dream for the rest of the series. The end result of this latest DC/Sandman crossover is that a single book went missing in Dream’s library. No doubt that loose end will pay off when DC launches the Neil Gaiman-curated Sandman imprint later this year. But in the context of Metal itself, that much ballyhooed Sandman crossover seems to have been much ado about nothing.