Month: December 2020

Aquaman Director James Wan Is Making A New Van Helsing Movie

After the Dark Universe debacle in 2017, the success of this year’s The Invisible Man showed that Universal’s catalogue of movie monsters could still produce a box office hit. The studio has several other classic monster movies in development, and it’s been revealed that Conjuring and Aquaman director James Wan is working on a new movie about Van Helsing.

As reported by Deadline, Wan will produce what is described as “an original horror/thriller” featuring the iconic vampire hunter, who was created by writer Bram Stoker and first appeared in his classic novel Dracula. The film will be directed by Julius Avery, who previously helmed the JJ Abrams-produced World War II horror Overlord. The movie does not have a release date yet.

This isn’t the first time that Universal has produced a Van Helsing movie in the last couple of decades. In 2004, Hugh Jackman starred in the critically-panned Van Helsing, and a “present day” movie about the character was in development back in 2016.

The Invisible Man released in February, and although it was only screened for a few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic shut theaters down worldwide, it still made $130 million at the worldwide box office from a reported production budget of $7 million. Other Universal monster movies currently in development include The Invisible Woman, to be directed by Elizabeth Banks, and Dark Army, which has Bridesmaids director Paul Feig attached.

This May was the third anniversary of the infamous Dark Universe tweet. Universal’s extremely short-lived cinematic monster movie universe was officially announced on Twitter in 2017, but the box office failure of the first movie, the Tom Cruise-starring The Mummy, meant that the whole franchise was quickly abandoned. While the Dark Universe website is long gone, the Twitter account still exists, with only two tweets as a monument to its glorious failure.

Now Playing: The Invisible Man (2020) – Official Trailer

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Adds Two New Seasonal Items

December is officially here, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons players can snag a couple of new seasonal items in the Switch life sim this month. Two new wintry items are now available to purchase from the Nook Shopping catalog: the Aurora wall and the Midwinter sweater. Like other seasonal items, however, these will only be available for a limited time.

The Aurora wall costs 7,000 Bells and lets you gaze at a beautiful aurora borealis localized entirely in your own kitchen or other room at any time of year. The Midwinter sweater, meanwhile, costs 1,200 Bells and features a cute reindeer design. Both items can be found under the Seasonal tab in the Nook Shopping catalog and will be on sale until December 31.

In addition to the new seasonal items, Nook’s Cranny has begun selling festive toys ahead of Toy Day, the game’s Christmas event. You’ll find a different toy on display in the seasonal corner of the store each day until December 25. Toy Day itself falls on December 24, and as part of the event, you’ll need to dress up like Santa and help Jingle the black-nosed reindeer deliver presents to your villagers.

Now that December is underway, a variety of new fish, insects, and sea creatures have begun appearing in the game. Players with Northern Hemisphere islands can now find the oarfish, pond smelt, dung beetle, and other critters, while those with Southern Hemisphere islands can catch various sharks, beetles, and other summer creatures. You can read more in our Animal Crossing fish and bug guides.

Nintendo recently rolled out Animal Crossing’s big winter update, with another major update on the way in late January. Nintendo hasn’t shared many details on that patch just yet, but it appears it’ll add the Festivale event to the game. A line of Mario-themed furniture is also on the way in March in honor of the Super Mario series’ 35th anniversary.

Now Playing: Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Free Winter Update Details Trailer

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Martha Is Dead Coming To PS5 Alongside PC, Xbox Versions

The thriller game Martha is Dead is coming to PS5, along with the already-announced PC and Xbox versions. It’s scheduled for Q1 2021, and the announcement suggests that all three versions will hit simultaneously.

The game takes place against the backdrop of World War 2 amid the Italian countryside. A young woman, Martha, is found drowned on the shores of a lake. Her twin sister sets out to solve the murder as the war approaches closer to their home. LKA says that the story ties in history, superstition, folklore, and psychological trauma.

That all sounds pretty spooky by itself, but it’s matched by an equally shudder-inducing trailer depicting the basic plotline with marrionettes. There’s nothing creepier than marionettes. That’s just a science fact.

The developer, LKA, is previously known for another psychological horror game, 2016’s The Town of Light.

“Martha is Dead represents a step forward for LKA,” said LKA founder Luca Dalco, in the announcement. “This is a game that merges the raw power of PC and next-generation consoles, and all we’ve learned from developing The Town of Light. Martha is Dead is an evolution in psychological storytelling, and we’re driven to build a compelling, gripping world Full of twists and turns for players to explore in 2021.”

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Fortnite Season 5: Here’s Everything We Know

Fortnite’s Marvel-filled season is over. Season 5 officially starts on December 2, and although little has been confirmed about the season as Epic Games wants to surprise everyone, but we do have a few clues about what’s in store for the future of Fortnite. Here’s what we know about when Fortnite Season 5 starts and what to expect from the upcoming update.

When Does Fortnite Season 5 Start?

Fortnite’s Galactus event has taken place, and it concludes with a countdown revealing the start time for Season 5: 9 PM PT on December 1 / 12 AM ET on December 2. Server maintenance is scheduled to take place then, though, meaning you won’t be able to jump right into the game. That maintenance should take four hours, so here’s the schedule for when you can start playing Season 5:

  • US West Coast: 1 AM PT
  • US East Coast: 4 AM ET
  • UK: 9 AM GMT
  • Australia: 7 PM AET

Until then, Fortnite is currently down and unplayable.

New Update

Epic confirmed that the server maintenance will coincide with the release of the v15.00 update. That will include all of the new content to kick off Chapter 2, Season 5. However, we don’t know what will actually be in it.

Season 5 Teaser: Wildheart, Maeve, Harpy, And More

As part of the live event, Galactus attempted to devour the Zero Point. Players were able to defeat him and send him to wherever he came from, but the Zero Point has apparently been affected in some way. Epic has begun teasing the new season with the tweet below, which suggests the Zero Point is now unstable. There’s also a reference to “Project Hunter.”

Replying to that tweet unlocks a “reality log” audio log video that talks about jungles, snakes, shapeshifters, and harpies, among other things. There are six videos total to be unlocked by replying to these tweets with the correct hashtag, but so far it appears only the first of these is available so far.

What’s new in Fortnite: Chapter 2: Season 5?

Leakers have been rather tight-lipped about the new content coming in Season 5. They’ve given us sneak peeks at map changes and themes for previous seasons, but haven’t given us much this time. A few leaks have slipped through–including one that showcases a special Mandalorian skin.

Leakers don’t believe that next season will have as much licensed content as Season 4. It’s expected that the Mandalorian skin will be similar to Deadpool–a one-off that players can earn or purchase individually. Some players do hope for a full Star Wars-themed battle pass, though.

The Season 4 Fortnite map is covered in Marvel locations that were “transported” here by some sort of dimensional rift. Stark Industries, Upstate New York, the Black Panther statue, and many other locations should disappear and revert back into standard Fortnite locations or transform into something new once the new season begins.

Thor and the rest of the Marvel heroes came to defend reality from something called the Black Winter. We don’t know what that is yet but it could turn the map into something snow-related since the new season will run through December and January. It would go well with whatever holiday event Epic has planned for the end of the month.

Season 5 will probably be a big change from all the madness that we had in Season 4. The special Marvel superhero abilities, the Gorgers and Gatherers, and the computer-controlled Wolverine and Iron Man characters will all most likely vanish, too.

Now Playing: Fortnite Galactus Event To Set Up Season 5

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Streamers Had To Mute Fortnite’s Galactus Event Because Of AC/DC

Twitch streamers hoping to get in on the Fortnite excitement today faced an unexpected hurdle. Epic Games announced that it had no way of preventing clips from today’s Galactus event from getting flagged by Twitch’s copyright detection systems, and it turns out it was due to the use of an AC/DC song. This led to streamers such as DrLupo temporarily cutting the game’s audio in order to avoid encountering any issues.

“For Twitch Creators streaming the Galactus event: Due to a lack of solutions similar to Lickd, we cannot prevent your VOD/clip content from getting flagged by the platform’s copyright detection systems,” a tweet from Epic Games read ahead of the event. “The general recommendation is to either mute your VoDs or turn off VODs/clips entirely to protect yourselves against any kind of claims or strikes as best as possible.”

Hypex, a notable Fortnite leaker, said in advance that the copyright issues would only come from a small segment of the event, and that proved to be true. “Fun-Fact for streamers: Not the whole event is copyrighted music, just a 20-30 seconds part, and its gonna be so obvious to notice,” they tweeted. “So I suggest you to prepare some hotkey to mute the game audio in OBS!”

As part of players’ assault on Galactus, a song from AC/DC’s new album was played during a Star Wars: Rogue Squadron-esque flying sequence. The song, “Demon Fire,” premiered as part of the album that was released in mid-November. It was a brief portion of the overall event, which has now led to Fortnite being unplayable until Season 5 begins.

Copyright claims have become a major issue for Twitch streamers this year. Streamers have been receiving many DMCA notifications for playing recorded music in the background of their streams and have been forced to manually delete old clips that could possibly infringe on copyright. Twitch apologized for its poor response to the issue last month.

Now Playing: Fortnite Galactus Event To Set Up Season 5

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Diggle Is Returning To The Arrowverse For Two Different Roles

The CW’s Arrow may have wrapped earlier this year, but in true DC multiverse fashion, some of the familiar faces you got to know and love across the show’s eight seasons aren’t ready to call it quits just yet. Actor David Ramsey, who played Oliver Queen’s friend and fellow superhero John Diggle, will be returning to the shared TV universe both in front of and behind the camera according to Deadline.

Ramsey will be reprising his role as Diggle AKA Spartan in the upcoming Superman & Lois–and he’ll be joined by some familiar faces:Supergirl, The Flash, and Batwoman. Interestingly, however, he will also be playing a new role in Legends of Tomorrow, but who that role is or what it might entail is being kept under wraps.

The nature of a show like Legends of Tomorrow, where time travel and dimensional hop-scotch are commonplace, means that this mystery role could be anything from an alternate reality version of Diggle to an entirely new character from DC’s rich pantheon of characters. It’s also worth remembering that in Arrow’s series finale, Diggle was shown moving to Metropolis and finding a green ring, which fans have assumed is a reference to the rings worn by the Green Lantern Corps.

In DC Comics, Lantern Corps rings select their owners by emotional resonance, with green tuning into extremely strong willpower. The Green Lantern Corps functions as something of a police force for the galaxy. They’ve divided up all of space into sectors, and typically patrol in pairs. Earth, residing in Sector 2814, is something of an anomaly in the sector system however, with six human Green Lanterns–eight, if you count both Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern who technically doesn’t draw his power from the Corps, and Jo Mullein, a Green Lantern to be added in DC’s upcoming Future State event.

So what does all this mean for Diggle? Well, it’s complicated–and very open ended. The only way we’ll know for sure what his future holds will be to tune in as the Arrowverse continues to grow and change. Interestingly, DC has already greenlit a Green Lantern show for HBO Max, the platform that is home to non-Arrowverse DC shows like Titans and Doom Patrol. Thus far, there has been no real crossover between the Arrowverse and non-Arrowverse shows, but stranger things have happened in the multiverse.

Also, in addition to acting, Ramsey will be directing five total episodes across the Arrowverse, including Superman & Lois and Supergirl.

Immortals Fenyx Rising vs. Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 13 Biggest Similarities

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Immortals Fenyx Rising takes some heavy inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s not a direct copy and paste, mind you, but there are quite a few similarities between the two.

In the video above, Max Blumenthall offers a side-by-side comparison of the two games to show off just how similar they both are. As you can see, both Immortals and Breath of the Wild feature similar mechanics when it comes to climbing, running, and gliding–especially in how both rely on stamina. Getting slow-time on a perfect dodge, taming horses, and unlocking new pieces of the map and fast travel points are pretty similar too.

But the comparison’s extend beyond that. Both games, for instance, feature a similar systemic structure that you can bend to your whim to pull off elaborate tricks. As Max demonstrates, Immortals’ Fenyx can use Herakles Strength to essentially fly, just as Breath of the Wild’s Link can with Magnesis. As more fans get their hands on Immortals, more tricks like these will likely be discovered.

In GameSpot’s Immortals Fenyx Rising review, Suriel Vazquez writes, “Immortals Fenyx Rising is far from perfect–but it is good. It stumbles frequently as it explores Greek myths through a new lens, its best features are borrowed, and for as large and fun as its world is, it always feels like you’re on a guided tour instead of really exploring it. But even as it lives in the shadow of better games, its puzzles, combat, and open-world loop come together often enough for me to not only see it through for a few dozen hours, but also want to keep filling out its almighty checklist, even if it lead me by the nose most of the way through.”

Vikings Creator Teeing Up Bubonic Plague Miniseries For History Channel

History Channel’s Vikings–a historical drama inspired by the sagas of legendary hero Viking Ragnar Lothbrok–may be wrapping up after Season 6, but it’s far from the end of the partnership between the show’s creative team and the powers that be at the channel. Vikings creator Michael Hirst will be executive producing a new History Channel miniseries titled The Plague Year, according to Variety.

As the name suggests, the upcoming show takes place during one of the worst outbreaks of the Bubonic Plague–in London, during 1665. The show is described as a series of portraits of Londoners “of all stripes” as they decide whether to flee or remain in the city, learn “how [to] keep going when everything around you has fallen to pieces.” It should be just the thing to get our minds off the coronavirus when the show premieres.

A&E Studios will produce The Plague Year. In addition to Vikings, Hirst’s pedigree includes similar works of historical fiction including 1998’s Elizabeth, 2007’s Elizbeth: The Golden Age, and the Emmy Award-winning television series The Tudors. The miniseries originates from a script by writer Coleman Herbert, whose past work includes Big Love, The Killing, and Rectify. No casting information or premiere date has yet been announced.

“History’s scripted programming in development embraces our roots with premium historical miniseries that resonate with our audience and complement our event megadoc content centered on big moments throughout our history,” said Eli Lehrer, executive vice president and general manager for The History Channel (via Variety). “We look forward to partnering again with the brilliant Michael Hirst.”

New Pokemon Sword And Shield Max Raid Event Now Live

A new Max Raid event is now underway in Pokemon Sword and Shield. All December long, certain Ice- and Fire-type Pokemon will appear in Max Raid dens more frequently than usual across the Wild Area, Isle of Armor, and Crown Tundra, including Gigantamax forms of Lapras and Centiskorch.

From now until December 31, players will be more likely to encounter Weavile, Avalugg, Lapras, Turtonator, and their pre-evolved forms in Max Raid battles in both Sword and Shield. Kantonian Ponyta and Rapidash will be appearing in Raids during the event as well. These forms are rare in the Gen 8 games, making this a good chance to add them to your collection if you haven’t already.

As previously mentioned, Gigantamax Lapras and Centiskorch will also be appearing more frequently during this month’s Max Raid event. Gigantamax Pokemon are normally incredibly hard to find outside of these events (although you can teach compatible Pokemon how to Gigantamax in the Isle of Armor), so you’ll want to take advantage of their increased spawn rate if you haven’t already caught them.

In order for the event Pokemon to begin appearing in your game, you’ll first need to refresh your Raid dens. You can do so either by connecting the Y-Comm online or by going into Mystery Gift from the menu screen and selecting Get the Wild Area News. The Max Raid event runs until 3:59 PM PT / 6:59 PM ET / 11:59 PM UTC on December 31.

In other Pokemon news, Pokemon Go support was recently added to Pokemon Home, meaning you can now transfer Pokemon directly from the mobile game to the storage service. Everyone who brings a monster over will receive a special Pokemon as a gift: a Gigantamax-capable Melmetal. 2021 also marks the Pokemon series’ 25th anniversary, and The Pokemon Company has teased upcoming news for the big milestone.

Now Playing: Pokémon Sword & Shield – Official Expansion Pass Announcement Trailer | ‘The Crown Tundra’

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