In Episode 2 of Star Trek: Picard, we learn about the Tal Shiar from Picard’s friends Laris and Zhaban, who were formerly members of the Romulan intelligence agency. They suspect that a subset of the Tal Shiar, the Zhat Vash, may be behind the attack on Dahj (Isa Briones). Picard turns to Starfleet for help, but they turn him away. Without their support, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) must lean on others, including Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) and Raffi Musiker. Meanwhile, we get a look at Soji’s work on the Borg Cube called The Artifact, which has been separated from the Borg collective.
The Google Stadia has had a bit of a rough launch, with only one exclusive (Tequila Works’ Gylt) and middling reviews from critics. Now, as one owner has pointed out on Reddit, it’s been 40 days since a new game was announced for the service–and when questioned on this, Google has responded.
Google has provided a statement to Gamesindustry.biz about its silence on upcoming releases, and has said that much of this falls on publishers who are gearing up to make their own announcements.
Google has previously said that there are 120 games coming to Stadia in 2020, including at least 10 exclusives in the first half of the year, and in its statement they say that they won’t be announcing all of them directly. “Of course, not all 120 titles will be announced by the Stadia team,” the statement reads, “As we leave it up to the publishers to make the announcement about their IP/games, and which platforms it will appear on–just as we will do with the exclusive content coming to Stadia.”
Google says that there are many reasons why publishers might want to hold off on announcing Stadia games, and that more news is coming. “We continue to work closely with our publishing and developing partners and are here to support them in all areas. We are excited to share more about some of the exclusive games coming to Stadia soon.”
Earlier in January, Gylt creative director Raul Rubio praised Stadia for being very easy to develop for. Google also recently bought Typhoon Studios, the developer of Journey to the Savage Planet. That game, which was published by 505 Games, has not been announced for Stadia as of yet. Stadia also has its own first-party studio that is working on games, although none have been announced yet.
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Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind’s title doesn’t lie. It’s more of an addendum to Kingdom Hearts 3 than a meaningful addition. In some ways, it’s fitting that a franchise as labyrinthine as Kingdom Hearts received such a strange expansion. Re:Mind is a brief but laborious retread of events we already experienced last year, dressed up with new details that only make the already maddeningly elaborate story all the more obtuse. The DLC also brings back Replica Data bosses, which provide a ridiculous challenge that requires inordinate level grinding. [Editor’s note: This review contains spoilers for the ending boss and area in Kingdom Hearts 3.]
Kingdom Hearts 3 ended with Sora going off on his own to search for Kairi. Re:Mind takes you on that quest in typical Kingdom Hearts fashion: neither simply nor cleanly. It runs synchronously with the events at the Keyblade Graveyard, meaning you actually have to replay the climax again from the Keyblade Graveyard maze all the way to the showdown with Xehanort. Though the explanation for how this is possible is very silly, Re:Mind is essentially a director’s cut.
As a reminder, the Keyblade Graveyard doesn’t really feature any exploration. It’s a series of boss fights separated by lengthy cutscenes. Luxord still hides behind a playing card taunting Sora, and cutscenes stop the action in similar spots. Some of the dialogue and cutscenes are reworked while others are new, but the biggest difference is the option to play as Riku, Roxas, Kairi, or Aqua in several fights. Unfortunately, playing as these characters actually makes the slick and stylish combat less fun. All of them feel like weaker versions of Sora with limited movesets, and it also doesn’t help that the Keyblade Graveyard itself is the blandest world in Kingdom Hearts 3, devoid of the colorful and pleasant trappings of the Disney worlds that made the majority of original campaign hum.
Even the new content that’s spliced into the repeated events largely fails to make the journey worthwhile. Scala ad Caelum opens up to reveal a new section before you square off against Xehanort. Though the area is fairly big, it’s desolate and exists only as a space to complete a rather banal fetch quest. It’s filler content in a story filled with recycled fights. There’s a fan service sequence that’s actually pretty enjoyable, however. Without spoiling it, it’s the type of scene that will make fans fondly remember the decades-long journey that brought us to this point. It’s a brief event that doesn’t make up for five hours of deja vu, but it still stands out.
For die-hard fans, the Limit Cut Episode that unlocks after watching the same closing cutscene from the base game is the meat of the package. Those who played Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix will be familiar with the mode, which sees Sora in a computer simulation fighting data versions of Organization XIII members like Xigbar, Ansem, and Xehanort. It even features cameos from the long-lost Final Fantasy characters.
Unfortunately, the barrier for entry is extraordinarily high, because Limit Cut bosses are exponentially more challenging than any of the fights in the base game. If you didn’t grind near or all the way to the level 99 cap in the main campaign–and there was no need to–Limit Cut will probably feel like an insurmountable challenge. I’m still working my way through the bosses, and I seriously doubt that I’ll ever actually beat them all. The ocean that exists between the difficulty of the base game and the data bosses is jarring.
It’s of course impossible to separate the DLC from the game it builds off of, and Kingdom Hearts 3’s best moments came in the Disney and Pixar worlds–the individual stories of friendship and love and good conquering evil that could almost be appreciated as self-contained short stories. Re:Mind seeks to tell a very specific story, but along the way it becomes blindingly clear that Kingdom Hearts’ strengths lie in its pieces and parts, not its convoluted sum that threads through and disrupts the franchise’s magical moments.
Even as a longtime fan of the series who adored Kingdom Hearts 3, it’s hard to muster up any sort of enthusiasm for Re:Mind. What’s more, Re:Mind made me understand Kingdom Hearts 3’s story even less, which is a testament to how bonkers it really is. It’s not all that surprising this happened; after all, it’s Kingdom Hearts. Nevertheless, Re:Mind is an incredibly peculiar expansion that simultaneously falls flat and partially obscures the brilliance of Kingdom Hearts 3.
With the final piece of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge slotting into place now that Rise Of The Resistance is finally open on Disneyland and Disney World’s Batuu, we can now start shifting our focus to the next big project on the horizon: Disneyland’s Avenger’s Campus, the new land in California Adventure, themed around Marvel Studios characters and franchises. Last year’s D23 Expo gave us some up-close and personal looks at what we can expect from the new park area, including a preview of the new Spider-Man themed ride and Ant-Man and The Wasp themed eatery–but now, with the opening of Avengers Campus just months away, the nitty-gritty details are starting to be fleshed out.
And, unsurprisingly, given the sort of characters and stories the MCU tends to deal with, they’re getting pretty weird.
The official Disney Parks blog has announced that Avengers Campus will feature a life-sized animatronic Spider-Man that will periodically hurl itself in a fashion that only a spider can over the rooftops of Avengers Campus’s many Marvel-themed buildings. And if you’re having a hard time figuring out exactly what that might entail, they also posted an official clip of the animatronic in action.
An even better look at what can be expected can be found in this clip of the Disney+ original series, Imagineering Story, which features the Imagineers testing the Spidey-Bot by literally hurling it through the air like a Cirque Du Soleil acrobat.
Nothing says “what could possibly go wrong” like watching a very heavy, very expensive animatronic be launched however many feet into the air to perform stunts over a crowded theme park. But all potential dangers (and/or inevitable Westworld-style robot uprisings) aside, we’re pretty excited to see exactly what this not-so-little webhead can do when the land finally opens.
Avenger’s Campus is coming to Disneyland in Anaheim in the summer of 2020.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons releases for Switch on March 20, and if you’re looking to grab a Switch specifically for it, you’re in luck. Nintendo has announced a new Animal Crossing themed Switch, which will feature custom Joy-Cons, a uniquely colored and textured Switch unit, and the best official dock we’ve seen yet.
The Animal Crossing Switch will be available on March 13, which is a week before the game’s launch. It’s probably the best limited edition Switch we’ve seen so far.
The dock features Tom Nook and his nephews, and it’s very cute. It’s unclear whether the dock or Joy-Cons will be sold seperately.
The images we’ve seen of the Switch also confirm that it’s the new model with better battery life, as it sports the HAC-001(01) serial number. That means you’ll be able to explore your Animal Crossing island on the go for longer.
A unique carry case and screen protector are also coming, for those of us who can’t bring ourselves to buy a whole new Switch.
The console will retail for $300, which is the standard price of the system–the game is not included with it.
If you’re excited for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, check out our preorder guide to make sure you get the best deal on day one.
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Apex Legends dropped their new Season 4 Assimilation trailer today and there is a lot to go over. We finally get a look into Revenant’s backstory, though it’s a very brief look, and we really get to dig deeper into the lore of Titanfall and Apex to uncover why Revenant is causing so much chaos and what he is.
I’m going to be breaking down the trailer bit by bit, so bear with me while I piece things together.
At the beginning of the trailer, we see human Revenant scrolling past several images on a screen and we can catch glimpses of the other robots that Hammond has been working on, like the Spectres. What comes up next is a picture of a Titanfall 2 pilot named Ash who is a Simulacrum pilot. Simulacra are digital copies of a person’s memories, knowledge, and personality. Back in the Titanfall games, it wasn’t really revealed how these Simulacra were made, but the reason for their invention was to preserve a pilot whose physical body had been destroyed. These copies were then downloaded into robotic bodies, to continue using them to live on and fight. Ash was an elite pilot hired by Kuban Blisk, who led the mercenary group Apex Predators.
This connection is relevant to Revenant as he gets an alert for his next target, which lets us assume that he’s working as a mercenary as well. His target, Marcos Andrade, is a Portuguese con-man and thief for hire. This doesn’t seem super important but Marcos and his wife give their daughter a gift of a silver wolf. We’ll come back to that in a minute. As soon as Revenant crashes the scene of the family dinner, we see his incredible abilities including one that allows him to shift into a “shadow form”, similar to the one we were able to experience in Apex’s Fight or Fright event. If Revenant is the next Legend to drop for Season 4, we might have seen a few his abilities from playing in the Fight or Fright event. Players who were killed during this mode came back as “shadows” who had the ability to run faster, climb walls without boundaries, and had a melee ability that dealt increased damage.
Reddit user DaVionRainesApex put together a poster of what appears to be leaked abilities for Revenant. Two different sets of tactical, passive, and ultimate abilities are shown because data-miners found he could have two “Stances” for when he’s in his normal form and when he transforms into his shadow form. This is all speculation, of course, and we’ll find out more about his abilities when Season 4 drops, but it’s an interesting thing to keep an eye on.
Back to the trailer, where we see Revenant take out Marcos and walk by a mirrored wall, seeing his reflection as his prior human self and where a glass shard has embedded itself in his neck. As he pulls it out, something trips in his programming and appears to trigger a malfunction, because his vision of himself now shows him his true self: a Simulacrum soldier. He starts to panic and lose control of his emotions: betrayal, anger, despair. He was clearly not aware that he was a copy,and maybe had even been copied without his permission. The logo branding on his hand reveals Hammond Robotics, the company responsible for what he’s become. It’s time for revenge.
So, why would Hammond replicate Revenant as a Simulacrum without his permission? The Apex Twitter account said that “Revenant was once the greatest hitman the Syndicate ever had” which implies that maybe the Syndicate commissioned to have Revenant revived if he ever fell, since he was too good at his job. The trailer ends on a powerful close-up shot of Marcos’ daughter looking angrily over her father’s body.
And this is where we return to that scene where she was handed that silver wolf. Wolf in Portuguese translates to “Lobo” but the female version of the word is “Loba.” If this name sounds familiar to you, Loba is the name of a legend who was data-mined back when Apex had launched. This trailer backs up the theory that Marcos’ daughter will be a future Legend to come to Apex to seek revenge, years after losing her family. So this story trailer could actually take place in the past when Revenant first discovered who he really was and when Loba was just a child.
Assuming Revenant is the next Legend coming to the game, it would make sense for Loba to debut in the next half of the season. Respawn announced there would be a mid-season split between the World’s Edge map and King’s Canyon, but players originally suspected Forge would be coming back somehow. It would, however, make more sense in the story if Loba heard of Revenant’s appearance and decided to take matters into her own hands and drop into the Games herself to take him out. This is all just a theory I’m working on, but it would make for a killer Season 4.
How do you feel about this new story trailer? Do you think Loba will be the next Legend to come into the Apex Games halfway through the season? What are your theories? Let us know in the comments.
Nintendo has announced an Animal Crossing: New Horizons-themed Nintendo Switch special edition to go alongside your copy of the newest Animal Crossing game for the Switch. The themed Switch will be available on March 13, a few weeks before Animal Crossing: New Horizons is released.
The Animal Crossing: New Horizons-themed Switch comes with a variety of Animal Crossing-themed visual elements. The two Joy-Cons are sky blue and mint green, but adds a nice cream color accent underneath and on the grip accessories. They both also have matching color wrist straps.
Also, while the Switch’s body is still black, the back of the console features an Animal Crossing-themed back design. Even the dock features a lovely Animal Crossing-themed design that has the three members of the Nook clan.
Nintendo has released special editions of the Nintendo Switch before, including ones for Pokemon Let’s Go and Diablo 3. But this Animal Crossing: New Horizons edition just might take the cake.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be released on March 20, 2020. It is the latest Animal Crossing game from Nintendo following Animal Crossing: New Life on the Nintendo Switch. It is also the first Animal Crossing game to be released on the Switch.
New Horizon features a vacation theme where players will travel to an island and set up their dream vacation home. Of course, Tom Nook will be there to put the players in a bit of debt that they’ll have to pay off.
Before The Mandalorian, there was another Star Wars TV series planned. Footage of Star Wars Underground, a show that was in development all the way back in 2010, has surfaced online. The footage shows a very different show from the one many people enjoyed in 2019.
The show was to be set in the lower levels of Coruscant, a planet that plays a major part in the Star Wars prequels. It was set after Order 66, and the test footage below was produced by VFX specialists Stargate Studios. The show was eventually delayed and then cancelled due to the high production costs and the eventual sale of Lucasfilm to Disney. According to a comment from the uploader, a two-episode arc would have involved Darth Vader coming to Coruscant to “personally quell a rebellion”.
It certainly looks a little ropey in places, and it’s a bit hard to follow, but it’s worth remembering that “test footage” is different from a pilot–this footage was meant to nail down the look and tone of the show, so we can excuse the bad gun fight at the end.
The test footage here is followed by a short “making of” film, which shows how everything was shot on a single green screen stage–similar to how many parts of the prequels were shot.
The footage, as it turns out, is from Stargate Studios’ Vimeo, and was first uploaded nine years ago–we can only assume that it was set to private or unlisted until now.
Mileage may vary on how good or bad this looks to you, but in any case, the show never came to pass. Posted alongside the video is a lengthy document charting the history of Star Wars Underworld, collecting every tangentially related quote and interview, along with photos. It’s worth a look if you’re a Star Wars fanatic.
After the impressive and surprising list of DLC characters Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s first Fighter’s Pass has brought so far, the most recent and final addition, Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, feels like an incredibly safe pick – in more ways than one. They’re not as mechanically complex as the likes of Hero or Terry Bogard, and not as fan-servingly exciting as Joker or Banjo & Kazooie. And yet, a bit of vanilla to round out this already vibrant pack of extra fighters doesn’t stop Byleth from proudly standing out among their Fire Emblem peers and the rest of Ultimate’s extensive roster.
As an anime-looking sword-wielder, Byleth certainly has their work cut out for them in trying to convince people to pick them up over any of the other similar options – and thankfully, they’ve got plenty to work with in that regard. Out of the five other Fire Emblem reps (seven if you count Echo Fighters), Byleth manages to be the only one to showcase the strategic weapon variety that’s core to the series. Using special weapons from Three Houses known as Heroes’ Relics, Byleth can seamlessly swap out their whip-sword for a hefty axe, lengthy spear, or powerful bow, and each has their own unique strengths that make them a ton of fun to smash your opponents with.
Rather than have them haphazardly attached to various moves, Byleth’s different weapons are smartly mapped to your directional inputs. While their neutral special incorporates the bow, side attacks utilize their spear, down attacks summon the axe, and lighter swipes and overhead moves uses the whip-sword. Beyond each one looking awesome when summoned in a fight, the directional based context gives Byleth a feeling of smart cohesion that’s incredibly easy to pick up and understand.
Byleth’s moveset is also one of the big reasons why this DLC fighter seems fairly simple compared to the others that have arrived post-launch – for better and for worse. Where Terry’s button inputs could be too technical for some, Hero’s random moves and magic meter could feel too chaotic, and the meters and consumables of Joker and Banjo too much to keep track of, Byleth forgoes all of it. Their “gimmick” essentially lies in the simplicity of a man/woman-at-arms, with a weapon for every situation, providing a different type of challenge in knowing when to use the right one rather than learning how to wield them at all.
If Byleth does have a gaping flaw, it’s commitment. While each weapon type can deal a staggering amount of damage when they connect, they’ll often leave Byleth wide open to counters from a skilled or perceptive opponent. The bow, known as Failnaught, can be charged up to deal devastating precision damage at long range, but once you’ve charged past a certain threshold, you can’t get out of the move early. Similarly, aiming your attacks downward with the axe Amyr can demolish anyone standing nearby, but the lengthy startup and finish (and the time you’re left vulnerable after landing with a downward aerial strike) means you’ll either have to be very good at predicting an opponent, or drop in on a group of distracted fighters. The slow nature of these kinds of “unsafe” moves might not turn a lot of heads in the competitive scene, but it may entice newer players who aren’t afraid of making mistakes with an easy-to-grasp moveset and tons of strong attacks.
Even without the additional weaponry, Byleth’s Sword of the Creator (which is generally linked to up-attacks, but can also act as a sort of default for many others) holds some very interesting and fun properties. Able to be used like a whip, it gives Byleth’s quicker moves and upward attacks more options, thanks in part to their unique recovery move. While other characters like Zero Suit Samus and Joker can use similar tools to grab or hook onto ledges and pull themselves up, Byleth’s up-B can also latch onto opponents and use them as a stepping stone to launch high up while sending their target screaming downwards once they’ve hit a certain damage threshold – which makes it deliciously evil to use off the stage, yanking poor souls down to their doom before they can react. I was even pleased to find some clever applications when used above platforms, giving me different options to follow up with other moves depending on how damaged my opponent was, or how far my opponent bounced back off the ground below me. That said, smaller ledges have sometimes been my downfall, as the Sword of the Creator has either been unwilling or unable to hook onto tiny platforms to save me from plummeting and the move itself gives no recovery if nothing connects.
As part of Byleth’s character pack, there’s also the addition of a host of new themed Spirit Battles. These are as ingeniously crafted as ever, and Three Houses fans will appreciate all the fun details – like Dimitri’s Spirit Battle including a tough Ganondorf in place of Dimitri’s stalwart bodyguard, Dedue. That being said, those who haven’t already played through the Three Houses story may wish to hold off on some of the tougher Spirit Battles, which inadvertently spoil some plot points by way of the battle’s surprise mechanics.
As for the stage, Garreg Mach Monastery feels surprisingly bland. While stages that tour around a large location usually offer up an array of different battlefields to fight in and adapt to, each of the monastery’s four areas are flat, walk-off arenas with the bare minimum inclusion of a few small temporary platforms. Even the guest appearances by students and house leaders of each of the three houses seem a bit dull – especially when spotted standing in an otherwise deserted grand hall. Garreg Mach Monastery isn’t exactly a disappointing place for a fight, but when you look at the variety of architecture in other Fire Emblem levels like Castle Siege and the Coliseum, the monastery just feels stale in comparison. Luckily, the inclusion of some of the best music that Three Houses has to offer won’t go unnoticed. The upbeat tempo of Fódlan Winds and The Edge of Dawn mesh perfectly with frantic large battles, while songs like The Apex of the World and Between Heaven and Earth give 1v1s a legendary feel.
