Category: Video Gaming

News

One man enters, one bear leaves.

A helpful Red Dead Redemption 2 player has kindly given us all a look at a showdown between a very young Jack Marston and one of the game’s grizzly bears. The results are… certainly something, and yet likely very predictable. This is definitely a match-up no one cared to see, but it appears the Marston family just can’t seem to avoid animal attacks.

For a split second at the start of the video, there’s a glimmer of hope that this might not be a complete slaughter. As this is Red Dead Redemption and crazier things have happened, it makes sense to anticipate that what you expect isn’t the true result. Alas, that’s not the case in this situation.

In an outcome that should be surprising to no one, Jack doesn’t win. But just writing it that way doesn’t emphasize the whole point. He really doesn’t win, and it’s not even close. The poor kid never had a chance, and this Thunderdome (made of what looks like wardrobes) only serves to box him in. That’s not to say the arena is the problem; Jack likely never stood a chance, even if he had a forest to maneuver through.

Seeing as this video is brought to you by Reddit and Tiktok user NPCpranks, what could you expect besides a video of a kid getting dismantled by a bear?

*Though there is no blood, some may find the below footage somewhat confronting.*

Ever since his dad John Marston was attacked by all those wolves, this bear encounter was inevitable. As everyone who played the first Red Dead Redemption knows, Jack grows up to be strong enough to eventually take on a bear. Maybe the ending of the first game and Jack becoming playable was just the prologue to him hunting down this bear for a rematch.

M3GAN fans (“M3FANs”), rejoice: The supreme queen bee of sentient doll-based brutality finally arrives on VOD this weekend. If watching a creepy plasticine child perform infectious dance moves before proceeding to butcher a man with a makeshift machete doesn’t quite sound like your kind of vibe, not to worry; there’s a ton of new releases available to choose from on streaming and VOD.

You People — no no, not “you” people — the latest comedy-drama from Black-ish creator Kenya Barris starring Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy comes to Netflix this week, along with a new documentary on the life and music of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. The new action rom-com Shotgun Wedding, starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel, premieres on Prime Video; meanwhile, Todd Field’s Oscar-nominated psychological drama Tár is finally available to stream on Peacock. There’s plenty more new releases to enjoy on VOD this weekend besides M3GAN, including a new dark comedy-drama starring Julianne Moore and Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard.

Here are the new movies available for you to watch at home this weekend.

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Netflix

You People

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Parrish Lewis/Netflix

Genre: Comedy/romance
Run time: 1h 57m
Director: Kenya Barris
Cast: Jonah Hill, Lauren London, Eddie Murphy

Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy star in this new buddy comedy from Black-ish creator Kenya Barris that could best be described as a Meet the Fockers-type scenario crossed with a race-swapped version of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Look, there’s a tone-deaf comment about police brutality! Oh, and there’s an uncomfortable offhand joke about Louis Farrakhan’s incendiary remarks about Jewish people! One thing is certain: You People is edgy; it is saying things; and boy howdy, it is going there! Jury’s out on whether that’ll make for a funny comedy.

From our review:

There’s this weird notion that good comedy is offensive, when in fact it’s empathetic. In order to make someone laugh and do it consistently, it’s necessary to understand something about them first. This is why the impulse behind a film like You People can be a good one, as comedy can make a lot of hay out of the misunderstandings people have about one another as they bumble toward understanding. You People, however, is mostly interested in ignorance, and as such it gets old fast. Because the most offensive comedy isn’t ignorant or bigoted, it’s simply boring.

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Sony Pictures Classics

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 1h 58m
Directors: Dan Geller, Dayna Goldfine
Cast: Leonard Cohen. Nancy Bacal, Steve Berkowitz

This documentary digs into the writing and cultural impact of singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen’s music, particularly his 1984 folk rock song “Hallelujah.” Directors Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine combine archival footage of past interviews and performances by Cohen, who passed away in 2016 due to complications stemming from leukemia, and interviews with past collaborators, loved ones, and artists who have covered the song in the past to create a tribute to Cohen’s life and his art.

An Action Hero

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: AA Films

Genre: Action comedy
Run time: 2h 10m
Director: Anirudh Iyer
Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Jaideep Ahlawat

I’ve [ed. note — PV] heard great things about this Hindi action comedy, about a movie star who gets accused of murder and then his life turns into an action movie. The spotlight on Indian cinema recently has largely been focused on Southern India after the breakout international success of RRR, but Bollywood is hoping to bring some of the attention back to the country’s most historically dominant film industry with this thrilling and funny meta story about the movie industry.

Prime Video

Shotgun Wedding

Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video

Image: Lionsgate/Amazon Studios

Genre: Action/rom-com
Run time: 1h 40m
Director: Jason Moore
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Josh Duhamel, Jennifer Coolidge

Weddings sure are murder, am I right? (ba-dum-tss) Haha, we have fun here. Anyway, Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers) and Josh Duhamel (Transformers) star in this romantic action-comedy as a couple whose destination wedding is imperiled when a group of heavily armed criminals storm their venue and hold their guests and families hostage. In order to survive, the two will have to work together to take down the kidnappers and rescue their loved ones.

AMC Plus

The Lair

Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder and AMC Plus

Image: RLJE Films/Shudder

Genre: Sci-fi/horror
Run time: 1h 36m
Director: Neil Marshall
Cast: Charlotte Kirk, Jonathan Howard, Jamie Bamber

After being shot down over Afghanistan, a Royal Air Force pilot (Charlotte Kirk) inadvertently stumbles upon a bunker home to a hideous half-human, half-alien creature that threatens to kill every human it comes across if unleashed.

Peacock

Tár

Where to watch: Available to stream on Peacock

Image: Focus Features

Genre: Psychological drama
Run time: 2h 38m
Director: Todd Field
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss

Cate Blanchett stars in Todd Field’s first feature film since 2006’s Little Children as the eponymous Lydia Tár, a famous composer and the first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra. A literal virtuoso, Tár is mere weeks away from realizing what might be her magnum opus. When her reputation and legacy are suddenly jeopardized by a series of scandals, she’ll have to weather the consequences of her own indiscretions and face a bracing new reality. One of the best movies of 2022, Tár was recently honored with a handful of Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

VOD

M3GAN

Where to watch: Available to rent for $19.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: Universal Pictures

Genre: Sci-fi/horror comedy
Run time: 1h 42m
Director: Gerard Johnstone
Cast: Allison Williams, Jenna Davis, Violet McGraw

The latest horror film from Housebound director Gerard Johnstone and Malignant screenwriter Akela Cooper follows Gemma (Allison Williams), a roboticist for a Seattle toy company who creates an artificially intelligent doll to look after her orphaned niece, Cady (Violet McGraw). But when the doll, at first unbeknownst to either Gemma or Cady, begins to commit a series of violent murders ostensibly in service of its prime directive, Gemma will have to fight to protect her niece and the world from what she has created.

From our review:

The graveyard of awful horror comedies is among the saddest and most boring in all of film. It’s filled with hundreds of bad-taste parodies, laughless messes, silly garbage, and probably a few unfortunate movies that weren’t deliberately designed to be laughed at. The worst movies in the subgenre feel like tightrope acts that try too hard to balance what the creators seem to think are two opposite extremes, hoping the audience laughs one moment and screams the next. But following in the footsteps of classics like the original Chucky movie Child’s Play, director Gerard Johnstone and the team behind the new horror comedy M3GAN realize that laughing and screaming aren’t actually that different — and most importantly, that either one can be the key to a great time.

Life Upside Down

Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: IFC Films

Genre: Comedy/drama
Run time: 1h 28m
Director: Cecilia Miniucchi
Cast: Bob Odenkirk, Radha Mitchell, Danny Huston

Forced to quarantine in the beginning months of the COVID-19 pandemic, three couples look at their lives, friends, partners, and themselves differently as they reassess everything and everyone they once thought was important. I know that sounds dour, but it’s a comedy— I swear! Look, it even has Bob Odenkirk in it! He’s a funny guy when he’s not playing a disbarred criminal lawyer working on behalf of a methamphetamine empire, right?

When You Finish Saving the World

Where to watch: Available to purchase for $19.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: A24

Genre: Black comedy/drama
Run time: 1h 28m
Director: Jesse Eisenberg
Cast: Julianne Moore, Finn Wolfhard, Alisha Boe

Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard), a high school student with a passion for folk music, and his mother, Evelyn (Julianne Moore), the head of a women’s shelter, just can’t seem to get along. As their relationship increasingly frays, the two begin to seek out emotional reciprocity in others and question what it is exactly they are searching for in their relationship, in Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut.

Entertainment

Grinding for loot never looked so easy.

Another new anime is on the way for an already stacked 2023 roster with the news of My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1’s release date, as well as a host of new details surrounding the light novel’s adaptation, including a new trailer and the industry veterans attached to the project.

Fans of Nazuna Miki’s RPG-like adventure story and Subachi’s illustrations can look to July 2023 for the series to hit television screens, according to Anime News Network. The official website behind the anime also released a trailer featuring all the staples we would expect from an Isekai anime.

The light novels follow Ryota Sato, who is suddenly hurled into a world where defeating monsters and profiting off of the loot they drop are the name of the game. Unluckily for Ryota, he remains a lowly beginner with no skills to speak of, until he discovers he has the very special ability to acquire rare loot from slain beasts. With his newfound strategy, he and fellow intrepid explorer, Emily Brown, venture out into the strange world of conquest.

The concept is any video-gamer’s ultimate RNG fantasy and plays out like a challenge run where Ryota must use the collected items’ unique abilities to max out his stats rather than leveling up traditionally.

The exciting new anime series is helmed by Yuji Yanase, best known for By the Grace of the Gods, and animated by Maho Film, a veteran studio in the Iseaki subgenre.

With the adaptation in more than capable hands, an even wider swathe of fans can join the anticipation, as the English version of the light novels rolled into publication this month.

Steam’s various discovery hubs are normally designed to steer you towards new games you might like to buy. The latest experiment from Steam Labs, however, is a DLC Discovery Hub. It offers up a tailored list of additional content you might be interested in for games you already own, and prioritises those you’ve played recently or played most.

(more…)

This week on All Things Nintendo, we celebrate the launch of GoldenEye 007 on Nintendo Switch Online’s Expansion Pack. To do that, Brian is joined by The New York Post‘s Scott Fontana. The two spend the episode looking back at the development and legacy of one of the most beloved games of the N64.

If you’d like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on his Instagram: @BrianPShea. You can follow Scott on Twitter: Scott Fontana (@Scott_Fontana)

The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we can celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry’s most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what’s happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they’ll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back on the classics we all grew up with. A new episode hits every Friday!

Be sure to subscribe to All Things Nintendo on your favorite podcast platform. The show is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and YouTube.

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00:00:00 – Introduction
00:01:06 – GoldenEye 007 Now on Switch
00:07:49 – GoldenEye 007 Retrospective
01:05:18 – Definitive Ranking: GoldenEye Weapons
01:13:10 – eShop Gem of the Week: Horizon Chase Turbo

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If you’d like to get in touch with the All Things Nintendo podcast, you can email AllThingsNintendo@GameInformer.com, messaging Brian on Instagram (@BrianPShea), or by joining the official Game Informer Discord server. You can do that by linking your Discord account to your Twitch account and subscribing to the Game Informer Twitch channel. From there, find the All Things Nintendo channel under “Community Spaces.”

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For Game Informer’s other podcast, be sure to check out The Game Informer Show with host Alex Van Aken, which covers the weekly happenings of the video game industry!

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Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com!

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS, or download here

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Howdy! This week the team dives into the frights and delights of Dead Space, featuring an interview with Motive’s Roman Campos-Oriola (Creative Director) and Philippe Ducharme (Senior Producer).

Stuff We Talked About

• DualSense Edge controller
• Season: A Letter to the Future
• PowerWash Simulator
• Forspoken
• Dead Space (interview begins at 19:32)

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The Cast

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Thanks to Cory Schmitz for our beautiful logo and Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]

We are so thrilled to finally release Shoulders of Giants! Since we just launched, the whole team here at Moving Pieces are all feeling pretty reflective (as well as slightly terrified/excited in equal measures!), so I thought it might be nice to share a few thoughts on an aspect of the game that we are particularly proud of: its stylized visual graphics. I thought it might be nice to take this opportunity to talk about our inspirations behind the look of the game.

While it’s amazing to see how far photorealistic graphics can be pushed with the latest Xbox hardware, what really excited us was creating something that combined the latest graphics technologies like physically based rendering with a more stylized shading approach like cel shading. This was the basis behind our technical and aesthetic approach to the visuals for Shoulders of Giants.

We started by experimenting with what this might look like by taking early concept art and making basic worlds without any gameplay. Initially we went further into more of a traditional cel shaded look, but found that when we mixed some photoreal rendering techniques with that is where nice details really started to shine.

In terms of setting, we knew that we wanted the game to take place in a sci-fi universe, which meant having a cosmic skybox full of planets, stars and swirly clouds. We were heavily inspired by the style of sci-fi art from the 1970s and loved how it often contained giant planets in the background to help keep the horizon interesting.

The basic story of the game is that the dark and cold forces of Entropy have taken over the Universe, and it’s the players’ job to restore life and balance. One of the game’s main NPCs is an all-powerful Owl from an ancient order, and many of the levels and props found throughout the game are inspired by that of ancient civilizations, like Ancient Egypt and Greece.

We imagined levels with abandoned ruins from an ancient order scattered throughout levels that the player could explore. This was a main inspiration behind the look of the levels and their layout.

Some of the props and levels of the game also take inspiration from surrealist paintings, particularly in the last act of the game. We thought of rumbling clouds, and stairs going off into the horizon.

Taking advantage of a stylized look, we put emphasis on using color to tell the story of Shoulders of Giants. One of the biggest themes in the game is dark versus light.

The player starts every level off with the world covered in darkness and as you progress and eventually beat the level, you restore it with life and light.

Making the “light” version of our landscapes pop with color was straightforward, but making the cold, dark versions of these alien worlds sing with color was not trivial. Our art director and I spent days pouring over palettes, and eventually decided we had to re-evaluate what “dark” really meant. We decided to lean more into darkness as a concept of cold, or lack of life.

Eventually we found colors and lighting combinations that still looked vibrant and eye-catching, but still allowed us to express our themes. We created sandy deserts, white fields of snow, and caustic acid worlds glowing with green.

We can’t wait for players to hop into the world we created!

For more information, check out the game’s store page and official website, or join our discord.

On Feb. 28, 2023, Bungie will release Destiny 2: Lightfall, the shared world shooter’s largest content drop since last year’s critically acclaimed The Witch Queen expansion.

Preparing for these large add-ons can be a hard and confusing process, so in this Destiny 2: Lightfall preparation guide, we’ll break down everything you should know about what’s leaving the game and tell you everything you need to know to best prepare for Lightfall.

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How to prep your Destiny 2 character for Lightfall

Image: DestinyRecipes via Polygon

One of the best ways to prepare for a new season or expansion is to start saving up on materials and bounties. There are a few community-made tools that can help you prepare, like the amazing Destiny Recipes. Log in with your Destiny 2 account, and this tool will help show you the materials, bounties, and vault space you have, thus giving you a target to aim for. Below we’ll break down the major categories of this checklist to help give you an idea of what to stockpile before Lightfall.

Unlike in previous years, you can no longer acquire Planetary Materials, so we don’t recommend you save them. If you still have some, they’ll be great to turn into Glimmer at Rahool, but you do not have to worry about saving them up.

Materials prep

Image: DestinyRecipes via Polygon

Materials in Destiny 2 serve a wide variety of purposes from upgrading weapons and armor to purchasing weapons and armor from a vendor like Banshee-44. Going into a new expansion, you want to start with as many materials as you can — however much you think you’ll need is less than you really need. Starting out with a large stockpile of materials can help delay the need to go out and hunt for them. You want to spend the first days or weeks of the expansion focusing on the new content, so get as much of each material as you can so you can focus on everything new. Destiny Recipes’ Pre-Seasonal Checklist gives a great breakdown of what materials you want, and how many of each material to get – they can be found under the “Resources” section. We agree with their goals, so we suggest targeting the following:

• Legendary Shards: 3,000
• Upgrade Modules†: 25 (a full inventory)
• Ascendant Shards†: 10 (a full inventory)
• Enhancement Prisms†: 50 (a full inventory)
• Enhancement Cores: 200
• Glimmer‡: 200,000

† We suggest that you have a full inventory of these items, but you can also store them in your postmaster. The amount that each of your characters can hold in their inventory is the same amount you can store in each of your postmasters, meaning that the inventory cap of 10 Ascendant Shards is the same per postmaster: 10. This means you can hold a total of 40 Ascendant Shards across your inventory and three postmasters. For all of these materials, when your inventory is full, they will automatically go to your postmaster and can stay there until you need them.

‡ You need Glimmer for almost everything in Destiny 2, so having as much as possible is the way to go. You can store Glimmer by buying certain ships and sparrows from collections, you can keep them in your vault and dismantle them when you need some extra Glimmer. For example, you can purchase the Otherside sparrow for 7,500 Glimmer and 5 Legendary Shards. When you dismantle it, you will get back 5,000 Glimmer and 5 Legendary Shards. This means if you were to have 50 of these sparrows across your inventory and vault, you would have an extra 250,000 Glimmer that you can break out when you need to.

Bounty prep

Saving bounties is tedious and not for everyone. It allows you to get a head start on the season pass and on the new artifact, but it’s not really going to hold you back past the first couple of days. Prominent community members Skarrow9 and Kimo made a very handy spreadsheet that you can use to keep track of all the bounties you should be saving, we’ll break down the different types of bounties and what you want to prioritize below. You can watch Skarrow9’s YouTube video going over bounty prep and the spreadsheet here:

If you do want to save bounties, you want to optimize which ones you go for. The bounties that you want the most are the weekly bounties — these give the most XP and have the label XP++. You can currently save 26 weekly bounties, as follows:

• 8 Weekly Clan bounties†
• 7 Dreaming City bounties†
• 4 Europa Weekly bounties†
• 2 Weekly Moon bounties
• 2 Nightmare Hunt bounties
• 2 Cosmodrome bounties

† These bounties are on a rotation so not all of them will be available at one time; for example, the four total Europa weekly bounties are spread out over three weeks. Every week, there is a general Europa bounty for completing Lost Sectors, Patrols, and other small missions like. There is also one bounty per Empire Hunt available each week. The earlier you start hoarding, the more weekly bounties you can save. Each of the six weekly Ascendant Challenges in the Dreaming City has a bounty associated with them (as of publishing, we are less than six weeks away from Lightfall – but it’s worth starting now if you haven’t already.)

After weekly bounties, you want to fill up your remaining inventory with daily bounties, not repeatable bounties, since those do not give as much XP. You’ll want to try to save seven bounties from each vendor of the three primary playlist activities: Crucible, Vanguard Ops, and Gambit. This will get you almost all the way toward completing the weekly challenge of completing eight bounties. You want to only save seven because if you complete that bounty challenge too early, the light level of the gear you receive will be too low to be useful. Wait to complete these challenges until after you complete the campaign and reach the game’s soft power cap, which will be revealed in the coming weeks as the expansion approaches.

Because you’re prepping for a new expansion, there are bounties that will not be available to turn in when Lightfall starts. These bounties include anything from one of the seasons (see more about the seasons below) and anything from any event such as “the Dawning” or “the Festival of the Lost.” Any bounties from these sources will get removed from your inventory before you log in for Lightfall.

Vault cleaning

Keeping your vault clean is something few of us like to do, but it is a necessary step in preparing for a new expansion — you’re going to need space for the multitude of new items you’re about to receive. There are many things to think about when cleaning your vault, and we’ll break down a few of them here. For even more advice, we recommend Datto’s video about the topic.

Our biggest tip when it comes to keeping your vault clean is to use a tool like Destiny Item Manager (DIM), which allows you to organize your inventory outside of the game. DIM is packed full of amazing features that not only help keep your vault clean but streamline playing the game as well. DIM’s primary feature is to help move items between your characters and the vault, but it can also do more.

The easiest way to keep your vault clean with DIM is to label items. You can label items as: save, junk, infuse, favorite, or archive. This pairs well with DIM’s powerful search feature, which allows you to search for items using a variety of criteria, including being able to search for a particular tag.

Image: DestinyItemManager via Polygon

Selecting items to label as junk is hard. Here are a few simple questions to think about when cleaning your vault:

• How often do I use this item?
• Does this weapon/this weapon’s kill tracker mean something to me?
• Is this the only weapon of this archetype/element I have?
• Is this the best PvP/PvE role I have of this weapon?
• Can I use this armor to make a good loadout?

Lastly, you can cut down on the amount of armor in your vault by using a tool like D2 Armor Picker. This tool helps you create the best loadout using a variety of variables that you can control, such as what class you want to work on, which exotic to use, and even how much of a certain stat you might want.

Everything leaving Destiny 2 on Feb. 28, 2023

The launch of Lightfall will see some content enter the Destiny Content Vault — the removal of certain activities and/ or locations that may return at a later date. Luckily, Bungie isn’t removing as much as it did with Beyond Light or even The Witch Queen. This year, we’ll only lose the content from seasons 16 through 19.

Below we will break down everything that is leaving and let you know what to look out for.

A note about Destiny 2’s seasonal weapons

All of the weapons that are directly tied to a season, i.e. not world-drop weapons, are craftable. They all require five deepsight patterns to complete, so if you are behind, it is likely best for you to try to get a good roll rather than trying to craft them. Crafted weapons are only marginally better than their non-crafted versions, so focus on just getting the gun rather than crafting it. If you do want to focus on crafting a particular gun, each of the seasons has an upgrade you can obtain at the seasonal vendor in the HELM that makes the first weapon you purchase from that vendor each week a Deepsight version. Starting Jan. 31, you’ll be able to focus one Deepsight weapon per day rather than per week as outlined in the 1/26/23 This Week at Bungie.

Season of the Risen

Image: Bungie

The Season of the Risen sees the Vanguard and Caiatl team up to prevent Savathun’s Lucent brood from spreading across the galaxy. This season also brought with it the Void 3.0 subclass overhaul. The primary activity from this season is PsiOps Battlegrounds.

Weapons

The seasonal weapons from the Season of the Risen are all pretty good, but we think there are four that stand out.

• Under your Skin: Void bow – This bow can roll the great combo of Archer’s Tempo and Explosive head. It is one of the best legendary bows that you can get in the game.
• Piece of Mind: Kinetic pulse rifle – This pulse has great roles for PvE and PvP. If you want one for PvE, you want to look for Overflow and focused Fury. If you want one for PvP, you want to look for Perpetual Motion and Moving Target.
• Thoughtless: Stasis sniper rifle – This is one of the best snipers for boss damage, look out for Overflow and Focused Fury.
• Explosive Personality: Solar grenade launcher – This is currently the only Solar Wave Frame grenade launcher in the game. The rolls are not outstanding but look for Auto-Loading Holster and either Frenzy or One for All.

The Risen title

Image: Bungie via Polygon

All of the Triumphs associated with the Risen title are getting vaulted when Lightfall starts. If you need help, follow our Risen Title guide.

Dead Messenger and its Catalyst

Image: Bungie via Polygon

The Exotic mission that contains Dead Messenger, “Vox Obscura,” launched with The Witch Queen but was actually part of the Season of the Risen. Because of this, it is likely to go away when Lightfall Launches. If you want more information, follow our Dead Messenger guide.

Season of the Haunted

Image: Bungie

The Season of the Haunted sees the return of Calus and his Leviathan ship, though it is now corrupted with Nightmares. We work with Eris Morn to prevent Calus from accessing the Lunar Pyramid ship and releasing more Nightmares. This season also brought with it the Solar 3.0 subclass overhaul. The primary activity from this season is Nightmare Containment.

Weapons

There are two sets of craftable weapons from the Season of the Haunted, the seasonal weapons and the Opulent weapons. The Opulent weapons are all pretty good, but the same cannot be said about the seasonal weapons. Our four standouts across both sets of weapons are:

• CALUS Mini-Tool: Solar sub-machine gun – This weapon is one of the best in the game because of its ability to roll Incandescent. The perk options in the first column are only ok, but something like Grave Robber is a great choice, especially for Solar Titans that take advantage of their throwing hammer.
• Austringer: Kinetic hand cannon – If you are looking for a PvP hand cannon, it is harder to get a better weapon than this. Eye of the Storm and Rangefinder make this 140 a top choice for PvP.
• Bump in the Night: Stasis rocket launcher – This weapon stands out for boss damage due to its ability to roll Chill Clip, this in combination with a Galajhorn provides massive boss damage and excels in fights like the Daughters from Kings Fall or Taniks from the Deep Stone Crypt.
• Hollow Denial: Void trace rifle – This is currently the only Void legendary trace rifle in the game. Trace rifles are criminally underrated and this weapon could be a standout come Lightfall. Look for a roll with Repulsor Brace or Killing Tally.

The Reaper title

Image: Bungie via Polygon

All of the Triumphs associated with the Reaper title are getting vaulted when Lightfall starts. If you need help with these Triumphs, you can follow this great video guide by This Week In Video Games here.

Season of Plunder

Image: Bungie

The Season of Plunder sees us work alongside the Eliksni to prevent Eramis from collecting the Relics of Nezarec and using them against us. This season also brought with it the Arc 3.0 subclass overhaul. The two primary activities this season are Ketchcrash and Expedition.

Weapons

There were only six weapons that came from Season of Plunder, but a lot of them are solid picks because of their perk pools.

• Tarnished Mettle: Arc scout rifle – This Arc scout can roll with Voltshot, one of the best perks in the game when it comes to general fighting and ad clear. Try to find one with Rapid Hit as well and you’ll have yourself an amazing weapon to pair with an Arc 3.0 subclass.
• Blood Feud: Stasis submachine gun – This weapon stands out because of the recent buff to Ambitious Assassin on primary weapons. It now gives them up to 150% more ammo in the magazine, which paired with Frenzy makes this a great primary weapon.
• Brigand’s Law: Arc sidearm – This weapon stands out for the same reason Tarnished Mettle does, the Voltshot perk. Look to pair that with Feeding Frenzy in the first column.
• No Reprieve: Stasis shotgun – Should slug shotguns come back into the meta for boss damage, this weapon’s ability to get Surrounded makes it a top choice. This shotgun also excels in general play and is all-around a good pickup.

The Scallywag Title

Image: Bungie via Polygon

All of the Triumphs associated with the Scallywag title are getting vaulted when Lightfall starts. If you need help with these Triumphs, you can follow this great video guide by StrawDesertHD here:

Season of the Seraph

Image: Bungie

The Season of the Seraph sees us try to rebuild the Warmind Rasputin to prevent the forces of Xivu Arath from gaining access to the Warsat network. The primary activity from this season is Heist Battlegrounds.

Weapons

Season of the Seraph came with ten craftable weapons, six that are linked to the season, and four are returning IKELOS weapons. Here are our top four to take a look at.

• IKELOS_SMG_V1.0.3: Arc submachine gun – This weapon can roll with Voltshot and it is certainly a great choice, but some chose to go with Frenzy instead. Both options are great, and this weapon is certainly worth getting before Lightfall.
• Disparity: Stasis pulse rifle – This weapon has all the favorite perk rolls for PvE and PvP. Rapid Hit is great for both, and you want to look for Kill Clip or Desperado for PvP, and Frenzy for PvP.
• Retrofit Escapade: Void machine gun – A new perk with this season, Target Lock, makes this weapon deal massive boss damage. That perk along with Fourth Time the Charm looks to be one of the best DPS options for Lightfall.
• Judgment of Kelogorath: Solar glaive – The fight Glaive of its archetype, this feels great to use. Look for the new perk Close to Melee to give yourself a great increase in your damage when chaining melee and projectile kills.

The Seraph title

Image: Bungie via Polygon

All of the Triumphs associated with the Seraph title are getting vaulted when Lightfall starts. If you need help with these Triumphs, you can follow this great video guide by This Week In Video Games here:

Revision Zero and its Catalysts

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Similar to Dead Messenger, Revision Zero comes from an Exotic mission, “Seraph Station.” It is an Exotic pulse rifle that is craftable and has four different catalysts. If you want more information, see our Revision Zero guide.

Hi-Fi Rush might have been Developer_Direct’s big surprise, getting an announcement and a launch in a single day, but that doesn’t mean its development was just as much of a whirlwind. In fact, game director John Johanes has been pitching the idea for this rhythm-action experiment for years, as far back as the original Evil Within game. And it turns out, he had a very specific, non-gaming inspiration from the very start: the films of Edgar Wright.

Speaking to the Xbox Podcast, Johanas explained that, while Tango Gameworks might be known for its horror titles, the studio had been looking for a way to do something different for quite some time:

“Probably you know our studio for making horror games with The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo, but this is something that we’ve wanted to make that [would] really completely change the image of our studio, and also pushed us as developers to what we can do, or what’s possible, even, in the game universe, because we wanted to kind of do something new, and that’s kind of where the original idea- that’s essentially how I pitched it.

“This game itself is just something that personally I always wanted to make for a really long time, and luckily timing was right internally that we just saw it as a nice palette cleanser after we finished The Evil Within 2, to kind of branch off and try something new.”

While Hi-Fi Rush draws on some very recognizable gaming influences – the rhythm genre and classic technical action games loom large – one of the starting points for all this was drawn from the world of movies:

“One of the earliest things we had– and this kind of influenced the direction on our style for how we did things – was the movies that Edgar Wright as a director would make. And I know maybe people would compare this to Baby Driver [Editor’s note: I did exactly this in our hands-on with the game, whoops], which is about music — music to tied to the images very coherently — but actually this pre-dated that significantly. There was a scene in the original Shaun of the Dead that had them fighting in a bar to a Queen soundtrack [Warning: adult language] that was choreographed to it. Maybe you saw that, maybe you remember it.

“I was like, ‘That was so cool, what if we made a game that was exactly like that?’ And so that’s how I kind of pitched it. That’s how the idea came to be, many, many years [ago] when we were still making the original The Evil Within, but [Hi-Fi Rush] finally gave us a chance to pursue that angle.”

That inspiration goes further than just the rhythmic combat concept, too. In wannabe rockstar Chai, Hi-Fi Rush also has a particularly Wrightian lead character:

“I knew I wanted this main character that was, like, not a superhero. The big reference point we used was Scott Pilgrim, especially the Edgar Wright Scott Pilgrim because I’m talking about Edgar Wright as an influence. But it’s this kind of like anti-hero, in a sense – not that they’re evil, but they’re just almost dumb.”

Hi-Fi Rush wears these influences on its sleeve, and is all the more joyful for it. This is a game that celebrates the games, music and movies that helped inspire it, and that makes its surprise release on Xbox and PC (with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass members able to play as part of their membership) all the more exciting. And, as far as this writer is concerned, if Tango Gameworks does want to head back to horror in the future, it always has Last Night In Soho to look to and keep that Edgar Wright fascination in full flow…

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A second season for The Last of Us has been confirmed – as if there were any doubt.

The HBO drama is a big hit, as the first episode has now surpassed 22 million viewers domestically, up nearly five times that of its premiere episode.

As previously reported, the second episode added 1 million viewers to the series, a 22% jump that marks the largest week two audience growth for any HBO original drama series.

“I’m humbled, honored, and frankly overwhelmed that so many people have tuned in and connected with our retelling of Joel and Ellie’s journey,” said the show’s executive producer and co-president of Naughty Dog, Neil Druckmann.

“The collaboration with Craig Mazin, our incredible cast and crew, and HBO exceeded my already high expectations. Now we have the absolute pleasure of being able to do it again with season two. On behalf of everyone at Naughty Dog and PlayStation, thank you.”

“I’m so grateful to Neil Druckmann and HBO for our partnership, and I’m even more grateful to the millions of people who have joined us on this journey,” said executive producer Craig Mazin. “The audience has given us the chance to continue, and as a fan of the characters and world Neil and Naughty Dog created, I couldn’t be more ready to dive back in.”

Based on the critically acclaimed video game, The Last of Us takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed. In it, a hardened survivor named Joel is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone.

What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal journey as both must traverse the US and depend on each other for survival.

Season one stars Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Anna Torv as Tess, Nico Parker as Sarah, Murray Bartlett as Frank, Nick Offerman as Bill, Melanie Lynskey as Kathleen, Storm Reid as Riley, Merle Dandridge as Marlene, Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, Lamar Johnson as Henry, Keivonn Woodard as Sam, Graham Greene as Marlon, and Elaine Miles as Florence.

Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker also star.

New episodes of the series debut Sundays at 9pm ET/PT on HBO and are available to stream on HBO Max, leading up to the finale on March 12.

Starting today, the first episode of The Last of Us will be made available for free on HBOMax.com.

Last week, we asked you to highlight Lightsabers from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which is available as a PlayStation Plus Monthly Game for January. Here are this week’s highlights:

Mannitugames shares Cal raising his blue lightsaber against the Second Sister’s red lightsaber.

bombeard shares Cal raising a yellow lightsaber in a dark cavern.

coalabr14 shares Cal poised to strike with a double sided green lightsaber.

Undead0117 shares a detailed look at a blue lightsaber’s handle.

justinphotomode shares Cal clashing with another character wielding a red lightsaber in both hands

MdeavorVP shares Cal balancing with a double sided purple lightsaber.

Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week? 

THEME: The Last of Us Part I
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on February 1, 2023

Next week, we’re headed back to the world of The Last of Us Part I. Share spine-tingling moments using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

The Nintendo Switch is now one step closer to being an all-in-one portable machine with the launch of the nOS. This new app may not bring a web browser or Netflix to your console, but it does give you a few new tools to use between games.

The nOS, or “new operating system” as developer and publisher RedDeer Games calls it, adds the bones of an operating system to your Nintendo Switch. The nOS lets you take notes, make to-do lists, and crunch numbers.

The nOS adds a calculator, limited gallery of pre-selected images, notebook, to-do list, MS paint-like app, and simple puzzle minigame within a separate piece of software on your Nintendo Switch. One drawback is that despite being positioned as an operating system, these utilities can only be accessed through the app itself; there’s no way at the system level to jump directly into taking notes or adding to your to-do list. It’s now available on the eShop for $40, although a limited-time sale drops that all the way down to $2.

The app, while incredibly bare bones, positions itself uniquely in Nintendo’s ecosystem as few other games like it exist, making it one of the few options available for adding extra functionality. One of the only ways to get a reliable and functioning to-do list on your Switch is to download nOS, which says a lot about how little Nintendo has added to the Switch since it launched. Other apps for note taking, for example, are out there.

The Nintendo Switch released with lackluster entertainment options in 2017. It didn’t have many standalone apps like the ones included here, no streaming platforms like Netflix, and no web browser. That sort of functionality hasn’t improved much in the last six years.

Everything within the nOS worked as expected after several hours of pre-release usage. All sections of the game could be accessed via controller buttons or the touchscreen and the nOS used very little battery during that time. The puzzle and painting applications were nothing more than simple distractions that held my attention for a few minutes.

This type of functionality is mostly targeted at folks who don’t use other devices for tracking tasks or taking random notes. The nOS makes the Switch a more acceptable option for flights, car rides, or other scenarios where you may not want to switch between devices for something as simple as some statistics accounting for Fire Emblem Engage.

A trailer for nOS on YouTube is full of comments wishing this were an actual operating system for the Nintendo Switch. It’s unlikely that’ll ever happen though now that we’re six years into the consoles lifespan and Nintendo has never said it’ll be anything more.

Sad news, folks. Our news reporter CJ is leaving for pastures new today, making this his last day at RPS. Please come and join me in wishing him a fond farewell.

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