Evil aired its final episode this week (probably), which means there’s nowhere to turn for your infusion of priests and nuns, shadowy Vatican operatives, Antichrist figures, sarcastic skeptics, and conniving Satanists getting in each other’s way as they battle the forces of good and evil. Except, well, that’s not true! Those are much-loved themes in film and TV, and while Evil did them in its own wonderfully quirky way, it did sometimes tread familiar ground.
Here are 10 more places to turn, if you want a break from re-watching Evil‘s four seasons on Paramount+.
The Pope’s Exorcist
The timelines don’t quite add up—Russell Crowe’s irreverent Father Amorth, based on the Pope’s real-life personal exorcist, is a mid-1980s dude. But it’s still tempting to imagine him showing up to the Vatican one day and meeting the newest members of his team: Evil‘s Father Acosta (Mike Colter) and Dr. Bouchard (Katja Herbers). They’re newly arrived in Rome, but they’re well-trained in Amorth’s primary area of interest: chasing demons out of humans and back to hell. Stream on Netflix.
The Exorcist TV series
Obviously, The Exorcist movies are very Evil-adjacent, but the Ben Daniels-led TV series, which ran for two seasons across 2016 and 2017, is also an ideal companion piece. Imagine if Evil starred two priests instead of a trio of assessors (including one priest, of course), and followed a single case over a season rather than digging into a monster of the week, with the added intrigue of loosely tying into the movie franchise. Both shows are equally character-driven and both are genuinely scary. Stream on Hulu.
Stigmata
In this 1999 release, Gabriel Byrne plays a Jesuit priest in the business of investigating and/or debunking miracles; the Vatican gets involved when he’s drawn into the case of a woman (Patricia Arquette) who’s suddenly sprouted stigmata-like wounds, and is spewing mysterious phrases in Aramaic. There’s a big conspiracy and cover-up, not unlike the frustratingly murky practices of Evil‘s Entity, who’d prefer you did not refer to them as the Vatican’s secret service. Stream on Tubi.
The Borderlands (also known as Final Prayer)
The Borderlands, also released under the title Final Prayer, is a cut-above 2013 British found-footage film about a trio of men—a priest, a religious brother, and a techie (swap in “psychologist” for “religious brother” and you have Evil‘s team make-up)—who’re sent by the Vatican to investigate disturbing reports coming out of an ancient church. Strange sounds, strange occurrences, people doing strange things—you know it’s all leading up to something, but you’ll never guess what happens in its truly shocking final scenes. Stream on Tubi.
Prince of Darkness
io9’s retro review of this John Carpenter classic highlighted how it contains “one of the most disturbing depictions of evil ever,” and it also has a plot that wouldn’t be too out of place on Evil, as a priest teams up with a physics professor and his students to study what may very well be Satan in liquid form. There are plot holes and some unhinged energy afoot, but Prince of Darkness—stocked with a cast of Carpenter regulars, including Halloween’s Donald Pleasence—will haunt you all the same. Rent or buy on Prime Video.
Rosemary’s Baby
The Julia Garner-starring Rosemary’s Baby prequel, Apartment 7A, is coming to (where else?) Paramount+ soon, but if you’re already in a Satanic baby mood thanks to Evil‘s little Timothy, there’s no better place to go than the original. In 2024, Timothy was carried by a willing surrogate, and created using Kristen’s stolen egg and the devil-worshiping sperm of her worst enemy. In 1968, Rosemary—assaulted by Satan, betrayed by her husband, creeped-upon by her coven of neighbors—gives birth to the great hope of the forces of evil. Different Antichrist circumstances… but both, lest we forget, have their father’s eyes. Stream on MGM+ or Paramount+.
The Omen
Speaking of Antichrist kids, you have to imagine Damien, for all his wealth and privilege, was a much more troublesome baby than sweet Timothy. Of course, Damien’s grandmother didn’t take him to be secretly baptized. Stream on Hulu.
The First Omen
This year’s The First Omen proved that even a nearly 50-year-old horror franchise still has stories worth exploring. While we’ve known since 1976 how toddler Damien turned out, we’ve also now witnessed the lead-up to that infamous baby-swap forced on the Thorn family. It’s maybe the most surprising Antichrist tale to date, even taking Evil‘s own wild narrative into account. Stream on Hulu.
The Vatican Tapes
Michael Peña, Dougray Scott, and Djimon Hounsou star in this 2015 film about a young woman (Olivia Taylor Dudley) whose miraculous return from the brink of death turns out to be… demonic, or perhaps even tied to the Antichrist. Other than the Antichrist thing, its link to Evil is its fascination with Vatican’s vast archives chronicling cases of possession over the years. Stream on Tubi.
When Evil Lurks
Sometimes, there’s no explanation. There’s no Satan, there’s no Catholic Church, there’s no Bible-toting priest with rituals to perform. Sometimes, evil just makes itself spontaneously known, then starts following you around and ruining your life and the lives of everyone around you. There’s a reason When Evil Lurks topped many “most scariest movie of the year” lists last year: it’ll get under your skin and stay there. Stream on AMC+ or Hulu.
Eiichiro Oda has a big update about Netflix One Piece‘s second season. Mike Colter has hopes Evil could find a new home after its impending finale. Plus, Russell T. Davies teases Doctor Who‘s Sea Devil spinoff. To me, my spoilers!
SOULM8TE
Deadline reports Claudia Doumit (The Boys) has joined the cast of the M3GAN spinoff, SOULM8TE, in a currently undisclosed role.
Ruiner
According to Variety, a film adaptation of Reikon’s cyberpunk twin-stick shooter, Ruiner, is now in development at Universal. Wes Ball (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes) is attached to direct.
Freakier Friday
A new Instagram post from Lindsay Lohan confirms filming is about to wrap on Freakier Friday.
Frankie Freako
“After calling a late-night party hotline that promises out-of-this-world fun, uptight yuppie Conor Sweeney must battle the pint-sized forces of evil unleashed through his phone line, led by the maniacal rock n’ roll goblin” of the title in the full trailer for Frankie Freako.
Daredevil: Born Again
During a recent interview with Screen Rant, Charlie Cox teased the arrival of White Tiger, as well as “a couple of other nice little cameos” in the first season of Daredevil: Born Again.
I remember getting those scripts, and the character that I’m thinking about in particular right now, I remember when I read that [story] before I started doing Daredevil in 2014. I always thought that was a really cool storyline and such an interesting character; such an interesting dynamic between the two of them. That was really fun, and I’m really excited about that. And there are a couple of other nice little cameos that come up.
X-Men ’97
During a recent Q&A (via Collider), X-Men ’97 producer Brad Winderbaum confirmed the second season will include “two other X teams.”
There’s many teams, in Marvel, that have the letter “X” that are followed by a hyphen. I would put it to you like this…there’s two other X teams in Season 2.
One Piece
One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda provided an update on the second season of Netflix’s live-action adaptation.
News Coo just delivered something special from Oda-Sensei and it’s filled with excitement and anticipation for Season 2! 🗞️😆 Big reveals are on the horizon, Straw Hats. Brace yourselves for the journey ahead! 🌊🏴☠️ pic.twitter.com/NcywD1sMI3
— ONE PIECE(ワンピース) Netflix (@onepiecenetflix) August 20, 2024
Evil
In conversation with Decider, Mike Colter stated tomorrow’s Evil finale could begin “a new chapter” with “potential to continue” if any prospective streamer or network is interested doing so.
No, we won’t wrap everything up. There will always be more thread to leave unraveled, so there’s some place to go. What I can say about the end…I wouldn’t say a cliffhanger. There will be a new chapter that will be open. All we can say about it is, “I want to see where that goes.” I feel like we leave it in a place where there’s potential to continue on with the storyline. It’s a nice, interesting way to end it, but not end it. I think fans will be like, “That’s fitting. But now I really want to see where the rest of this continues to go.” It’s a perfect ending, I think, for where we are.
The War Between The Land and Sea
Finally, a new Instagram post from Russell T. Davies promising “thrills, deaths, chases, fish, and seven seas of danger” reveals table reads have begun for The War Between The Land and Sea. Can you make out any Doctor Who stars in the photo?
You know Sheryl’s feeling desperate when she’s going to the Catholic Church for help. As she so eloquently tells David when she visits him in the confessional box with a plan to help Timothy and a warning to keep the Bouchards safe and he tries to show her that this is a sign of goodness, that God will forgive her sins: “I don’t want your forgiveness, I hate you fucking guys.” She’s only there because the church is the one place that scares Leland. More and more, I feel like Sheryl isn’t going to make it out of this season alive, and that’s a shame because Sheryl is just the most fun. Saluting Jesus when she walks into St. Joseph’s? Perfect Evil energy right there. Christine Lahti is once again wildly compelling this season — her fear, desperation, and fury are all right there on the surface. If Sheryl does have to go, I hope she goes out in the blaze of glory she deserves.
Okay, so what is Sheryl’s plan to thwart Leland? She wants to get Timothy baptized before the antichrist ceremony. As David informs her, at baptism, the church believes a person is cleansed of original sin and given a “sanctifying grace.” It’s possible that if Timothy’s baptized, all that antichristness inside of him will be washed away. Oh, baby, that would really piss Leland off. Sheryl’s been working with Timothy’s surrogate Leslie to get access to him, so she and David make a plan for an impromptu baptism the next time Sheryl has the baby.
If only it could be so easy. The plan falls apart almost immediately when Leland informs Leslie that he needs Timothy back sooner than expected for “last looks” ahead of the blood ceremony. The “last looks,” the rush to get a pentagram painted on his floor, the whole vibe of rehearsal of an antichrist/satan ceremony is endlessly funny to me. Anyway, Sheryl has to scramble. She calls the rectory, but Father Ignatius informs her that David’s away tending to some errands (oooh boy, will we get to that soon). Sheryl doesn’t care — she is getting this kid baptized tonight before he’s back in Leland’s hands.
Father Ignatius might be confused by the urgency, but Sheryl finds a fast ally when she rolls up to St. Joseph’s and Sister Andrea opens the door. They recognize one another and Sheryl decides she does not need to bullshit this woman. “He’s the antichrist, all right?” Sheryl doesn’t even need to dive deep into Timmy’s parentage; Sister Andrea can smell the demon on him. When she goes to take a peek in the stroller, she doesn’t see the cute lil’ antichrist baby we do; she sees the demon baby. That disgusting monster all gussied up in Kristen’s christening gown? A visual I will cherish for some time to come (because it will certainly be showing up in my nightmares.)
Sister Andrea gets the situation and she’s there to strong arm Father Ignatius as much as Sheryl. A tag-team I never expected and yet, it seems so obvious. Father Ignatius might be confused, but he doesn’t put up much of a fight — you know who does? Satan. Or, at least, some sort of dark force. A huge storm causes a power outage. When they go to the baptismal font, there’s no water — the pipes are frozen. Someone or something is actively trying to prevent this baptism. Sister Andrea says not today Satan, and she really means it. She collects water from the storm and in a hilarious turn, Sheryl has to renounce Satan and say out loud that she believes in God; She chokes on it, but she does say it for the good of the cause. And suddenly, Timmy is baptized and the storm stops. Sheryl even gets the baptismal certificate and a cute photo with Sister Andrea, Father Ignatius, and Timothy to prove it.
Sheryl heading right over to Leland’s to nail the certificate and photo to his door and uttering the sentence, “Like Martin Luther, mother fucker,” is high art; To learn she sealed it with a kiss, too? A gift.
You can imagine Leland’s reaction when he finds what Sheryl left him, along with a giggling, happy baby. The screaming shitmonster is no more. Could the baptism have actually worked? Leland decides to pretend it never happened, but when the 60 gather around Timothy and perform the blood ritual, hailing this coming of Satan and all Timothy does is smile and laugh at them, Leland’s under-the-breath “oh shit” gives his real feelings away. (Michael Emerson, perfect in this scene.) I don’t care what “new age” the Manager revealed in that red painting — Leland’s going to be in some deep shit here.
While all of this welcoming of the antichrist and baptism shenanigans are going on, the assessors are fully immersed in some serious remote viewing. I do wish at this point we got a little more clarification on the Entity and Father Dominic (Father Ignatius warning David that he doesn’t trust Father Dominic is ominous!). Being mysterious is one thing, but this is just getting frustratingly vague. How do they have items to give David to help his remote viewing … but also so desperately need his help to figure it out? Here, Father Dominic provides the coordinates and a danish, a cigar cutter, a sword, and a swatch of red, supposedly matching some painting. You can probably guess by this point that the remote viewing is supposed to lead David to the ceremony going on at Leland’s, however, instead, his visions lead him to the home of a man named Tyler, his wife Daniela, and their two kids — eventually, David realizes that Tyler lives directly under Leland.
And yet, I wouldn’t say the wires got crossed here — it seems very much like David was supposed to see Tyler instead of Leland. It was fate. Or, as David might put it, God intervening. David sees Tyler walk into his surprise birthday party — in an interesting coincidence, it is also David’s 40th birthday — and at first he just sees Tyler having a lovely night with his family and friends. There’s nothing really alarming going on here. When Ben and Kristen surprise David with cake, a cooler full of booze, and an excellent group rendition of “Should I Stay or Should I Go” he tells them. A tipsy Kristen gets awfully close to him and psychoanalyses him a bit: Maybe it was just him processing what his life could have been like if he made different choices. Now, did I chant “kiss, kiss, kiss!” to myself? Yeah, I’m not proud of it, but the sexual tension made me do it.
But the remote viewing of Tyler is real and that evening, when everyone’s gone, it gets much more alarming. David sees Tyler pull a gun out of his desk and hold it up to his head. David yells out no, he asks God to help him … and wouldn’t ya know, all of a sudden, Tyler lowers the gun. But the nightmare isn’t over. David realizes that Tyler now looks like he’s going to shoot not just himself but his wife and daughters, too. David follows him to the girls’ bedroom, and horrified and helpless, he yells out no. And it’s like Tyler can hear him. He collapses in tears. David’s little remote viewing power has leveled up once again and it seems to be both a blessing and a curse.
Now, David is fixated on figuring out who Tyler is and how he can stop him from hurting his family. He knows that he and his wife recently lost their son James in a car accident and Tyler is reeling from the grief, but he can’t find anything about it online. All he has to rely on is his remote viewing. He doesn’t care what Father Dominic is asking of him or that Sister Andrea tells him he is wasting his gift (although she eventually comes around) — David is going to save this man and his family. And when he views Tyler for a second night reaching for his gun, this time Tyler obviously feels a presence in the room with him and it stops him again, he knows he needs to do it quickly.
So what does my guy do? He enlists the help of the two people he trusts most: Kristen and Ben. They are there to assist him with analytical overlays — or AOLs — during his remote viewing. AOLs are things from your real life that might pop up in your remote viewing session; however, once you name the thing you believe to be an AOL, it will disappear from the remote viewing, allowing you to figure out what is part of your vision and what is coming from your own subconscious. We get a fun mini-trip down memory lane when items from old cases pop up in David’s remote viewing (never needed to see the possessed doll again, I’ll tell you that). Eventually, though, David spots a book on depression on the bookshelf, and Kristen recognizes it as a book that Dr. Boggs gives to all of his patients.
It turns out that Daniela, not Tyler, is a patient of Kurt’s, and thanks to a very above-the-board, ethical assist, the team is able to figure out where Daniela and Tyler live — this is how they wind up at Leland’s building. But they have no time for Leland. They (very poorly) lie to Daniela using information David learned while remote viewing about being from a private school they say Tyler is looking into. Honestly, I cannot believe Daniela falls for this. Get a hold of yourself, woman! You have two young daughters to protect! Don’t let a bunch of ding-dongs into your home, even if one does have a priest collar on. Honestly, that is especially true if one has a priest collar on.
While Kristen and Ben chat with Daniela, David is there in the living room when Tyler walks in. This scene is so gorgeous. Both Mike Colter and Sean Patrick Thomas play these little beats, which build up to this intense release so well. While Tyler tries to deny what David’s talking about seeing, David stays the course in a lovely, gentle way. He wants Tyler to know that he isn’t alone in his grief or his depression. As David goes on about how God told him to come to Tyler and about how God told him what he wants Tyler to do, to seek treatment, as David holds a weeping Tyler in his arms, yes it is about saving Tyler, but this moment also feels like David finally accepting this role, this mission, this gift that he’s tried to brush off for so long. He’s owning it now.
And it’s about time, too, because you know something wicked is on its way. We all saw that antichrist ceremony!!
• When Sheryl goes to see David in his confessional, she specifically warns him to look after Lexis. She tells him that Leland believes her to be a sort of John the Baptist to the antichrist. And then, when Kristen brings in the birthday cake decorated by the girls, she notes that Lexis did the red part — her favorite color these days is red. And David notes that.
• How great is Mike Colter in the scene with Sister Andrea? When she chastises him for wasting his gift, he responds: “Have a little more respect for me. This is to stop a man from killing himself and his family.” I love this side of David.
• Wait, no mention of all the Renee/Ben losing his mind stuff? Or Kurt Boggs going viral? I need more info on this and also to know if Tober is still kicking myself. Bring back Tober!
• If you’re wondering about the Martin Luther reference, the guy basically kicked off the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s when he (supposedly) nailed his Ninety-five Theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, outlining his grievances with the Catholic Church. He was confronting their power, much like Sheryl confronting Leland’s.
• One of David’s first AOLs in this episode is a vision of Kristen getting naked in her bathroom. These two still have the hots for each other so bad and it is really throwing me. In a good way. Torture me as long as you want, David and Kristen’s doomed love affair!
The Evil Season 4 Episode 8 release date and time is around the corner, with fans curious about when and where they can stream it online and how to watch it in the U.S. and U.K.
The horror mystery thriller Evil Season 4 has created a frenzy among viewers. The previous episodes showed Sheryk and Leland stabbing each other. Kristen pays a visit to her mother in the hospital but shuns her attempt at reunion. Afterwards, she learns that Lynn is secretly discussing about vocation with Sister Andrea. However, Kristen is fine with their conversations as long as she is present.
When is the Evil Season 4 Episode 8 release date & time?
The episode’s release date is July 11, 2024, and its release time is 12 A.M. PT and 3 A.M. ET.
Below is a table with the episode’s release date and time for the U.S., U.K., and other time zones:
Timezone
Release Date
Release Time
Eastern Time (U.S.)
July 11, 2024
3:00 A.M.
Pacific Time (U.S.)
July 11, 2024
12:00 A.M.
Central Time (U.S.)
July 11, 2024
2:00 A.M.
British Summer Time (U.K.)
July 11, 2024
8:00 A.M.
Where to watch Evil Season 4 Episode 8 for free
You can watch Evil Season 4 Episode 8 for free via Paramount Plus.
Paramount Plus features a vast library of shows from CBS, BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, and Smithsonian Channel. All the episodes of Evil Season 4 are available on Paramount Plus by subscribing to a seven-day free trial.
What is Evil about?
The show is created by Robert and Michelle King. It had three successful seasons so far, and the fourth season will have 14 episodes. Season 4 began with a bitter separation between Kristen and her mother regarding the former’s missing egg. On the other hand, Leland managed to hypnotize Andy. She starts believing the bizarre idea of Kristen and David as a couple. Later, the confrontation regarding the affair leaves Kristen angry. Afterward, the team begins their investigation of supernatural creatures harming the world.
I have often found myself wrestling with the concepts and realities of good and evil. It stands to reason that if you believe in God And His goodness, power and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, then you must also believe in the existence of Satan and his earth bound inherent ‘evilness.’ So that I don’t become too esoteric, allow me to explain. It is the height of hypocrisy or wanton ignorance that we as human beings follow a course of action consistent with one belief and act,at the same time, totally contrary to that same belief.We concede to the reality that evil exists. Our laws and subsequent penalties are there to protect us against criminal, abhorrent and even demonic behavior.
The recognition, the counterbalance then should be a professed belief that confirms the existence of God. It’s supposed to be the good stuff.
There are also laws put in place to protect us on that front too.Unfortunately, it seems that evil demands actions while goodness gets a whole lot of lip service. I believe this is true because we humans, with all of our own flaws and faults (or should I say sinfulness), have gotten used to functioning in a world that Satan does have power in. Thanks to him many of us have become somewhat numb to his brand of life. Fortunately when we come to Christ, we are able to see the contrast between good and evil/sin in our own lives.That’s when we finally get it. By putting ourselves in relationship with the righteousness of Christ, it becomes clear to us where we fit in this struggle between good and evil. We then recognize, we are the prize in this game. To the victor we go. Again, fortunately for us, we have some say in the clubhouse celebration. Once you accept the concept of good and evil in the context of God and the devil, the rules of engagement become clear. In this game the ball has a say in who actually participates in the game. We are that ball in this high stakes game for our very own souls. Imagine that.Wecan stack the deck. But it can’t be by happenstance. It must be deliberate and we must be constant in making sure the ball takes favorable bounces throughout the game.
With this in mind, Christ has given all of us the game plan we need to insure our ultimate victory.“He who believes in me…will never die.” John 11:25-26. That’s it. It’s all about belief. When Jesus says in John 16:8-9,“When He (the Counselor/Holy Spirit) comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment; in regard to sin because men do not believe in me…” He is telling us that the biggest threat to our own salvation is disbelief. You see, belief in Christ brings about condemnation of Satan. It must. It has to. Now we are armed and ready for the struggle.We are on guard against the evil that is intended to destroy us.We now have a point of reference for all of our current and future behaviors.We know the difference between good and evil and recognize our weaknesses in relation to evil and our strengths in relation to good. No contest is without its risks and rewards but for now, let’s play and may God forgive your fumbles and bless your recoveries in the name of his son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
May God bless and keep you always.
This column is from “Spiritually Speaking: Reflections for and from a New Christian” by James Washington. You can purchase this enlightening book on Amazon and start your journey towards spiritual enlightenment.
Evil friends, what a bittersweet way to kick off a new season. As I’m sure you’ve heard, as I’m sure you’ve screamed to the heavens (or to hell, you do you), we are embarking upon Evil’s fourth and final season. The one silver lining I keep in my head is that, at the very least, knowing this is the last hoorah, Robert and Michelle King will certainly be going for broke. Not that they ever don’t. It’s why we love this show, right? Okay, never mind, this is the worst. Isn’t there a demon I can sell my soul to for a renewal or something? Netflix? (Just kidding.) (Or not.)
Unsurprisingly, we’re starting off the season with a bang. And I’m not even talking about that hilarious, oddly hot sex scene with Kristen and Andy in the Bouchard kitchen. But also I guess I’m not not talking about that? The horniest knife work I’ve ever seen! But really, we should kick things off where the show does, with that glorious opening scene in which Kristen takes in the news that Leland has hijacked her eggs and tossed in his sperm to create the Antichrist. The Antichrist will be born in 38 days, and Leland will raise him, and Kristen thinks that’s honestly just hilarious. No, seriously. As only Kristen Bouchard can, she laughs and laughs at the thought of Leland raising a child. “I can’t think of any greater torture than to give you a baby,” she says, thwarting his plans to get under her skin. “I giggle at the thought of you waking up at 3 a.m. because the Antichrist needs changing.” Oh, reader, I giggle too. Leland always feels a few steps ahead of Kristen and our merry band of assessors, so whenever she can get the better of him, even for a minute, it is delicious. Oh, it’s so good to be back.
After Kristen saunters out of that baby shower (what’s on the Antichrist’s registry?) laughing like a goddamned boss, she gets down to business. Sheryl, who of course has known all along that this was Leland’s plan, is now banned from the Bouchard house and forbidden from seeing her granddaughters. I still can’t get a handle on what Sheryl’s endgame is here. Does she have one? Is she simply possessed and loving it? Is there any part of who she used to be before Leland lit her bed on fire (literally, remember)? She remains a mystery.
Kristen’s plan, though, is crystal clear: In her life, in her house, religion is out and science is in, baby. She’s not even entertaining the possibility of this stuff being real anymore. She wants things to go back to normal. No more demons and goblins and Antichrists, just hot kitchen sex and refusing to take her kids to Sunday Mass. Normal!
She carries this new outlook with her to work, too. The gang is summoned to St. Joseph’s for their next assignment with Father Ignatius. Thank God, this sweet man is back to make us laugh but also, mostly, to make us cry — a picture of Monsignor Korecki up on the wall in his office? Be still my heart. He’s apparently just filling in until the Vatican sends someone else, but come on, we need him. We deserve him.
He hands them our case of the week: People are protesting a particle-accelerator lab called Garrow Research Facility, claiming it could open the gates to hell, and the scientists there have requested that our trio investigate to prove those protestors wrong. At the facility, the scientists, led by a physicist named Ethan, don’t help their cause — they’re super-shady, especially when the team starts asking about the whereabouts of a woman who used to work there and was part of a viral video of people performing a blood sacrifice at the lab. In the video, they stab her — it looks super-fake, but their excuses for why she isn’t around also sound super-fake.
Nothing’s adding up, and when David heads back to his little electric scooter — because Evil can find ways to make anything, even checking out a particle-accelerator facilty, just a little extra kooky — one of the custodial workers, Mateo, has left him a note that says “They’re lying” with a time and place to meet him.
And so they meet. Mateo tells the whole story: When they were building the accelerator, they came across a huge sinkhole miles and miles deep; instead of trying to fill it, they cemented over it — but something’s down there. Mateo has his own video, in which smoke starts to fill the accelerator loop and some sort of creature is obscured by it — a big creature. We see only its outline, but it’s enough to be like, Yeah, sure, that could come from the depths of hell.
Well, for us — its not enough for new, skeptic-on-steroids Kristen. Back in the car, she immediately asks Ben to debunk it, something she requests he now do immediately, and he shows her a video he made using some app that can insert “angels” into videos. Mateo’s video could easily be a fake. The way Katja Herbers gleefully tells her friend “It’s good news, David, there’s no monster coming out of hell” should be studied in universities across this country. It is so good. Why are they canceling this show, again?
Things get more muddled when the crew finally meets with the new Vatican rep, Father La Russo. La Russo informs them that the Vatican isn’t actually worried about the gates of hell being opened but rather about the particle accelerator creating a chain of quantum black holes that could swallow the earth. Admittedly, that is much freakier than the gates of hell. Science is crazy, people. Ben is of the understanding that something like this occurring is nearly impossible, but La Russo wants more than just nearly impossible odds — back to the lab the team goes.
This time, the trio splits up. David hops on his cute li’l scooter again and heads down to the section of the loop Mateo had directed them to. Once he’s left alone, weird things start happening. Mainly, he watches as a giant monster bug demon thing comes slithering out of the hole with the woman from the video’s head on it and she’s still whispering for help. Maybe I take back the thing about the black holes being freakier — it’s a tie.
Kristen and Ben go with Ethan to check out all the safety protocols the lab has to prevent black holes from swallowing the earth. (God, I missed the insane sentences doing Evil recaps allows me to write.) Everything looks normal and up to code, but then Ethan invites them both to actually step into the accelerator, which, like, I know nothing about quantum physics, but I do know not to hop into a particle accelerator. Especially one that may or may not be related to the gates of hell. You know my girl Kristen is an immediate “no” when Ethan makes the offer.
You can probably guess that things go terribly wrong: The accelerator starts up — later, they blame it on a test run, but come on, that thing turned on by itself! — and an ion beam … well, I don’t know how to tell you this exactly, but Ben takes an ion beam directly to the face. In the exact moment it happens, he sees flashes of some weird shit but gets a clean bill of health from several doctors. That sounds all well and good, but then Ben goes home and has a wild vision/hallucination/actual sighting of yet another giant buglike demon. Are all our demons this season going to be bug-esque? I miss Ben’s freaky-deaky horny night ghost, but this development is interesting. For some reason, he doesn’t fill in his buddies on this post-ion-beam occurrence, and that is frustrating. Why do these people who have seen the absolutely weirdest shit together not trust one another when the unexplainable happens.
David does the same thing: He lies to Ben and Kristen about his experience with the sinkhole at B33. Instead, he confides in Sister Andrea. Yeah, she’s a real one, but so are Ben and Kristen. Everyone needs all of the information! I am concerned! During his visit with Sister Andrea, David also informs her of another vision he had, of an angel telling him, “Woe to Babylon in 38 days.” Sounds like a prophecy about the end of the world. And no, you’re not wrong: We’ve heard about something else happening in 38 days, too.
The gang heads back to the particle accelerator one last time, and in true Evil fashion, we get something wild happening with no concrete answer. On security cameras, they watch as Mateo, who has apparently copped to blackmailing the facility and making up all of those videos (yeah, right), heads over to the sinkhole. It looks as though he might jump in, but the sinkhole isn’t fully visible in the shot. We see his arms swinging around, we see him moving around in the bottom of the frame, but who can tell what’s happening here? Then Mateo’s gone. When they run over to check out the hole situation and the whole situation, Mateo is still gone, noises like his screaming are coming up from the bowels of the earth, and there’s blood and huge scratch marks on the outer edge of the sinkhole. Are they from his trying to hold on for dear life, or are they from a giant bug monster demon dragging him to the depths of hell? Is it weird that the latter actually seems more plausible?
Back at St. Joseph’s, they tell La Russo and Ignatius that their findings are inconclusive. However, if they are really looking for a reason to shut the place down, their safety codes are not totally up to snuff. La Russo wonders if they can do so before the particle accelerator is officially opened … in 38 days.
Thankfully, David doesn’t keep everything to himself any longer. His friends clock his strange reaction to that number and ask him to spill once they’re alone. He had a dream, he says, about a warning that the world would end in 38 days with the birth of the Antichrist. Once again, Kristen cannot hold in her laughter. “I’m having a son in 38 days,” she tells them. Things are about to get wild.
Actually, things are already wild. While all of this particle-accelerator stuff is happening, something even stranger is going on right under Kristen’s nose. Remember how Leland and Sheryl kidnapped Andy and kept him catatonic in his closet? Remember that? Well, Andy gets a phone call from Leland, and good ol’ Lee plays him that version of “Feliz Navidad” we’ve heard coming from Leland’s toy. Andy is suddenly in a trance. Yes, he knows where he’s supposed to go, he tells Leland before hanging up and leaving his house. “Feliz Navidad” is a trigger noise for whatever the hell they did to Andy, and while I like the guy and want the best for him, that’s just hilarious.
Later, we find him back on that meat slab in the closet, fully catatonic again, with both Leland and Sheryl trying to brainwash him for their own benefit. Leland repeats, “Why is your wife fucking a priest,” to attempt to sow discord in their marriage, and Sheryl repeats, “You need Sheryl back in the house,” because, well, you can figure that one out. I hope at some point their commands start to get crossed and it leads to chaos. But, like, the fun kind. Not this kind, in which Andy shows up at the rectory and wants to start a fight with David for fucking his wife. I don’t want Kristen’s boys fighting like this!
David immediately calls Kristen to have a little check-in on their friendship in light of this accusation, which honestly is adorable. The cute part doesn’t last long because once David finally tells her why he’s worried that the two of them aren’t good anymore, she gets pissed. “Do I have feelings for you? Yeah! But my husband needs to shut the fuck up!” she yells before marching home, chugging a canned margarita and spitting some of it at a picture of her and Andy.
The next morning, she confronts him, and he continues to press her on how far she and David have gone. She tells him to shape up or ship out. In short, Leland’s plan worked spectacularly. Now, we’ll have to wait and see exactly what Leland wants out of this and how far he’ll go to get it.
• Evil’s opening credits remain the best in the biz, and it isn’t even close.
• Sister Andrea may be the busiest nun in New York. She has a revolving door of guests, including David and Lynn and, surprise, surprise, Kurt. Sister Andrea’s frustrated “Oh my God” when he busts in is hilarious on so many levels. I mean, we do know she’s tight with the big guy. I missed our girl!
• Demon Kristen is back taunting David, and yes, she too drinks canned margs.
• Still laughing about Ben’s homemade angel video in which he yells, “I guess I was wrong about science!” I love Ben with all my stupid little heart.
• Evil’s got jokes! Lynn, who is sneaking out to chat with Sister Andrea about becoming a nun, would rather lie to her mom about sneaking around with her boyfriend than tell her the truth. What a world.
• Wait, there’s more jokes. Not that Leland is ever the “good angel,” but I love his hovering over Kristen’s shoulder and trying to be gentle about the whole Antichrist-baby-against-her-will thing and then switching shoulders to be downright demonic about it.
• Is there a creepier sentence in the history of sentences than “Your egg and my sperm, destined for each other from the beginning.”
You don’t even have to watch Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist to consider it a conversation-starter: The debate begins with that title, a bold, unlikely statement that may feel at odds with most experiences of the world. Watching the movie complicates that response even further, given some of the choices its characters make, and the harm they bring to others. And then there’s that abrupt, surprising ending, the kind that will leave viewers arguing over what they actually saw on screen almost as much as they’re arguing about what it means.
Hamaguchi is no stranger to elliptical, unpackable, or discussable endings: His Best Picture Oscar nominee Drive My Car wraps with a long sequence where the audience is just watching the protagonist perform onstage in a multilingual production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, followed by a wordless sequence of another character going about mundane tasks. There’s a great deal of meaning there, but it takes thought, time, and attention to the film’s 179-minute length to access. Evil Does Not Exist is shorter and tighter, but it still centers on a 20-minute scene where residents of a small community politely raise objections about a planned luxury development in the area.
What is Hamaguchi getting at with Evil Does Not Exist? From its title to its mysterious opening tracking shot to that what’s-going-on-here? ending, Polygon had a lot of questions about the movie. Speaking through a translator, we sat down with Hamaguchi to unpack the film.
[Ed. note: End spoilers ahead for Evil Does Not Exist.]
First: on the ending Evil Does Not Exist
Evil Does Not Exist centers on a small rural village, Mizubiki, that’s about to be disrupted by developers building a site for luxury camping, or “glamping.” At a town-hall meeting, the locals object, and their thoughtful, thorough analysis of the project’s flaws impresses the presenters, Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani). But when they share the objections with their boss, they learn he doesn’t actually care about making the project sustainable or even profitable. He just cares about the pandemic-era development grants he’ll earn if he gets the proposal in ahead of a deadline.
Takahashi and Mayuzumi connect with Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), a widower and odd-job man in Mizubiki, who’s raising a young daughter, Hana (Ryo Nishikawa), on his own. Takumi is a quiet man who’s closely connected with nature, and Takahashi envies him and wants to move out to Mizubiki and live in nature himself. But then Hana goes missing, and the town rallies to find her. Takahashi and Takumi are together when they find her lying in a field, where she’s been attacked by a wounded deer. Takumi suddenly turns on Takahashi and brutally strangles him, then grabs Hana’s body and runs. Takahashi gets up and stumbles across the field, then falls again and lies still.
Is Takahashi dead? Is Hana dead? Hamaguchi says he wants to leave those things up to interpretation, to invite people to discuss the ending and what it means. “In order to be able to make this happen, I think two things are necessary,” he told Polygon. “The first part is to end in this abrupt manner, almost leaving the audience behind. But that in itself, I don’t think is enough to create conversations and create different interpretations. It really relies on what the characters do up until that point.”
Why does Takumi attack Takahashi in Evil Does Not Exist?
Image: Sideshow and Janus Films
To some degree, the end of the film is foreshadowed in something Takumi tells his city visitors during the film: Deer aren’t ordinarily dangerous to humans, but a gutshot deer will lash out violently, particularly to protect its young. This is what happened to Hana: In what appears to be either a flashback or Takumi’s quick mental reconstruction when he sees her lying in the field, we see that she encountered a pair of deer, one of which had been shot. She attempted to approach them, and the wounded deer attacked her.
In the same way, Takumi is symbolically a “gutshot deer.” He’s metaphorically wounded, both by the imminent destruction of his community and the natural world around him by predatory outsiders, and by the hurt done to his daughter, in part because of his own neglect. As we learn early in the movie, Takumi was sometimes a unreliable father: Hana is only out in the woods alone because she’s taken to walking home from school by herself, since he didn’t always remember to pick her up from school. Like the deer, Takumi lashes out irrationally, not at the source of his pain, but at the nearest available target.
“I do think he’s acting out of desperation,” Hamaguchi says. “In that moment, I think he does realize in [seeing Hana’s body] that he’s not able to be the kind of father he maybe wanted to be. And I think there are certain clues within the film where we see that.”
While Takumi’s behavior may seem extreme and difficult to understand, Hamaguchi hopes viewers will go back and watch the movie again, and see how his response fits in with other behavior we’ve seen from him.
“What I hope I’m achieving is that people feel that each character that appears in the film all have their own individual lives,” he says. “The way they act and what we see in the film are just moments that the cameras happened to capture, of life they each live outside of the film. And once people can feel that these characters actually do exist, then when we see them do something that is not quite understandable, the audience can still feel it’s still possible that they could do these things.”
He considers the movie’s ending an invitation to analyze and sit with the story: “When this kind of ending happens, I feel it causes the audience to reflect back on what they experienced before that, to rethink what they just watched, and to reflect upon whether their worldview of what they just saw is in was in fact correct,” he says. “That effect to me is a very interesting way to experience a film, and can result in a lot of interpretations. And so if that’s what it is doing, then I’m very grateful.”
Why would Takumi respond to grief by trying to murder a near-stranger?
Image: Sideshow and Janus Films
In terms of understanding Takumi’s attack, Hamaguchi suggests looking back at his 2018 movie Asako I & II, about a woman who falls for two physically identical men (played by the same actor) with radically different personas, and has to decide which one to stay with. “In that, a protagonist also makes choices,” Hamaguchi says. “And I think from the perspective of the wider society in which she lives, perhaps the choice she makes can be viewed as a bad choice. But I think from her perspective, it was the only choice she could make.”
He says the decision helps Asako see herself more clearly, and learn more about what she values. “It’s my perspective of living and the worldview that I have in some ways,” he says. “I think there are moments in our lives where we suddenly understand something about ourselves through the choices we just made.”
Similarly, Hamaguchi says that when Takumi sees Hana lying in the field, he understands where his own choices have led. “I think in that moment, he realizes through the failures he has had,” he says. “That leads him to try to figure out desperately about what to do. That action might be read as absurd from the surroundings, or from people around him. But I think to me, this choice that he makes is something that for this particular character, could happen.”
Put another way: Takumi has been a passive, quiet character throughout the process of the development plan, to the point where Takahashi and Mayuzumi try to hire him as a liaison with the community, a manager for the site who could also quell local tensions. In attacking Takahashi, he’s violently pushing back against the idea that he could be drawn to take their side against his community’s. He’s also defending his territory from outsiders, as a wild animal might. And like a wild animal, he’s acting without thinking about the consequences, or even about whether that action might plausibly achieve his goals. But that’s just one interpretation.
What does the title of Evil Does Not Exist mean?
Image: Sideshow and Janus Films
Evil Does Not Exist was originally planned as a wordless 30-minute short film, a visual accompaniment for new music by Eiko Ishibashi, who also composed the score for Drive My Car. But Hamaguchi says her music and his location scouting inspired the story of the film — and the title came before that story was locked down.
“Before writing the script, when I was thinking about what I could shoot, I went out to where Eiko Ishibashi makes her music,” he says. “She makes her music amongst this very rich natural landscape. It was winter when I was there, and when I looked out into the winter landscape, these words popped up. I thought, OK, it’s very cold right now. Standing here, I feel like I’m going to freeze to death. And yet it’s not that I feel any evil intentions here.”
Hamaguchi says part of that insightcame from living in an urban environment, where it’s rare to be far away from other people. The isolated community in Evil Does Not Exist lives far away from that kind of constant engagement, and the people in that community are often alone in nature — which can be a dangerous environment, but not a purposefully or consciously inimical one. As the film’s story developed, Hamaguchi added characters that do live in urban environments, and do act in deliberately harmful ways, but he kept the title throughout. “Looking back at the film that we had made,” he says, “it made me think that watching this particular film against this title is probably an interesting experience together.”
But doesn’t the developer bringing chaos to a community for profit act in an evil way? “I think it’s actually a very difficult question to answer properly,” Hamaguchi says. “Say for now, we say that there is no evil in nature. Then the question becomes, Is human society not natural? I think we can say humans are a part of nature. But I think what’s also true about humans is that there might be more choices available.
“We can reflect back on our choices and say, I should have chosen this way or I should have chosen this or that, and sometimes make these decisions of whether those are good or bad choices. As human beings, when we’re living our lives, sometimes we think something is bad, or something was a bad choice. But when you interpret this as desire, I think you can also see that was part of nature as well. This is just how I honestly feel at the current moment.”
Why Evil Does Not Exist opens on a four-minute tracking shot of a camera looking up at trees
Image: Sideshow and Janus Films
While the opening of Evil Does Not Exist doesn’t seem like it’d offer much inside on the ending, it actually ties directly into Hamaguchi’s point about perspective, understanding, and the natural world.
“That particular perspective that we see at the beginning is a perspective that only a camera can manage to capture,” he says. “Because as human beings, even if you look up and keep looking, it’s not possible to have your point of axis not moving, the way it does within that tracking shot. To be seeing that, with [the camera moving at] a very steady speed […] this vision is not necessarily a vision humans can have.
“And I think through watching through this perspective, this vision for four minutes, my hope was that the people who are looking can acquire a slightly different way of perceiving, or a different way of thinking. Perhaps it’s closer to how a machine sees, or perhaps how nature sees. This is something that I wouldn’t know. But I think the fact that we, the audience, can acquire a different way of looking, perhaps, can lead the audience into understanding the rest of the film in a deeper level. And that’s why I wanted to start the film in that way.”
Earlier this week, Xbox announced that it would be shuttering several studios it had attained as part of its $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda, including Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, and Roundhouse Studios, the last of which is being absorbed into another team. Collectively, the studios’ produced games like Dishonored, Prey, Redfall, Mighty Doom, Hi-Fi Rush, and more. These studios, and some of the more innovative titles that they developed, seemed at one point to be the future of Xbox’s floundering brand. After a downturn in many of Xbox’s large key franchises due to mismanagement, the shifting priorities of its audience, and the Xbox’s dwindling image across the world, titles like the ones these teams were developing seemed like the start of a promising new era for Xbox, one that might be marked by more creative, sustainably made games that weren’t designed to bleed its audience dry. – Moises Taveras Read More
Demián Rugna’s terrifying possession movie When Evil Lurks — now available for streaming on Shudder — breaks the rules of the subgenre in all sorts of startling ways. For one thing, it isn’t a religious movie at all, even though most exorcism movies are. For another, the victims facing down a demon in his film aren’t struggling with faith, or with something they don’t understand. They all know the rules for dealing with the hideous, bloated creatures that result from demon possession — the encarnado, or as the English subtitles put it, “the rotten.” There’s even a little teaching song about the rotten, presented in the film as something akin to a children’s lullaby.
So if everyone knows how to safely deal with demons, why is the movie so frightening? Because the rules — including “stay away from electricity and electrical appliances, demons can travel through them” and “only kill the possessed in certain specific ways” — take effort and self-control, and people are often greedy, lazy, or impulsive. “It’s too hard,” Rugna told Polygon at the 2023 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. “You need to comply with the rules because the demon wants to be with you, but it’s too hard for us to run away from cities, trying to avoid electricity, to avoid even thinking about the devil.”
When Evil Lurks is a tremendously frightening movie, in part because it’s as much about the power we give our personal demons as it is about any sort of supernatural force. Unlike in films like The Exorcist and its many sequels and reboots, Rugna’s characters can’t expect any help from organized religion or from God. “I have no religion,” the director said. “And I hate religion as a business. I love religion as faith, or for helping people. But not as a business.” Instead, the characters in When Evil Lurks have to rely on each other, and on their own courage and discipline. That goes poorly, to put it mildly.
They’re also meant to rely on institutions put in place to help them. At the beginning of the film, it becomes clear that the government has systems in place to handle the encarnado, and those systems have failed entirely because of bureaucratic indifference and laziness. Rugna’s inspiration for the movie explains a lot about where that theme came from: As he told the Fantastic Fest audience in a Q&A after the movie’s premiere, he got the idea for When Evil Lurks from a series of news stories about farm pesticides in his native Argentina causing widespread health issues.
“The owners of those lands contaminate those fields with glyphosate to kill bugs — pesticide,” he said at the Q&A. “There’s a lot of people who work in those fields, and they get cancer. You’d probably see a little kid with cancer, because they are workers. They didn’t say anything — or if they say something, nobody knows.” He suggests that corporate apathy about the workers’ health, and the way the issue occured “out in the middle of nothing,” where it’s easy for profiteers and city-dwellers to ignore the impact of their choices, started him thinking about the idea of lurking evils given free rein to spread.
“The pesticide infected them,” Rugna told Polygon. “Kids were born with cancer. Sometimes you see something in the news, but then there’s nothing more to say, and you forget the image. They’re in the middle of nothing, the middle of poverty. They must do work for less than a couple dollars, and they’re all ill. After you turn off the television, you forget, but they are still there, they are still probably gonna die.”
He said it happens too often, that “people who work the land” get “abandoned” by the system. “When I decided to make a movie with some kind of exorcism, I thought, OK, but what happens if the people cannot reach a priest? All the Exorcist movies happen in the city, in a big house. But what if we’re in the middle of nothing, in a poor house, with poor people who nobody cares for? Even the owner of the land wants to get rid of them, to burn their houses. It happens in my own country all the time — not the demons, [but the rest].”
All that said, while Rugna emphasizes how important realism in the acting, relationships, and setting was to him in making the movie, he laughs off the idea that realism in terms of reflecting the real world is important in horror. “You can see a movie just for fun,” he said. “Being entertaining is most important for me. If you have the chance to have reflection, that’s a double goal. But for me, it’s not fully necessary.”
He said the social inspirations just worked their way naturally into the writing because they’re part of his background. He didn’t set out to make a message movie, just one that would scare audiences. “I’ve noticed for myself in my movies, for a greater horror story, I want to make you suffer,” he said. “And the social element just comes along with my culture.”
Photo: Shudder/IFC Films
Ironically for a movie inspired by bureaucratic indifference to the suffering of children, though, one of the biggest limits on his film was bureaucratic regulations about how he could handle his child cast. When Evil Lurks is unusually brutal to its kid characters, with graphic scenes of child distress, mutilation, and death. In response to an audience question at the Q&A about how he protected the child actors, Rugna grinned and explained how his production walked the actors’ parents through their safety plans.
“I’d need two hours to tell about the process of working with the parents,” he said. “It’s too funny, because we did take care with the parents — we thought, OK, we want to share the entire script. We were scared about the reaction of the parents. […] The parents were too excited to put their kids in our movie. You can’t imagine. […] When the parents read the script, and we’re like, The kid’s gonna be bit by a dog and crushed with a car — ‘Oh, I love the script! Got it!’”
But the government was much more limiting, Rugna said. Among other things, in spite of the violence of the scenes involving children, they weren’t allowed to have artificial blood on the kids’ skin at any time. In another scene, a teenager wasn’t allowed to hold a gun during an emotional monologue. “All the time, it was horrible to work with the kids,” he said, laughing. “Not for the kids, for the rules.”
Things haven’t been going great for Xbox recently. Microsoft is facing stiff resistance in its attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard. It released hardly any big exclusive blockbusters last year. And it just cut over 10,000 jobs last week, including many senior developers at Halo Infinite studio 343 Industries. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer tried to remain upbeat and do damage control on each of these points and more in a new interview with IGN.
“Every year is critical,” he said. “I don’t find this year to be more or less critical. I feel good about our momentum. Obviously, we’re going through some adjustments right now that are painful, but I think necessary, but it’s really to set us up and the teams for long-term success.”
This week captured both the peril and promise facing Xbox right now. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a drop in net-income of 12 percent for the most recent fiscal quarter compared to the prior year. Xbox gaming hardware and software were down by similar percentages, and Microsoft said nothing about how many new subscribers its Game Pass service had gained since it crossed the 25 million mark exactly a year ago.
Then on Wednesday Microsoft provided a sleek and streamlined look at its upcoming games in a Developer Direct livestream copied right from the Nintendo playbook. Forza Motorsport was seemingly quietly delayed to the second half of the year, but looked like a beautiful and impressive racing sim showpiece. Arkane’s co-op sandbox vampire shooter Redfall got a May 2 release date. Real-time strategy spin-off Minecraft Legends will hit in April. And to cap things off Tango Gameworks, maker of The Evil Within, shadow-dropped Hi-Fi Rush on Game Pass, a colorful rhythm-action game from left field that’s already become the first undisputed gaming hit of 2023.
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“2022 was too light on games,” Spencer confessed in his IGN interview. 2023 shouldn’t be thanks to Redfall and Starfield, Bethesda’s much-anticipated answer to the question, “What if Skyrim but space?” But both of those games were technically supposed to come out last year. Meanwhile, Hi-Fi Rush, like Obsidian’s Pentiment before it, is shaping up to be a critically acclaimed Game Pass release that still might be too small to move the needle on Xbox’s larger fortunes.
Spencer remained vague when asked how successful these games were or their impact on Game Pass, whose growth has reportedly stalled on console. “I think that the creative diversity expands for us when we have different ways for people to kind of pay for the games that they’re playing, and the subscription definitely helps there,” he said.
Hi-Fi Rush, Redfall, Starfield, and a new The Elder Scrolls Online expansion due out in June are also all from Bethesda, which Microsoft finished acquiring in 2021. The older Microsoft first-party game studios have either remained relatively quiet in recent years while working on their next big projects, or, in the case of 343 Industries, were recently hit with a surprising number of layoffs.
Following news of the cuts last week, rumors and speculation began to swirl that 343 Industries—which shipped a well-received Halo Infinite single-player campaign in 2021, but struggled with seasonal updates for the multiplayer component in the months since—was being benched. The studio put out a brief statement over the weekend saying Halo was here to stay and that it would continue developing it.
Image: Bethesda / Microsoft
Spencer doubled down on that in his interview with IGN, but provided little insight into the reasoning behind the layoffs or what its plans were for the franchise moving forward. “What we’re doing now is we want to make sure that leadership team is set up with the flexibility to build the plan that they need to go build,” he said. “And Halo will remain critically important to what Xbox is doing, and 343 is critically important to the success of Halo.”
Where Halo Infinite’s previously touted “10-year” plan fits into that, however, remains unclear. “They’ve got some other things, some rumored, some announced, that they’ll be working on,” Spencer said. And on the future of the series as a whole he simply said, “I expect that we’ll be continuing to support and grow Halo for as long as the Xbox is a platform for people to play.” It’s hard to imagine Nintendo talking about Mario with a similar-sounding lack of conviction.
It’s possible Microsoft’s continued struggles with some of its internal projects is partly why it’s so focused on looking outside the company for help. Currently that means trying to acquire Activision Blizzard for $69 billion and fighting off an antitrust lawsuit by the Federal trade Commission in the process. Microsoft had originally promised the deal to get Call of Duty, Diablo, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush would be wrapped up before the end of summer 2023. That deadline’s coming up quickly, even as the company continues offering compromises, like reportedly giving Sony the option to continue paying to have Activision’s games on its rival Game Pass subscription service, PS Plus.
Spencer told IGN he remains bullish on closing the deal, despite claiming to have known nothing about the logistics of doing so when he started a year ago. “Given a year ago, for me, I didn’t know anything about the process of doing an acquisition like this,” he said. “The fact that I have more insight, more knowledge about what it means to work with the different regulatory boards, I’m more confident now than I was a year ago, simply based on the information I have and the discussions that we’ve been having.”
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