Today at New York Comic Con, it was revealed that voice actor Matt Mercer, perhaps best known as the Dungeon Master of popular actual-play webseries Critical Role, will be starring as gunslinger Vincent Valentine in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second chapter in Square Enix’s ongoing remake of the classic ‘90s Japanese role playing game.
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Previous trailers for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth have showed off a variety of different locales, as well as characters not featured in the first chapter, 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, including Vincent Valentine. Much of the game remains shrouded in mystery, however, as the remake project isn’t just a faithful retelling of the original story, but sees its narrative branching off in some bold new directions. Today at NYCC, a panel featuring voice actors from the highly anticipated sequel revealed a bit more about what to expect.
While Matt Mercer did voice a few characters in the first entry of the remake project, they were mostly minor NPCs with names like “Wall Market Thug.” During the October 14 panel, Mercer revealed that he auditioned for Valentine in Rebirth, saying that he “put all of his energy” into the audition. Then, he didn’t hear back for nine months. And when he finally did get a callback, it only said that he’d once again play nameless NPCs.
In what he described as a prank played on him by the folks producing the game, Mercer said he was brought into the booth to record lines for a random NPC when the screen containing the script started glitching out before fading to black and presenting him with another character: that of Vincent Valentine. Quite a way to find out you’ve got the job.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth releases on February 29, 2024 for PlayStation 5.
As Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s February 29 release date grows ever closer folks are getting antsy about seeing beloved characters like Cait Sith (pronounced “Kate Sihth,” apparently) Vincent Valentine, and Cid party up with Cloud. Although creative director Tetsuya Nomura has already confirmed that the aforementioned characters will join Cloud in combat similarly to how Red XIII did in Final Fantasy VII Remake, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be introduced in the same order as in the original game. We don’t even know where Rebirth will end given the remake trilogy’s altered timeline. But one fan believes their wild theory pinpoints where Rebirth will end, and it involves FFVII’s cigarette-smoking scientist, Cid.
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In 1997’s Final Fantasy VII, Cid joins the crew long before they make their way to the City of Ancients, a place we’ve seen the Rebirth cast explore in the latest trailer. But for whatever reason the Rebirth trailers still haven’t shown off Cid, despite revealing other, arguably bigger, characters like the vampire-coded Vincent Valentine. And this Reddit user believes they know why.
Yesterday, nikokow59 shared a screenshot from the Final Fantasy VII Trivia Twitter account to the FFVIIRemake subreddit about a scrapped story beat of the classic game that would have prevented Cid from joining Cloud and crew until an even later point in the game. According to the FF7_Trivia tweet, Cid wouldn’t have joined the party until after Sephiroth summoned Meteor. Talk about cutting things close to the buzzer beater. Another tidbit of this scrapped concept involved Shinra sending Cid out on a suicide mission to offset the celestial body with a rocket of his own making, as if he was in some video game version of the 1998 Bruce Willis film, Armageddon.
“In the OG [Cid] didn’t really need to follow the party, so this time that could be a good reason,” Nikokow59 wrote.
Nikokow59’s theory would also suggest that Cid’s famous rocket experiment, which originally took place before the events of FFVII, would instead be a part of Rebirth’s story and serve as the game’s cliffhanger. That would make a lot of sense considering there’s still an entire third game to come to complete the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy. Do you think Nikokow59’s theory holds water, or will Square Enix end Rebirth on a different note?
Either way, we’ll have to wait a while to find out, as Final Fantasy VII Rebirth doesn’t launch until February 29 on PlayStation 5.
A giant batch of new Final Fantasy VII Rebirth interviews and previews just dropped to kickoff Tokyo Game Show 2023 and the sequel is sounding more promising than ever. Here’s everything we’re learning from Square Enix’s latest marketing bonanza around the upcoming timed PlayStation 5 exclusive.
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The new round of hands-on impressions come from two demos, one taking place during the Nibelheim incident flashback that sees Cloud fighting alongside Sephiroth, and another showing off open-world exploration around the outskirts of Junon, the sea-side military city with a giant gun mounted on it. Writers at IGN, Polygon, GameSpot, andmore came away impressed by how the sequel expands on Final Fantasy VII Remake’s world and mechanics, though many are still eager to find out more about how Rebirth will deviate from the original 1997 PlayStation game’s story.
“As with the previous game, we have strived for the right balance between old and new scenes in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, but we also tried to take on more new challenges than we did in Final Fantasy VII Remake with some of the new scenes,” producer Yoshinori Kitase told the PlayStation Blog last week. “I am confident these new scenes will be wildly enjoyable for fans and newcomers alike.” Time will tell. For now, here are a bunch of interesting new details going around in today’s previews.
At 150GB, Rebirth is huge, but you won’t be swapping between two discs
Image: Square Enix
Director Naoki Hamaguchi confirmed to Game Informer that the total size of the game on PS5 is 150GB, with 100GB on the first disc and 50GB on the second. Unlike the PS1 version, however, players won’t be swapping discs midway through. Instead, they’ll download the whole thing at once and then be able to play the entire game with either disc inserted.
The game ends after the Forgotten City
Image: Square Enix
Creative director Tetsuya Nomura also confirmed to Game Informer that Rebirth will go up to and include the end of the Forgotten Capital, known as the City of Ancients in the original game. That’s where Aerith dies in the 1997 version, but given how the remake trilogy is messing with the canon, anything could happen this time around.
You can go on monster hunts
Image: Square Enix
Like Final Fantasy XII, XV, and XVI, Rebirth will have special enemy hunts out in the sequel’s much more expansive, semi-open world. According to Polygon, players will encounter extra difficult monster variants while exploring that can be defeated in specific ways to earn extra rewards. Hopefully the game uses this to showcase some deep cuts from Final Fantasy VII’s bestiary.
Synergy Skills and Abilities are like combo techniques from Chrono Trigger
Image: Square Enix
Revealed in the most recent State of Play trailer, party members this time around will have an extra slate of attacks called Synergy Skills. These open up while blocking and allow multiple characters to work together, like Cloud knocking Barrett’s gun fire into nearby enemies. Synergy Abilities are even stronger, andGameSpot likens them to Chrono Trigger’s combo techniques. They basically combine multiple characters’ limit breaks into an extra powerful finisher.
There’s crafting
Image: Square Enix
Fortunately, it doesn’t look too menacing. Players can pick up random materials while out in the world and use them to make phoenix downs and other recovery items. It’s not clear how extensive the system will be, but it probably beats running back to town when you run out of potions.
Sephiroth is playable
Image: Square Enix
Players could command Sephiroth for a short bit during the original game’s Nibelheim flashback, and the new demos confirm that’s the case in Rebirth as well. There’s apparently even an extended sequence where he and Cloud team up to fight through enemy hordes, with players able to control the super SOLDIER as he unleashes hell with his giant Masamune blade.
Vincent is not, but he’ll still fight with you
Image: Square Enix
Teased during the latest trailer, IGN confirms the former Turk turned shapeshifting gunslinger can’t be controlled but he’ll still accompany players in the late part of the game as Red XIII did near the end of Remake. Nomura hinted to Game Informer that Vincent may join the player’s party for real by the final game in the trilogy.
Nobody’s seen Cid yet
Image: Square Enix
The cigarette-smoking, curse-spewing pilot was absent from the latest round of demos. That doesn’t mean he won’t be in the game at all. In the 1997 version’s timeline, Cid joins the crew long before they make it to the City of Ancients. Rebirth has a ton of ground to cover, however. Either Cid is being held back for a later reveal or his content has been moved to a later part of the trilogy’s story.
Cloud can swim
Players can get some laps in around Junon if they want, the demos confirmed. Whether there will be anything to discover or fight in the water remains to be seen. Will the spikey-haired punk get an alternate speedo costume? He’d better.
The Junon dolphin is back
Swimming will also be crucial for one of the most memorable scenes from the early part of Final Fantasy VII: riding a dolphin to the upper layer of the Junon military base. Simply called Mr. Dolphin in the original, he looks great in 4K and his return shows Square Enix isn’t shying away from the 1997 version’s absurd mini-games.
Here’s Red XIII riding a chocobo
I can’t believe this is real.
You can pet the baby chocobo chicks
Chocobo breeding returns in Rebirth, complete with blue, green, and golden chocobos. But there are also chocobo chicks, they are adorable, and Cloud can pet them. It’s a beautiful Kodak moment before he hauls them off to the Gold Saucer racetrack.
Zack will get an entire episode to himself
Image: Square Enix
Cloud’s First Class SOLDIER friend had a very minor role in the 1997 game but it expanded significantly in subsequent adaptations and spin-offs, most notably Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. Kitase told IGN that the black-haired swordsman will be getting a lot more facetime in Rebirth. “There will be a new episode with Zack, that will contain even more of him than the Remake,” he said. “I’m not able to say much more than this as I would like for players to play and experience this with it in their own hands.”
Friends, the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth hype train has left Midgar station and is barreling toward us at a fever pitch in the run-up to the RPG’s PlayStation 5 release date of February 29, 2024. Y’all see that new trailer? If you haven’t, you’ve probably at least heard fans squealing about the first look at Vincent Valentine, Zack not being dead like he’s supposed to be, and several other cool moments. All that’s well and good, but there’s one moment in the trailer we are not talking about enough. And we should be, because the best character in all of Final Fantasy VII is coming back in Rebirth: Andrea Rhodea, the king of the Honeybee Inn.
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Andrea is one of the best additions in Final Fantasy VII Remake’s new spin on an old story. He’s the owner and lead dancer of the Honeybee Inn, which was a brothel in the original 1997 Final Fantasy VII. In Remake the Honeybee Inn is a lavish nightclub, complete with extravagant dance routines, stunning costumes based on the titular bug, and a hunky pansexual king running the place.
The changes worked on a few fronts. It made the Honeybee Inn a more memorable touchstone of Cloud and Aerith’s time in the Wall Market rather than a weird, uncomfortable detour tinged with gay panic. Now it’s a celebratory moment about the freedom of expression and breaking down gender norms. The updated scene let Cloud dress in drag without shame and felt like a real queer space in a game that was otherwise willing to assume Cloud was involved with a woman as long as they were in each other’s proximity. Sure, Cloud and Aerith are just passing through, but it was a meaningful moment for Final Fantasy VII’s larger world to show that queer people and places exist.
Even as a person who doesn’t love Final Fantasy VII Remake for a lot of reasons we won’t get into—don’t get me started on my lack of faith in Square to pull off an Evangelion-style meta-commentary after nearly every extended universe it’s done in Final Fantasy has undermined the source material in some way—the Honeybee Inn scene remains an all-time great moment for me in the series. It’s joyful to watch unfold, and Andrea is one of the most captivating characters for as little screentime as he gets.
Given that he’s a side character and pretty tied to a specific location the party is departing at the end of Final Fantasy VII Remake, I didn’t think we’d see Andrea again in Rebirth, or the third game that will wrap up this revamped story. But it looks like we’re heading to the Gold Saucer in Rebirth, and Andrea is about to dance his ass off once again.
And look at this king fucking go. He was a charismatic dancer in Remake, even when saddled with a newbie dance partner like Cloud. Whenever I heard a catchy pop song back in 2020 (say, anything from Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica”) images of Andrea and Cloud dancing immediately entered my mind, like an old screensaver or music video. So I’m sure the new choreography he and his crew are working on in Rebirth will stamp itself onto any pop album I listen to in 2024.
Square Enix
I really loved Dion and his gay relationship in Final Fantasy XVI, but because of a few disappointing decisions Square Enix made with the character, I still left that game a bit saddened by its apparent hesitance to showcase his love story with the same confidence as it did his straight counterparts’. Fresh off Remake’s Andrea, an incredibly proud queer man in the Final Fantasy universe, Dion’s treatment felt like two steps forward and one step back. I don’t expect Andrea will play a huge role in Rebirth, but I’m very glad to see he’s back, killing it on the stage, and looking fine as hell in white.
The fall season is fast approaching and with it comes a new lineup of games for PlayStation Plus subscribers. Keeping in line with last month’s diverse catalog of PS Plus offerings, September’s list features role-playing games, first-person shooters, and gorgeous story-driven games coming to the service on September 19.
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First up is Nier: Replicant ver.1.22474487139, the 2021 remaster of Square Enix’s cult-classic 2010 action-RPG, Nier: Gestalt. Summarizing this predecessor to creator Yoko Taro’s later mega-hit Nier: Automata is a bit of a tall task considering its many twists, turns, and multiple endings. All you need to know is you play as a nameless protagonist as he and his party of outcasts battle against hordes of otherworldly monsters to save his kidnapped sister. The game is chock full of anime-esque weapons and even more (slightly clunky) anime-inspired combat and its soundtrack unequivocably fucks.
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim – 13 Stories Trailer | PS4
Another big get in September will be the sci-fi time-traveling with mechs (!) saga 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Developed by Vanillaware, 13 Sentinels follows a group of high school students who summon giant mechs to defend their city from invading kaiju. 13 Sentinels plays like a mix between a tactical tower defense game and a 2D side-scrolling adventure game with lovely background art. If that’s a sufficient elevator pitch for you, I would advise keeping a notepad on hand because the game has a bunch of mind-blowing twists that’ll make your brain whirl.
PS Plus Line-Up For September 2023
Here’s everything else coming to PS Plus in September:
Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
Star Ocean The Divine Force
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2
Odin Sphere Leifthrasir
Unpacking
Planet Coaster: Console Edition
This War of Mine: Final Cut
Cloudpunk
Contra: Rogue Corps
Tails Noir
Call of the Sea
West of Dead
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness
PAW Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls
And here are the additional games coming for PlayStation Premium members (it’s mostly more Star Ocean):
Whether in seriousness or jest, best to just leave all vaguely unorthodox Halo opinions at the door. Halo: Combat Evolved’s campaign is an all-time classic. We shall never gaze upon the likes of Halo 3’smultiplayer community again. Do not say you loved being able to sprint in Halo 5, let alone that you thought the first Halo without Bungie was the GOAT. Master Chief himself, space hockey pads and all, would not survive the psychic damage.
Final Fantasy Tactics nailed so many things so exquisitely that, despite plenty of sequels, spiritual successors, and fan homages, there’s never been anything quite like it since. Arcadian Atlas is the latest indie strategy RPG to try and channel its greatness into something familiar but new, and sadly, it mostly flounders.
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Created by Twin Otter Studios, Arcadian Atlas came to Steam on July 27 after first getting funded on Kickstarter way back in 2016. Despite the years of waiting, it feels like a rough first draft that needs more work. Set in a kingdom thrust into civil war over a succession crisis and royal family in-fighting, it follows two romantically involved soldiers, Vashti and Desmond, onto the battlefield as their conflicting loyalties and principles threaten to unravel their lives. Every scene is rendered with beautiful sprites reminiscent of Square Enix’s classic, and each new plot point is punctuated by a turn-based fight on a chessboard-like grid between competing squads of archers, medics, magicians and knights.
Gif: Twin Otter Studios / Kotaku
I’ve played about four hours so far, and the story can be compelling when it doesn’t feel barebones or clumsy. Star-crossed lovers thrust into the chaos of a civil war is a fine crucible for interrogating what makes characters tick and how far they’re willing to go to fight for what matters most to them, even if the dialogue sometimes feels undercooked, “Listen, I’m not happy about it either, but you know how much dark magic damaged my village,” Desmond tells Vashti early on. “As much as I hate to say it, he has to be put to death.”
But the real issue with Arcadian Atlas is that it’s a chore to navigate and play, and there’s no real creativity or depth in its RPG systems to make battles exciting or make it satisfying to grow and level up your crew. Skill trees are brief and mostly revolve around earning damage upgrades. There are a dozen unique job classes, but you can’t mix and match abilities. Combat also heavily favors ranged units, which have good damage output and little risk of ever missing their target.
Screenshot: Twin Otter Studios
The battlefield also feels wonky and incomplete. Animations for unit movement and attacks don’t feel fluid, and terrain has no real impact on strategy. Fireballs and arrows can pass through obstacles and comrades unimpeded, while melee units can strike anyone next to them no matter how much higher or lower the adjacent squares are. It makes for very unbalanced encounters with little in the way of tactical trade-offs to consider or competing priorities to weigh.
In isolation, none of these shortcomings would be that big of an issue, but taken together they slowly add up to a simplistic and tedious experience that’s hard to recommend to even the genre’s biggest fans. Eventually even the mildest frustrations become hard to ignore, like having to press the accept button to progress every finished loading screen, and the fact that navigating the battlefield grid requires repeatedly flicking the thumbstick on the gamepad rather than simply holding it. The game supports mouse and keyboard as well, but I actually found the cursor controls to be even more finicky and sticky.
One of the few points of pleasure for me in each battle was the soundtrack. Instead of dramatic horns and violins, Arcadian Atlas’ jazz-infused soundtrack by composer Moritz P.G. Katz is dominated by saxophones and guitars. The standard combat music in particular is so oddly unexpected but catchy, I still found it playing inside my head days later. I wish I could say the rest of my time with the game felt as memorable.
In the words of Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat, opposites attract. Perhaps that kernel of wisdom can explain the recent announcement that Final Fantasy XIV—an epic, fantasy MMORPG—is crossing over with Fall Guys—a colorful, small-scale battle royale—in a future update.
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Final Fantasy XIV was a giant disaster when it first launched in 2010. However, following a complete shutdown of the original version in 2012, FFXIV was reworked into a better game known as Realm Reborn in August 2013, which was received much better by fans and critics. Since then, the game has received numerous updates and expansions, becoming one of the most popular MMOs in the world. And in the near future, the world ofFFXIV will includeFall Guys content, for some odd reason.
The odd news was announced in Las Vegas by FFXIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida—known online as Yoshi P—during the first day of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest 2023 on July 28. While the team didn’t release any videos or trailers of the Fall Guys content coming to the game, some screenshots were shared that show obstacle courses familiar to anyone who has played Epic’s popular game show-like battle royale.
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
“These warriors of light are having a bit of a different time than usual,” joked Yoshida on stage during the keynote.
According to the producer and director, the new content will support up to 24 players at once and is currently in development. This new Fall Guys-inspired content won’t be added randomly to missions or in the open world, but will instead be added to the preexisting Golden Saucer, an in-game amusement park that contains mini-games for players to enjoy.
Yoshida further added that since it was given this opportunity the developer really tried its best to make the most of it. That’s evident in the screenshots, which contain obstacles and platforms that look very accurate to what you would see in Fall Guys. Even HUD elements from the battle royale seem to be included in FFXIV’s version.
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
As for when you’ll be able to play this, Yoshida promised the new mini-games would be included as part of the 6.5 updates sometime in September.
But if you really can’t wait for that and you need some Fall Guys X Final Fantasy content in your life sooner than later, I’ve got some good news for your weirdly specific desire. On August 23, a Final Fantasy-themed battle pass will launch in Fall Guys and will run for six weeks. The update will include costumes based on iconic Final Fantasy characters and creatures, like Chocobos.
At long last, Xbox owners will soon get to enjoy the MMORPG PlayStation players have enjoyed for nearly a decade. Final Fantasy XIV is headed to Xbox Series X/S in spring 2024 after being a PlayStation console exclusive since 2014.
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Producer and director Naoki Yoshida made the announcement on stage at the game’s 2023 fanfest in Las Vegas, NV alongside Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. The Xbox Series X/S version will offer 4K graphics and faster load times, like its PlayStation 5 counterpart. While the full release is still almost a year away, an open beta will be available for players to try much sooner when patch 6.5x arrives in the months ahead.
For those who have been living under an adamantoise shell, Final Fantasy XIV has you complete fetch quests, dungeons, and raids across the dazzling world of Hydaelyn, full of political intrigue and mythical wonder. The game was one of the first live-service disasters when it first launched in 2013, and was even entirely shutdown for a time before re-releasing as A Realm Reborn.
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
It’s recieved increasingly excellent expansions ever since, each introducing new characters, classes, and conflicts. And while it’s an MMO, a Duty Support system lets you play solo with AI-controlled NPCs. By the time Final Fantasy XIV comes to Xbox Series X/S, Square Enix says the feature will enable players to complete everything from the start of the game up through its most recent Endwalker expansion without ever needing to interact with another human being.
Why did it take so long to get FFXIV on Xbox?
The story of how we got here, however, is a long one. Yoshida was asked as early as 2013 why the game wasn’t on Xbox One. His answer at the time was that Microsoft’s stance on crossplay was too restrictive. “The main reason from our side is that I don’t want the community to be divided; to be split into two or more. For example, one player might be on the PC version, another might be on the PS4 version, and I’m playing the Xbox version – but we’re not able to join the same game servers,” he told RPGSite at the time. “That is just… I just don’t like the idea. I disagree with it.”
That was back when Microsoft was the company seemingly standing in the way of crossplay between the two consoles. Years later, roles were reversed, with Sony pushing back against crossplay for games like Fortnite. Yoshida repeated his requirement for crossplay in a 2017 interview with Kotaku, and things seemed to be progressing in that direction not long after.
Spencer publicly promised to bring the game to Xbox at the X019 fanfest event in London. “We have a great relationship with Yoshida-san and we’re working through what it means to bring a cross-platform MMO, that they’ve run for years,” he told VGC at the time. “It will be one of the games that’s coming and it’s something that I know our Xbox fans will be incredibly excited to see.”
No deal immeidately materialized, however. Yoshida was asked again what the problem was during a 2021 interview around the time Final Fantasy XIV came to PS5. “So I feel bad for saying the same thing every time,” he told Easy Allies. “But we are still in discussions with Microsoft and I feel like our conversations are going in a positive tone.”
The positive tone of those conversations seemingly wasn’t enough to finally get Sony to agree to crossplay though, until now. The two companies also recently reached a 10-year agreement for Call of Duty to keep coming to PlayStation after Microsoft’s acqusition of Activision Blizzard is finalized. Purely a coincidence, I’m sure. Sony, Microsoft, and Square Enix did not immediately respond to requets for comment.
I’ve finished Final Fantasy XVIand am now working on 100 percenting it, including beating the game a second time on the New Game+ “Final Fantasy” mode difficulty. For all the game’s flaws, of which there are plenty, there’s just so much it does that I just can’t get enough of. From the music and environments to the heart-stopping Eikon battles, Square Enix’s latest action-RPG is chock full of things both big and small, in your face and very subtle, that make it, for me at least, one of the most memorable Final Fantasy games in nearly two decades.
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Released on June 22 as a timed PlayStation 5 exclusive, Final Fantasy XVI tells the story of the orphaned prince Clive and his (not so merry) band of outcasts as they seek to overthrow the powers that be and install a new, more equitable world order. It trades the turn-based, menu-heavy RPG customization the franchise is known for for chunky action combat and cinematic spectacle that’s constantly cranked to 11. And it works. Mostly. Here are some of our favorite things we can’t stop thinking about from Square Enix’s latest blockbuster adventure.
Clive’s slutty little waist
If we’re talking about little things in Final Fantasy XVI worth spotlighting, I think it would be a crime to not include Clive Rosfield’s slutty little waist. Who gave that man permission to wear a blood-red corset and just show off what he’s working with at all times? Oh, you’re sad about your brother’s death? I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of your loud-as-fuck fit. Criminal. Lock him away. — Kenneth Shepard
The anime flexes
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
Spectacle is at the heart of Final Fantasy XVI, and that includes using its Kaiju Eikon fights to recreate some classic anime moments. An early sequence where Ifrit punches the crap out of Phoenix is an homage to Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Eikons can regrow entire limbs like in Attack on Titan. The development team took almost every opportunity afforded by the game’s central premise and used it to go berserk (speaking of which).
When the music hits
Final Fantasy XVI’s soundtrack was composed by Masayoshi Soken. It’s very subtle in parts compared to some earlier scores in the series, but goes very hard in others. Most satisfying of all is how elegantly it shifts mid-battle to take advantage of choreographed quick-time cinematic moments. “To Sail Forbidden Seas” is the name of the song that plays during all of the Eikon battles, and the mood ebbs and flows in perfect sync with the battle, as you go from hacking away at the stagger gauge to unleashing a flurry of cooldown abilities while the boss is vulnerable. The track builds, brings in the chorus, and then reaches another level when the cinematic clashes begin before settling back down again when it’s back to the main combat. Final Fantasy boss fights have always sought to be dynamic and exciting even when turn-based, but XVI takes it to a whole new level. Especially during the Titan fight.
Clive’s Wall of Memories
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
At a certain point in the game, you start amassing keepsakes from your adventures, little remembrances of people you’ve helped or things you’ve accomplished. I like this because you don’t get anything for them except the keepsakes themselves. They don’t provide you with any combat bonuses or stat boosts. They’re just keepsakes, a little reminder that what matters most of all in the world of Final Fantasy 16 isn’t your strength stat or how good your bracers are, but the connections Clive forms with others.—Carolyn Petit
The Torgal toss
Speaking of epic boss fight moments, holy hell Torgal is out of his mind. I pointed at the screen like Leonardo DiCaprio when he grabbed Benedikta in his jaws and swung her across the battle arena after she beat the crap out of Clive. We’ve moved so far beyond “Can you pet the dog?” If your game’s canine friend can’t go Super Saiyan on a demigod, then what’s even the point? Final Fantasy VIII’s Sant’ Angelo di Roma walked so Torgal could run.
The way the Mothercrystals disintegrate
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
A lot of massive crystals get destroyed in Final Fantasy XVI, and every time it’s as satisfying as watching an ice sculpture get sent through a wood chipper. Probably not great for Valesthea’s air quality, but beautifully effervescent nonetheless.
No clipping
Sometimes a game’s graphics are so good you don’t even notice all the ways in which they’re incredible. Final Fantasy XVI’s intricate costumes and long hairstyles are particularly notable for how rarely, if ever, they clip through one another, let alone the environments. Clive in particular has a long dark mane and a long dark cape, and they never get caught on one another or stray objects across all of the environments, even when the rebel sellsword is vaulting over fences or climbing up ledges.
How gracefully Clive gets out of people’s way
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
In keeping with Final Fantasy XVI’s theme of providing the occasional ridiculous level of attention to small details, I can’t get over the automatic animation Clive goes into every time you’re about to steer him into another NPC. Getting snagged on random characters in the world has been a staple in older games in the series, but here you’d have to go out of your way to steer into one. And even still, Square Enix’s developers decided to add a bespoke animation precisely for those rare occasions, just to keep things flowing naturally and avoid the the game-y-ness of the game coming through.
The sound of the XP screen
Whether it’s the rounding up of the numbers like a slot machine or the clink, clink, clink of new gil and items getting added to your inventory, there’s something magical about Final Fantasy XVI’s minimalistic battle results menu. At first I hardly noticed it, but with every battle the tiny dopamine hit of seeing and hearing Clive rack up points wrapped its tendrils around my lizard gamer brain.
The scenery
Final Fantasy games are known for being beautiful, but I can’t get over the muted extravagance of some of Final Fantasy XVI’s environments. The hyper-realistic style almost masks how much is actually going on, whether its giant kingdoms in the background or dense forests thick with different types of foliage. Except for the deserts, which look like how my brain remembers every other Final Fantasy desert.
Summons fighting
Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku
Shiva, Ifrit, Odin and Bahamut have been blowing up stuff since 1990’s Final Fantasy III, with summon animations that got more and more over-the-top in each new entry. Final Fantasy XVI is the first to render those scenes as if they were just part of the underlying fabric of the game rather than rewards doled out sparingly. My favorite is when, in one scene early on, Bahamut and Odin stare each other down from across a battlefield as their two kingdoms’ armies collide. It’s presented so nonchalantly that it’s easy to forget just how incredible it is to play a Final Fantasy that never flinches from showing you everything.
Uncle Byron
Clive is great and Cid is excellent. I love Gav too. There’s no shortage of great (mostly male) characters in Final Fantasy XVI, but let’s give it up for Uncle Byron, who thinks Clive is an imposter until they recite a scene from a play they used to perform together years ago at family parties. He’s a coward but throws his vast reserves of gil into the rebellion, wants to make amends for past failures, and never misses a chance to talk a big poetic game like he just sprang out of a Sir Walter Scott novel. The developers at Square even made sure to keep him animated behind the bar guzzling down beer at the inn during an early brawl in the Dhalmekian Republic.
So the first game where I explored the option of romancing the same sex was Fallout 2, you can get married and explore the wasteland with your beau. She’s not all that useful, to be honest, and has never been the companion I’ve picked on replays. Yet at the time, as an impressionable teenager, it was mind-blowing, right? To be honest, though, I didn’t make a ton of it at the time. It was more, oh, this seems like some good mischief, let’s see where it takes me, let’s see how long I can keep her alive, even. It wasn’t charged.
It wasn’t until Dragon Age, which I played as an adult, that the romance choices in games started signifying something different to me. Morrigan, the mysterious witch who joins your party early on, almost feels like a fake romance choice. She’s designed to grab your attention, there’s a recent (unfortunate) quote by one of the DA writers that really lays bare how much she’s meant to be the sex appeal option. There’s one in every game, really, Mass Effect had Miranda. But the way Morrigan is written, the coyness at her center, made me feel like I was getting away with something. Playing as a man probably contributed to that feeling, because IRL what I was doing was gay as hell but in the game, it was extremely straight. I’m sure it helped that the game forces you to choose between love interests, if you’re leading them both on, something that only enhances the drama.
Mostly I appreciated that Morrigan is written in a way that makes it obvious she knows you’re looking, as it turns out, by the end you find out she was making sure of it the entire time. When the betrayal comes, it was weirdly satisfying: yes, I didn’t get what I wanted, but Morrigan having it her way was true to her character. And what’s gayer than yearning and tragedy, really? — Patricia Hernandez, editor-in-chief
Final Fantasy XVI, a more action-focused take on the RPG franchise, clearly pulls inspiration from a lot of other popular media. As Game Informer reported back in May, Square Enix was inspired by blockbuster films and hit series like Game of Thrones, Godzilla, and Neon Genesis Evangelion during the game’s development. And it’s that last source of inspo that is garnering attention after players noticed a detailed homage to the mecha anime series.
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ResetEra forum user Lady Bow posted a video comparing a battle between anime protagonist Shinji Ikari and Sachiel in Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Tokyo-3 (a post-apocalyptic version of Tokyo) to a cataclysmic battle between Phoenix and Ifrit within the early hours of FFXVI.
The Ifrit fight (which is playable in the demo, btw!), takes place between two summons, which manifest in FFXVI by basically turning the player into a giant kaiju version of a deity. Early in the game, one of the outposts in the game’s fictional kingdom of Rosaria is ambushed. Phoenix does its damndest to protect it from the rampaging Ifrit. Unfortunately, the Phoenix getting torn from ass to appetite in the scene is Joshua, the younger brother of FFXVI protag, Clive. You can check out a GIF of the video below.
And just like in NGE with Shinj and Eva Unit 01, this fight showcases a point-of-view-esque depiction of the gigantic kaiju mounting its adversary and dishing out wild strikes to their face before clubbing them with a double-arm hammer fist punch.
The similarities between the fights also makes Clive begging the hulking titan to cease his onslaught all the more tragic. Clive’s desperate plea somewhat mirrors Shinji begging his father, Gendo Ikari, to stop his mecha from crushing his friend’s entry plug after his unit went AWOL. They’re like poetry because they rhyme, you see.
And there you have it: not only is Final Fantasy XVI a video game with similar grit and political subterfuge as George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series and bombastic Devil May Cry-esque action, but it’s also the latest video game to pay homage to NGE creator Hideaki Anno’s body of work. We love to see it.
In a recent interview with IGN, three Final Fantasy XVI directors revealed their top three Final Fantasy games of all time. Surprisingly, none of the directors’ picks included mainstream fan favorites titles like mega-popular Final Fantasy VII. Instead, the devs earmarked deep-cut Final Fantasy entries not often discussed online among fans as the best game in the long-running fantasy roleplaying game series.
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Final Fantasy XVI creative director Kazutoyo Maehiro’s favorite FF games are (in ascending order) Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy V.
Maehiro recounted playing FFV as a student and being awestruck by its battle system and the “incredible expressiveness” Square Enix was able to pull off with the game’s pixel art back on the Super NES. But what forever sold him on FFV being his all-time favorite FF game was a scene toward the end of the game where he witnessed doves flying across the landscape when he first beat the game.
“You could even say I decided to make games because I saw that scene,” Maehiro told IGN. “It made a huge impression on me, along with the rest of the polished game. It’s a solid No. 1 for me.”
Square Enix / Stormspirit 86
Since FFV isn’t really a fave in the same way over here as it was in Japan, here’s a bit of a refresher on the game. FFV follows a vagabond named Bartz who, upon investigating the crash site of a fallen meteor, joins a party of heroes. The crew try to prevent the corruption of all-powerful elemental crystals from the game’s antagonist, Exdeath. FFV Pixel Remaster, which was released in 2021 on PC and in April on the Nintendo Switch, earned a Metacritic score of 82 and a user score of 7.7.
With this in mind, Ryota Suzuki, FFXVI combat director, said his favorite games are Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy X, and Final Fantasy III. When Suzuki was in grade school, he said he couldn’t wait to get home from grade school each day just so he could play more Final Fantasy.
“[FFIII] was the first game I experienced in the final fantasy series. Playing [FFIII] made me understand the appeal of RPGs as a genre,” Suzuki said. “With aspects like the ability to change jobs, Final Fantasy III is synonymous with RPGs to me.”
When asked which Final Fantasy games were his favorite, FFXVI director Hiroshi Takai replied saying his top three favorites in ascending order are Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy VI, and Final Fantasy V.
“No. 1 is Final Fantasy V,” Takai told IGN. “This is in part because it was the first Final Fantasy I was involved in as a developer. But I love the game for its battle system. It’s a solid No. 1 for me within the FF series.”
Takai said that he loves FFX, and FFVI for their respective high levels of polish and the heights Square Enix was able to take “the final pixel art Final Fantasy” on the Super NES, respectively.
“As far as how this might be reflected in XVI, I’ve played every FF game, so I’m sure there may be some influences in there,” Takai said. “I think that XVI shares something in common with V in the way players can freely assign abilities to create their own main character.”
Final Fantasy fans’ reactions to FFV’s high ranking
IGN’s YouTube video comment section is full of responses from fans big-upping the devs for including FFV as their top-ranked game in the series.
“The fact all three included FFV in their top 3 says a lot about it. Had the game released overseas back in ‘92, it would’ve probably been a fan favourite for many,” Mizu 64 commented.
“Glad to see all the love for V. People gotta stop sleeping on V, it’s one of the best RPGs ever made,” Anthony wrote.
“Love seeing FFV getting so much love, it is so underrated, but honestly is just as great as VI imo,” PK Starstorm replied.
Final Fantasy XVI officially releases on June 22 on PlayStation 5.
When Foamstars, Square Enix’s Splatoon-esque party game where two teams of four face off in a giant foam-spewing battle, was announced at the PlayStation games showcase, it wasn’t clear what to expect. Was this just Splatoon in PlayStation-exclusive form? What was the gameplay like? Would it be any fun?
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Foamstars is four-vs-four splooge-fest where you shoot pink and teal foam and one another until your character is completely trapped and then bounced off the stage. In Star mode, the only one we were able to try, each team gets seven lives. Once they are used up, one player becomes the “star” based on who has the best overall performance that match. They get enhanced health and attack, as well as slightly faster cooldowns for their abilities. But once the star player is killed, the game is over and the other team wins.
FOAMSTARS | Announce Trailer
The game is being developed internally at Square Enix with a team composed of developers from Dragon Quest, Nier, and other franchises. It definitely feels like Splatoon, but with a Persona-style presentation and the balancing of Overwatch. Each “VIP,” aka hero, has two normal abilities and a special that can be deployed throughout the match in-between cooldowns. There are DPS characters and tank characters, with variations in gun speed and spread. The fundamentals aren’t bad, even if they’re mostly cribbed from other established competitive multiplayer games, but it’s not clear it has the magic to standout in a crowded field of already successful live service shooters.
When we sat down at Summer Game Fest for a hands-on demo, gratis beers in hand, we didn’t know what we were getting into.
Alyssa Mercante: First off I’d like to say that I’m very upset you were better than me at this game.
Ethan Gach: Get rekt. I like it. At least for the five matches we played. I don’t know that a successful live service game that makes, but the concept isn’t as dumb in practice as the PlayStation showcase reveal made it seem.
Alyssa: It actually is pretty fun. I do sort of feel like I was struggling to get the aiming down even after five matches, but I am also admittedly not a Splatoon player. Is the assumption that this will just sort of mimic that, content-wise? Maybe new characters and new weapons coming out every so often? They wouldn’t tell you any details right?
Ethan: “We want to focus on the foam right now” is not an exact quote but pretty close to what the Square Enix rep said when I peppered him with questions about microtransactions, unlocks, custom builds, alternative maps, and the other stuff that usually keeps players coming back.
The shooting felt no worse than third person Fortnite to me, other than the fact that you’re aiming cum bubbles instead of bullets.
Alyssa: Okay, it wasn’t as cummy as I thought it would be, it’s much more of a mousse. It’s very reminiscent of the shit I put in my hair in high school. I like that the foam can be used to change up the environment though, like build up walls and shit, which is definitely a nice differentiator from Splatoon.
Ethan: There are shades of a build mechanic, but I wish it was more directed. You can layer foam by shooting the same areas but it takes a while to really change the topography or build up anything resembling a protective barrier.
Alyssa: Yeah I wonder if different maps will be better for that kind of mechanic, as this one was pretty flat/open. Would be interesting to see it in play on a map that’s got two really distinct levels and you could use the foam as a means of cheesing certain height differences or something.
Ethan: The map itself was a pretty small and bland arena, though I appreciate the city pop metropolis backgrounds and general Persona-like stylings. What did you think of the different characters’ abilities. Who did you like playing as the best?
Alyssa: I liked Tonix, the burst-fire one. Her ultimate is a foam-shooting mech which is rad. I also, naturally, only picked the characters I thought looked really cool/want to dress like.
Ethan: The cooldown abilities and specials were neat enough, though I couldn’t quite figure out the the best way for it all to come together. A game like Overwatch has maps that funnel you into choke points that play nicely off of different heroes’ abilities. Here it felt a little more haphazard, though maybe with more time and practice those synergies would come into focus.
Alyssa: Yeah maybe you need to really get in the weeds for it to feel like who you’re choosing matters in terms of team composition, because that sort of felt like we were just picking randomly. And that shotgun guy was OP.
Ethan: While Splatoon is clearly the closest analogue mechanically and shoot-feel-wise, the overall package reminds me of Fall Guys in terms of its presentation, accessibility, and my skepticism of its longevity and what would keep me or someone else coming back in order to make it a sustainable online hangout.
Square declined to answer any questions about what the meta-progression, microtransactions, or additional modes will be like, although they did promise a ranked-mode, which seems very premature.
Alyssa: Ranked mode? I was already toxic during our hands-on, I can’t go anywhere near that. It’s definitely an interesting thing to have as a PS-exclusive, as well, so I’m veryyyy curious to see if it has legs. Can definitely see it being a fun, silly party game the same way Fall Guys was, but does anyone even play Fall Guys anymore? Is there longevity in this? More importantly, can I change the colors of the foam?
Ethan: I’m very curious about the origins of the game. Was this a mandate handed to the devs and this is what they came up with, or did they arrive at the prototype on their own and then Square saw the potential to bring it to a full release? PlayStation doesn’t do Early Access but maybe it should.
Alyssa: Also, what the hell is the single-player bit they wouldn’t give details on? Much to think about here.
Ethan: I just hope there’s a hub world where I can leave spunk messages on billboards for other players to discover.
Kotaku is covering everything Summer Game Fest, from the main show on Thursday to other events happening throughout the next week. Whether you’re into larger-than-life triple-A games or intimate, offbeat indies, you can keep up with all things SGF here.
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This video by a user called Art from the Machine shows “a Skyrim mod which allows for conversations with NPCs via ChatGPT, xVASynth (text-to-speech), and Whisper (speech-to-text). This update introduces Skyrim scripting, which allows for lip syncing of voices and NPC awareness of in-game events.”
That’s the aim, anyway. Here’s what all that looks and sounds like in practice:
It’s a horror show, I know. Particular highlights are the way the video has to be sped up to mask the amount of time it takes the game to respond to questions, the terrible synthesised voice acting and the bland, generic standard of all the “writing”. Oh, and the fact the people running Skyrim’s stores—in a world without watches—will now tell you their opening hours like they were getting a phone call in a mall. Sorry, sir, we close at five pum.
A console staple Because the Xbox Series S is $30 off, you can put that $30 towards storage, an extra controller, or the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
I spent ages writing earlier drafts of this blog where I took this opportunity to launch into a tirade against the idea that machine learning can or should replace human artists, but you know what? This is a Skyrim mod. If this is what a lot of people still playing this game want—and clearly it is, even though what they actually want is to play a tabletop RPG with friends—then have at it. If you’re happy with word soup dialogue written by a machine that was trained on stuff that was already pretty generic in the first place, no amount of me saying “we need to value human art as the only true human experience” will convince you that if this is the future of video games that you want, you’re going to get everything you deserve.
Because Final Fantasy XIV has somehow evolved into one of the biggest video games on the planet, Square Enix has decided to grab some of its older content out of the back of the fridge, reheat it in the microwave for a bit and serve it up to a whole new audience of players who probably weren’t around when it was first released.
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I’m talking specifically here about the game’s second major expansion, Stormblood, which was released six years ago as a premium piece of downloadable content, but which for the next few weeks will be made available for free (provided you’ve already got a paid subscription, they’re not just giving it away to free/trial players).
As the game’s site points out (thanks, Eurogamer), the free offer runs until May 28. Importantly it’s not free-to-play, it’s free-to-download, so provided you grab it before that deadline you’ll be able to play it whenever you want.
It’s good for both the console and PC versions of the game, though as this official FAQ points out, you need to make double sure on PC that you’re downloading the correct edition, as only the Steam download will work if you bought the game on Steam, etc.
Incredible visuals This smart TV has access to a wide array of streaming services, all of which are easier to navigate, has 4K visuals for a stunning picture, and comes with an Alexa Voice Remote too.
Final Fantasy XIV is one of the best massively multiplayer online role-playing games going, one of the few able to maintain a monthly subscription model in a day when even an Elder Scrolls MMO has to go free-to-play. Stormblood’s epic narrative, gorgeous new locales, spectacular battles and some fresh gameplay mechanics make a great game even better.
I am never going to finish it and no one can make me.
It was almost a year ago that Square Enix released Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition, a “remastered” version of the 1999 classic on the PC, Xbox One, PS4 and Switch that, as good as the original game was, was also a very bad port.
Elaborate, pre-rendered backgrounds now look blurry and smeared
3D character models, rendered in higher res, stick out like a sore thumb in the new environments
Combat often stutters and feels unresponsive
There aren’t save states (but there is auto-saving in the overworld)
There’s no option to swap graphical styles on the fly
FMVs haven’t always been upscaled cleanly
The HD fonts are clear but look out of place
See what I mean? A bad port! The game, and fans, deserved better. And better is what they’re about to get, with Square Enix promising an update coming later this month that will try and fix some of the version’s problems. How many of them they’ll fix, and how well they’ll fix them is anyone’s guess, but addressing them is at least a start.
Hello, everyone.
This is the CHRONO CROSS: THE RADICAL DREAMERS EDITION development team.
Following the launch of the game last year, we’re planning to release an update this month.
The update includes a wide range of changes, such as framerate improvements, changes to the growth system for Pip, and fixes for other bugs.
Thank you so much to all of you for your thoughts and feedback on CHRONO CROSS: THE RADICAL DREAMERS EDITION. Have you discovered the secrets that original director Masato Kato added to this remaster?
We hope that you download the update, and that you continue to enjoy playing the game into the future.
Thank you for continuing to support CHRONO CROSS: THE RADICAL DREAMERS EDITION.
“No, but Gyariana killed it,” Caveat writes in the caption, perhaps underselling the surreality of watching a sharp-toothed Water/Flying type handle Ariana Grande’s vocal runs with ease while she’s dressed as a tastefully nude Misty.
The puppet was a collaboration between friends, Caveat tells me over email—Matti made the head and puppet, Zac and Alex worked on the body.
“It was inspired by Carmen Farala from Drag Race España who did this amazing snake look I loved,” she says. “I wanted to reinterpret it in my own way. Why not Misty being constricted by a Gyarados? I even had Staryu earrings from my friend, Girl1000 Jewellery! It was a fun interpretation that hadn’t been done before and it meant that Gyariana (her name) could duet with me doing “Rain On Me” for the show finale. She even shot water out in the final chorus!”
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It’s a camera. For your car. The Ring Car Cam’s dual-facing HD cameras capture activity in and around your car in HD detail.
A jaw-dropping Gyariana, to me, marks just another night for Caveat, who has been performing her video game-themed drag show SlayStation in London since December 2021. The Gyrados performance was part of its recent Pokemon-themed Master Ball.
About founding SlayStation, Caveat says she “decided I wanted to start my own show and space and thought, ‘Why not combine my two passions, video games and performing?’”
Caveat, who is trans, had never attempted cosplay before starting SlayStation, but felt like “video games have always let me express myself and my identity in a safe space, especially while I was still figuring it out in the real world.”
“I really wanted to portray the importance of that for me and so many other people with the event,” she continues.
Video games form the rhinestone-glued platform to Caveat’s plans—even her name was inspired by Odin Sphere. And only a little over a year old, SlayStation has already motivated plenty of video game drag, including a Goldeen cosplay topped with inky fake lashes, a glamorous Lopunny, and for Caveat, Bayonetta.
“As a 6’4” woman, I felt like I could really do her justice,” she tells me.
The event is already gaining recognition through TikTok and through industry pros like Kim Chi, who competed on season eight of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and British Drag Race star Dakota Schiffer, who both attended SlayStation’s Master Ball event.
But it isn’t only fun to look at. it’s also creating a vibrant and comfortable space for queer video game fans.
“The best show I’ve seen in a good while,” one Instagram commenter wrote on SlayStation’s post highlighting the importance of trans representation. “So much love in the room, cannot wait for the next one.” They’ll only have to wait a bit longer—there’s a Doki Doki Literature Club-themed event coming in February, and Caveat tells me she’s already planning “a big Final Fantasy show in a few months to celebrate the new games.”
And a very happy Black History Month to you, Sista Balinska. Image: Square Enix / Kotaku / Mike Marsland (Getty Images)
Square Enix’s new fantasy parkour game Forspoken has had a bit of a rocky launch in terms of public perception among gamers, who found its Joss Whedon-esque dialogue in advertisements cringe-inducing. However, Forspoken’s lead actress says she isn’t bothered by all the discourse the game’s dialogue has caused online, and honestly more power to her.
Forspoken, which was released on January 24, follows a down-and-out New Yorker named Frey who must save the denizens of the fantasy world she gets isekaied into with the help of a talking cuff named Cuff. In a recent interview with The Verge, Ella Balinska, who plays Forspoken lead Frey, said she’s proud of her performance in the game because she knows that she got to take on a role that her eight-year-old self would have been psyched to be a part of.
“I always reference my eight-year-old self whenever I talk about something I’m really proud of doing, I’m just speechless right now,” Balinska told The Verge. I just never would have thought me playing games downstairs with my mom’s hairdresser’s son while she was getting her hair done. Now, to think that he can pick up this game and play as me, it’s just unbelievable. And I hope it inspires other people to realize that if you commit to the bit hard enough, something really crazy can happen.”
When asked what she thought about the online memes folks were making about the game’s dialogue, Balinska simply said that, “there are things that we all do that might be eyebrow-raising to other people,” and that
“I think people always have a positive or negative response to something they’re not used to seeing, and that’s completely okay because that’s the way we incite change,” Ballinska told The Verge. “This is such an extraordinary game that has come out with this amazing protagonist who’s so bold, so unapologetic, so reluctant in the best way possible. I think audiences might not be so used to seeing that.”
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It’s a camera. For your car. The Ring Car Cam’s dual-facing HD cameras capture activity in and around your car in HD detail.
In our Forspoken review, we said Square Enix’s parkour isekai deserved better than what shipped on its release date because the strength of its story and protagonist outpace its performance issues and oft-admonished dialogue.
According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Waller-Bridge is attached to the live-action show as a writer, though there’s no word on whether or not the Fleabag star will be in front of the camera at this time. Alongside writing, she’s set to act as executive producer alongside Ryan Andolina and Amanda Grenblatt, who both recently left Amazon to found their own production company, and have worked out further deals with Bezos and co. to work on projects like the Tomb Raider series.
If you’re unfamiliar with Waller-Bridge’s work, she is known throughout the internet for her role as the titular character in Fleabag, a two-season series (also produced by and streaming on Amazon) which is also one of the few examples we have of what perfect television looks like.
Fleabag is two seasons of perfect television.Image: Amazon
You want to watch two short self aware seasons about a woman trying to claw her way out of emotional detachment and grief? It’s streaming on Prime. Don’t thank me, because it will ruin you for days. Come for Waller-Bridge’s sharp writing and performance, stay for Andrew Scott as the Hot Priest.
Vivid colors and deep blacks It’s Oscar season which means it’s time to binge all the nominations before the big day. Why not enjoy these pieces of art on a new TV from our friends at Samsung?
This series will be the third time Tomb Raider has seen a live-action adaptation, with Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander portraying Lara Croft in two separate film series. At the moment, it remains unclear if this show will be based on the classic Tomb Raider games or the survival-oriented settings of the reboot series.
While the Amazon adaptation is in the works, developer Crystal Dynamics is also in the midst of developing a new Tomb Raider game. The studio was recently acquired by The Embracer Group after Square Enix sold it and other studios off in an effort to downsize and shift its focus onto other things like blockchain.
