Almost two years after Netflix tweeted (and deleted) about an animated Sonic the Hedgehog series that's coming to the streaming service, the show has a release date. Season one of Sonic Prime will hit the platform on December 15th. The first season will have 24 episodes.

Alongside the release date announcement, Netflix unveiled character posters for Sonic, Amy Rose, Shadow, Knuckles, Rouge, Big the Cat and, of course, Eggman. The company will offer another look at the show during the weekly Geeked: Toon-In show, which will be broadcast at 8PM ET today on the company's Twitch channel. The latest teaser will likely pop up on Netflix's YouTube channel and elsewhere soon after.

The Sonic franchise has enjoyed a resurgence over the last few years, particularly in the wake of two well-received and successful movies. Back in June, Sega released a decent, remastered bundle of four classic Sonic games. On the horizon is Sonic Frontiers, an open-world 3D platformer that will arrive on November 8th.

It’s been a long road, getting from Lower Decks’ slightly rough-around-the-edges first episode to here. But it hasn’t taken that much time, since Star Trek’s first animated sitcom very quickly found its feet to become my favorite Trek of the streaming era. The second season showed a growing confidence in its own execution, and as the third season concludes, we find it proud to show the world what it’s now capable of.

The clue, really, was in the swift resolution to the Pakled cliffhanger which ended the second year. On one hand, a sitcom like Lower Decks doesn’t need to turn into The Wire to keep you hooked. But it’s also aware that it can sow the seeds of a running plot thread – the story of Rutherford’s implant – into the fabric of so many episodes. And that the payoff was far more interested in the impact on the character than the cliffhanger.

And these strands certainly paid off in “Reflections,” which revealed that a person, or persons unknown, were behind Rutherford’s implant. But even that paid off in a way that you weren’t necessarily expecting it to come back here in the two-ish part finale. And who was the big bad of the season, really? Nothing more than the bete noire of so many Golden Era Trek episodes, the Evil Admiral™. I loved the show’s attempted justification for why Starfleet churns out so many of them – the lack of career development pushes people to extremes – too.

If there was a sore spot, it was that the penultimate episode, “Trusted Sources” wheeled out the hacky Journalist Makes Everyone Look Awful plot. It’s about as hackneyed as the one where a sitcom character has their boss over for dinner yet accidentally forgets to tell their partner. It’s only really a crowbar to get Mariner pushed out of Starfleet in preparation for the finale, and it never looked like it was going to stick given her obvious love of the Cerritos.

Naturally, the season ends with a punch-the-air victory for not just the Cerritos, but the whole California Class. I’ve always loved Lower Decks’ celebration of the painstaking, cautious and fundamentally boring, yet fundamental, work that serving in Starfleet often requires. Its regular rejection of the, uh, more Kurtzmanesque tendencies of the series makes me love it all the more. Because, like science, the best work is often slow, incremental and dull until it marks a fundamental shift in how we understand the universe. And you can’t really do that if you’re spending your whole episode running from an explosion or proving how tough you are.

Another sign of the show’s confidence is in its second crew-lite episode (I’m always a fan of a show that’ll take you elsewhere for an episode or two). This time, it was centered on the fate of the evil Exocomp Peanut Hamper, last seen making a run for it in the first season finale. “A Mathematically Perfect Resolution” allowed the show to both flesh out a previously one-note character, and explore a new corner of the Star Trek world.

Even better, the sparse opening act offered a lengthy showcase for Chris Westlake’s gorgeous score. Star Trek has always been about its music as much as its narrative, and the show is lucky to have both Westlake and Nami Melumad producing virtuoso work on a weekly basis. I can’t wait for a season three soundtrack album, especially since we once again hear the James Horner-parodying Lower Decks Action Theme several times this year.

If I have a concern, it’s that Lower Decks often feels like it’s designed with lasers to milk my nostalgia glands. I’ll often spend a chunk of each episode clapping like a mad seal at the latest Trek deep cut Mike McMahon and Co. throw at viewers each week. The only thing that prevents it from becoming gratuitous fanservice is that these feel mostly earned. And it has been an orgy of references, including an extended visit to Deep Space Nine.

My heart can do nothing but swell when Nana Visitor (Kira), Armin Shimmerman (Quark), JG Hertzler (Martok), Susan Gibney (Leah Brahmas) and George Takei (Captain Sulu!). And the show has the appropriate respect for Trek MVP Jeffrey Combs to bring him back for a quick visit to Agimus, still trapped in Starfleet’s filing cabinet for self-aware, megalomaniacal computers. I didn’t even mention the extended First Contact riff, complete with an appearance by James Cromwell, or the riff on classic TNG episode “Symbiosis” with quite possibly the darkest joke ever seen in a Trek series.

I’m running out of room to heap the usual praise on the cast, all of whom do sterling work on a regular basis. And that’s before we discuss the glorious, last-minute reveal that T’Lyn, the so-called “emotional” Vulcan from last year’s “wej Duj” has transferred to the Cerritos. (Do I want her to join Beta Shift? I have no idea, but I’m looking forward to seeing how she interacts with the gang now she’s here.)

I’m naturally very excited for Lower Decks’ Season 4 but, by my calculations, the next time we’ll see Mariner and Boimler appear in Strange New Worlds. Given that we already know that Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid look like their characters, I can’t wait to see them appear on the Enterprise bridge and stare lovingly at Pike’s Peak. My favorite nü-Trek series merging with my second-favorite? Be still my beating heart.

A new Bayonetta game is like the circus rolling into town. Bayonetta is the ringmaster, of course, and she shows up out of the blue with boxcars of strange beasts, weird friends, dangerous spells, magnificent clothing and endless promises to impress. Her stories don’t always make sense, but they’re filled with melodrama and action, magic and gunfire, and once Bayonetta enters the spotlight, there’s no looking away. Especially not when she’s dancing her way through a spell in an outfit made of her own hair, while 40-storey monsters fight to the death at her back.

Bayonetta 3 is full of classic Bayonetta madness, all of it amped up by one degree. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been, the enemies are absolutely massive, Bayonetta’s magic is incredibly powerful, her outfits are outstanding, and the fights don’t stop coming. A loose plot holds the entire game together – an army of man-made bioweapons called Homonculi is threatening the existence of the multiverse – but it’s just an excuse to throw Bayonetta and friends into an endless string of battles in a variety of crumbling cities. In that way, Bayonetta 3 isn’t very different from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though PlatinumGames’ latest installment has way more witchcraft, silliness and shoe-operated guns than anything helmed by Robert Downey Jr.

Structurally and mechanically, Bayonetta 3 is as rich as its predecessors. Bayonetta acquires new skills and weapons throughout her quest; she collects fragments of fallen enemies to purchase items, consumables and accessories in the Gates of Hell shop, while orbs unlock abilities on her skill tree. Combat is all about performing stylish combos and executing well-timed dodges, and each fight is infinitely replayable if you’re chasing high scores. There are also plenty of challenges and secrets to find in each level.

Bayonetta 3 is a Switch exclusive, and it struggles as much as any fast-paced action game on that console: At times, inputs feel sluggish and it becomes difficult to track which moves are actually lined up. The game does a fine job of providing visual indicators for attacks and there is a rhythm to be found in the fray, but the entire thing runs in Switch Reaction Time (does not adhere to daylight saving).

For fans of the series, there’s nothing missing in Bayonetta 3 – in fact, there’s just more. More weirdness, more one-liners, more swag, and more combat mechanics. For instance, one section puts players in control of Bayonetta’s witchy buddy, Jeanne, for a side-scrolling action sequence with 1960s espionage flair. Another mechanic allows Bayonetta to control time in short bursts, at times reverting to her younger self. Throughout the game, the Demon Masquerade ability adds hellish features to Bayonetta’s weapons and allows her to transform into various demons, while the Demon Slave skill allows her to summon and control giant creatures of hell, each with a specific moveset.

Most of Bayonetta’s demons are inspired by classically spooky animals like moths and spiders, but one of her forms is a literal train. A little over halfway through the game, Bayonetta is infused with the energy of Satan’s choo-choo and she’s able to summon a hellish tank engine during fights. Attacking as the train with Demon Slave slows down time temporarily, allowing players to quickly draw a track and indicate points of damage along the route, ideally in the path of nearby enemies. Let go of the Demon Slave button and the train barrels down the ghost track in real time, dealing hefty damage to anything it hits. Bayonetta also acquires the ability to turn into a literal train-witch hybrid through Demon Masquerade, rushing forward with heavy-duty chainsaw-like attacks. Because of course she does.

Nintendo/PlatinumGames

By the time the train demon appears, it actually fits into the rest of the game nicely. Bayonetta’s world has always been wacky, and 3 is no exception. If you can handle the idea of Umbra Witches and bartending angels, you can deal with some light locomotive play.

I don’t take Bayonetta games too seriously and this feels like the right move, especially after playing the third installment. The series’ sense of combat is rich and its storyline is incredibly intricate, involving divine wars and parallel universes, and yet it all just feels like an excuse to make Bayonetta dance her way through a spell while massive monsters fight in the background. Thankfully, this is the best part of the series – Bayonetta is powerful and fighting in her (gun)shoes feels great, but her personality is what makes this franchise a cult hit. Bayonetta is confident, sarcastic and always correct; her outfits are stunning and so are her friends; she dances like an angel; she never has a hair out of place and her one-liners never stop. She’s a drag queen in a universe loosely held together by witchcraft, and the chaos of this combination is truly magical.

Bayonetta 3 is ridiculous and slightly disjointed, but that's precisely what makes it so wonderful. It builds on a multiverse of weird and witchy ideas, and it delivers exactly what fans of the series expect – something totally unexpected.

Nintendo/PlatinumGames

Remember back in 2014 when U2 gave away an album's worth of songs to every iTunes user in the world? And it turned out that a large number of them didn't want said album anywhere near their music library — to the point that Apple had to release a special tool to remove it? That was completely my bad, U2 lead singer Bono wrote in an article for The Guardian. 

When Bono approached Tim Cook, along with Eddy Cue and Phil Schiller about the idea, he was met with some incredulity. "Are you talking about free music?" Cook said, according to Bono. "But the whole point... is to make sure musicians get paid."

"'No,' I said, 'I don’t think we give it away free. I think you pay us for it and then you give it away free, as a gift to people. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?'" Bono wrote.

"Tim Cook raised an eyebrow. 'You mean we pay for the album and then just distribute it?' I said, 'Yeah, like when Netflix buys the movie and gives it away to subscribers.' Tim looked at me as if I was explaining the alphabet to an English professor. ‘But we’re not a subscription organization,'" Cook said in the excerpt. "'Not yet,' I said. ‘Let ours be the first.’ Tim was not convinced. ‘And this is just to people who like U2?' ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I think we should give it away to everybody. It’s their choice whether they want to listen to it."

It was clearly a humbling lesson for the band when they realized that many people not only didn't want to listen to it, but didn't want it there in the first place.

"As one social media wisecracker put it, ‘Woke up this morning to find Bono in my kitchen, drinking my coffee, wearing my dressing gown, reading my paper.’ Or, less kind, ‘The free U2 album is overpriced.’ Mea Culpa," he wrote. "'I take full responsibility. Not [U2 manager] Guy O, not Edge, not Adam, not Larry, not Tim Cook, not Eddy Cue. I’d thought if we could just put our music within reach of people, they might choose to reach out toward it. Not quite.'"

Bono also recalled a happier tie-up with Apple on the iPod, which feted its 21st anniversary just yesterday. It was U2 that convinced Steve Jobs to let them be in those famous iPod silhouette ads for the first time, and also talked him into building the U2 edition iPod in black with a red click wheel — marking the first time it wasn't white. Amusingly, they also asked Jobs for some Apple stock, even a symbolic amount — which he refused, in his typical direct style. "'Sorry,'" said Steve, according to Bono. "'That’s a dealbreaker.'"

On November 2nd, the original Mario Party game and its sequel will be available on Nintendo's Switch Online service. The games were first released in the late 90's for the N64 and feature board games with various themes that you can play together with up to four friends. Like with every board game, you roll a dice to advance. At the end of each turn, you play a mini-game — some of them are are solo games, but others make you cooperate with or play against friends. Or CPU-powered bots... in case you don't have anybody to play with. The first Mario Party has 56 different mini-games you can play, while the second one has 65, including duel mini-games that weren't available in the debut title. 

Although these two will be available on the service within a couple of weeks, Nintendo has lined up several more N64 games for addition. In 2023, the gaming giant will add Mario Party 3 to Switch Online's selection, along with Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Stadium 2, which are strategy games that don't have storylines. Since all the titles we've mentioned so far were originally released for N64, that means you'll need a Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription to be able to access them. The tier will set you back $50 for an individual membership. That's just a bit more than $4 a month, which is also what the basic subscription costs, except you'll have to pay for a year-long membership at once. 

Welcome back, gentle reader, to the second installment of Hitting the Books Quarterly. This time around we’ve got a seven-layer dip of delicious literature for you, starting with a harrowing investigation into the heart of California’s firestorms, followed by some sage advice for best burning your Facebook bridges, and then a chance to wave goodbye to Earth’s billionaire class as they race off for the stars, hopefully never to return. But that’s not all, we’ve got some stellar sci-fi titles to share too, as well as The Dawn of Everything which Engadget Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar describes as “dense, but worth a read for sure.”

California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric—and What It Means for America's Power Grid - Katherine Blunt (Amazon)

California wildfires caused an estimated $80 billion in property damage in 2021 alone, they’re only getting worse, and the state’s utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric, seems to be doing anything but helping. Following years of neglected maintenance, PG&E’s infrastructure has started numerous deadly blazes in recent years, exacerbating an already existential climate crisis. In California Burning, Pulitzer-nominated WSJ journalist Katherine Blunt dives into the utility’s sordid history of putting profits over public safety. Decades of mismanagement have led California to this point, Blunt’s deeply researched narrative explains why. I had originally looked at this title for the regular excerpt column but the dang thing reads like a Grisham novel. Make sure you block off an afternoon because you won’t be able to put this one down.

James Acaster's Guide to Quitting Social Media - James Acaster (Amazon)

With the general level of suck in the world today, we could all probably do with a laugh and to get off the internet for a while — touching grass and whatnot. Comedian James Acaster’s newest book, James Acaster's Guide to Quitting Social Media, Being the Best You You Can Be and Saving Yourself from Loneliness Vol 1, does both. You will laugh (probably) and get off the internet because you will be reading a book about how he quit social media in 2019 and how you can do the same while still saving yourself from loneliness. Brilliant.

Everything I Need I Get from You - Kaitlyn Tiffany (Amazon)

Fans, stans, and boybands, oh my. Everything I Need I Get from You is a fascinating look at the superfan subculture surrounding modern pop music acts from Atlantic staff writer Kaitlyn Tiffany. Fanclubs have been around since the Roman era but the advent of social media has enabled fandom to a startlingly granular degree. Today’s superfans know what foods the Jonas brothers are allergic to, have lore and inside jokes that only other members of the BTS ARMY will understand, and routinely engage in light subterfuge to game play charts into featuring their favorite stars. Tiffany also explores the influence that these hyper-connected cadres of vivaciously like-minded people have on internet culture as a whole, like why we spent weeks looking for Becky with the good hair.

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires - Douglas Rushkoff (Amazon)

Let’s not kid ourselves. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk aren’t developing space flight for the good of humanity, Mark Zuckerberg isn’t pushing his vision of a metaverse for anything resembling altruistic intent. They just want a bolt hole for when things really start going downhill, argues theorist Douglas Rushkoff. In his new book, Survival of the Richest, Rushkoff examines what he dubs “the Mindset,” wherein the world’s ultra-wealthy believe that they and theirs will somehow be able to spend their way out of the coming climate crisis — we plebes be damned — as well as discusses what the rest of us can do while the people with the power to avert it are busy eying the exits.

You Sexy Thing - Cat Rambo (Amazon)

I believe in miracles and you will too with this raucous space opera from sci-fi luminary Cat Rambo. Billed as “Farscape meets The Great British Bake Off,” You Sexy Thing follows the exploits of Niko Larson, the Holy Hive Mind’s disgraced “10-Minute Admiral” as she scrambles to keep her crew of retired-soldiers-turned-kitchen-and-wait-staff safe, together, alive and out of the Hive Mind’s brain jar collective, even as space stations explode around them, sentient bio-ships kidnap them, and vicious space pirates from Larson’s past seek their revenge. Easily some of the best sci-fi I’ve read this year — tightly written with characters you can identify with and a pilot that immediately grabs you by the shorthairs and doesn’t let up. Plus, there are werelions.

Azura Ghost - Essa Hansen (Amazon)

Emma Hansen just won’t stop writing absolute bangers. Following her phenomenal 2020 debut, the heart-wrenching space opera, Nophek Gloss (which was shortlisted for a Stabby that year), Hansen returns to the Graven multiverse with Azura Ghost. Her sophomore effort catches up a decade after the events of the first book where our protagonist Caiden finds himself, and his sentient starship, still hunted across the stars by the Threi — as is wont to happen when one imprisons the the group’s leadership in an impenetrable pocket universe for 10 years. As the plot unfolds and events push his two greatest enemies into possible alliance, Caiden must reunite with family of his own, and a long-lost friend who probably shouldn’t be trusted, to make his escape.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity - David Graeber and David Wengrow (Amazon)

Long-held views of early civilizations as either gullible hippies or hulking brutes offer only a monochromatic and shallow understanding of history — one which arose out of an 18th century conservative backlash against brown people asking questions, no less — argue David Graeber and David Wengrow in The Dawn of Everything. They then apparently spend the next 700 or so pages laying out their exhaustive list of evidence drawn from their respective fields of archaeology and anthropology in support of this position.

The remastered version of Alan Wake is now available on the Nintendo eShop, just in time for Halloween. It was initially released for Windows, PS4 and PS5, as well as Xbox One and Xbox X|S in October 2021. But in May this year, Remedy Entertainment’s creative director Sam Lake revealed that the cult classic will also be making its way to the Switch. Alan Wake Remastered, with all its DLCs, will set you back $30 / €30 / £25 on the eShop, but it's currently being sold with a launch discount of 20 percent. 

The game is a story-driven action adventure that follows a thriller novelist whose wife disappeared during a vacation in a small town. While he witnesses his wife being dragged into the lake by an unknown force, he loses consciousness and only wakes up a week after the incident. Wake then finds a manuscript he appears to have written, but which he has no memory of, with events that were coming true. Events, such as townspeople getting taken or possess by supernatural forces. 

The horror game will only be available as a digital download for the Switch, and the developer told us that it will not be releasing physical copies for the console. Remedy is also working on a sequel for the game, which will be released for the PC, Xbox Series X/S and the PS5 in 2023. The developer has yet to reveal its exact plot, but it released a teaser late last year that will give you a glimpse of the sequel's creepy setting.

Konami today dropped a ton of news about the future of its iconic horror franchise. Aside from confirming that remake of Silent Hill 2, the studio revealed three new games. Townfall comes from Annapurna Interactive and No Code, a Glasgow studio known for strong narrative titles like Observation and Stories Untold. The short teaser for Townfall looks to be the most traditional Silent Hill game of the trio.

Ascension, due out in 2023, is the least game-like installment, but it will feature the influence of J.J. Abrams. It's an interactive streaming series with the tagline: Face Your Trauma Together. Ascension comes from Abrams' studio, Bad Robot, and Genvid, a company that produces interactive live shows.

Konami

And then there's Silent Hill f, coming from Ryūkishi07, a creator known for crafting acclaimed visual novels with psychological horror and supernatural mysteries at their core. The teaser for f is incredibly gruesome, featuring a young woman as she's consumed from the inside-out by the tentacles of a flesh-eating plant. A YouTube description for the teaser says the game is “set in 1960s Japan featuring a beautiful, yet horrifying world.” There's no word yet on a release date.

Oh, and of course, there’s a new Silent Hill movie, too. Happy Halloween, everyone.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Microsoft wants to build an Xbox-branded mobile game store

The Activision Blizzard merger would play a key role.

A company filing with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has revealed plans to build a "next generation" Xbox store that's available on mobile devices, not just consoles and PCs. The shop would unsurprisingly lean heavily on content from the proposed Activision Blizzard merger. Call of Duty Mobile and King's more casual mobile games (think Candy Crush) represent more than half of Activision's revenue.

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The best portable Bluetooth speakers for 2022

There are good options in each price range.

Engadget

We’ve tested out some of the most popular Bluetooth speakers in different price ranges, focusing a bit more on audio quality and dynamic range, while considering factors like utility and price. Ultimately, there isn't one best Bluetooth speaker out there, but we've found plenty of good options for a range of uses and price points.

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James Webb telescope captures Pillars of Creation in unprecedented detail

Featuring lots of young stars.

NASA

Researchers have captured their most detailed image yet of the Pillars of Creation, a star-forming nursery in the Eagle Nebula roughly 6,500 light-years away. The near-infrared picture shows even more detail than Hubble's 2014 snapshot, with an abundance of stars (particularly newborns) – there isn't even a galaxy in sight. The new stars are the bright red points of light and are estimated to be 'just' a few hundred thousand years old.

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Meta's AI translator can interpret unwritten languages

It currently translates between English and Hokkien.

Nearly half of the world’s roughly 7,000 known languages lack a written component. These unwritten languages pose a unique problem for machine learning translation systems, but one that Meta is trying to tackle with its Universal Speech Translator (UST) program. As part of this project, Meta researchers looked at Hokkien, an unwritten language spoken throughout Asia’s diaspora and one of Taiwan’s official languages.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained: “We leveraged Mandarin as an intermediate language to build pseudo-labels, where we first translated English (or Hokkien) speech to Mandarin text, and we then translated to Hokkien (or English) and added it to training data.” Currently, the system allows for someone who speaks Hokkien to converse with someone who speaks English, stiltedly.

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Google's iOS 16 lock screen widgets are now available

Gmail, Maps and other apps are now in closer reach.

Google’s new iOS 16 widgets give you at-a-glance info and shortcuts for some of the company's core apps. Gmail shows your new message counts, and Maps provides links to your favorite trips (like your commute home). The widgets run the gamut of Google apps, though with diminishing usefulness: Google News shows the latest headlines, while Drive takes you to suggested and starred cloud files. YouTube and YouTube Music also have home screen widgets, so you can jump to your video subscriptions or search for a song on YouTube Music.

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Blackmagic Design is bringing it's popular DaVinci Resolve video editing app to the iPad, promising support for RAW, cloud collaboration and more, the company announced on Twitter. It won't be a full version of the PC/Mac app, as it will initially feature just the Cut and Color pages. Otherwise, though, "it will be similar to the desktop version," Blackmagic said.

The iPad app will support file formats including H.264, H.265, Apple ProRes and Blackmagic RAW, with clips available from the "iPad Pro internal storage and Photos library, externally connected iCloud or USB-C media disks," the company wrote on Facebook. 

In addition, you'll be able to open desktop projects on the iPad version, including shared collaborative projects via Blackmagic Cloud. "This means DaVinci Resolve for iPad is the same professional tool, and the same codebase as used on major Hollywood feature films," Blackmagic pointed out. 

There are some changes to the UI because of the screen size, as the menu bar will be removed, for instance. In addition, there's no plan to bring the Edit page to the iPad version, as it's essentially designed for a keyboard and mouse. "This makes it very difficult to move to the iPad without changing it in a way that would cause problems for professional editors who rely on the edit page for their work," the company said. Because of that, the Cut page will gain new features, including "enhanced audio support, key framing , split edits and more." 

The Fusion effects and Fairlight audio tools aren't available yet either, "because their software code has not yet been redesigned for the iPad." However, the company plans to work on those pages and include them in a future release. 

DaVinci Resolve is a popular app with professional editors, in part because of its powerful color correction tools — making Engadget's list of the best editing apps. In addition, there's a powerful free version of the app and the paid version costs just $300, with all future updates free. That has proven tempting for editors who don't want to pay a monthly fee to use Adobe's Premiere, After Effects and Audition tools. 

Konami's Silent Hill 2 remake for PC and PlayStation 5 isn't the only reimagining of the classic 2001 game on the horizon: The company just announced that the story is also being adapted into a new major motion picture. Return to Silent Hill will apparently serve as a direct sequel to the original 2006 adaptation, and will be helmed by the very same director, Christophe Gans.

The project seems to still be in the development phase. There's no teaser trailer, just a handful storyboard images and pieces of conceptual artwork. Gans spent most of the announcement talking about the plot of the game itself. "We decided to go back to the best of these stories," he said during Konami's Silent Hill Transmission live stream. "The film tells the story of a young guy coming back to Silent Hill, where he has known a great love — and what he's going to find is a pure nightmare." 

Victor Hadida, who also worked on the 2006 film, is also returning to produce, and says that while the project is planning to give the franchise a modern twist, staying true to the spirit of the original game is a key focus. Gans seems to agree, calling the original Silent Hill games "great artistic achievements."

Hearing Christophe Gans talk about the project is genuinely interesting, as the director ponders the unique challenge of translating the immersive narrative that only a video game can deliver into a shorter 90-to-100-minute experience. We won't see how well he manages it for quite some time, however. Return to Silent Hill does not yet have a release date.