Gearbox Software announced several months ago that a new Tales from the Borderlands game was coming this year, and its title is exactly that: New Tales from the Borderlands. CEO Randy Pitchford made an appearance at Gamescom's Opening Night Live showcase to reveal more details about the game.
Pitchford said he was a big fan of the original game, a narrative-driven point-and-click title set in the Borderlands universe developed by Telltale Games. Pitchford said Gearbox brought in some of the writers who worked on the first game for New Tales from the Borderlands
The latest title has three new main characters (Anu, Octavio and Fran) and a fresh storyline. As you might expect from a Borderlands game, the trailer suggests it will have offbeat humor and lots of guns. It seems there'll be a minigame or two as well. While New Tales from the Borderlands retains the series' distinctive art style, it looks like the visuals have been given an upgrade after Gearbox switched to Unreal Engine.
Gearbox is making New Tales from the Borderlands in-house at its Quebec studio. It will release the game on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Steam and Epic Games Store on October 21st.
🚨 New Tales from the Borderlands Trailer
Meet Anu, Octavio, & Fran as you stand against ruthless corporate overlords in this action-packed narrative adventure
Gamescom 2022 opened with the reveal of Everywhere, a new game from Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies. "We want the community to build this. We want it to be their world. We want them to tell their stories in our game," Benzies said before sharing a trailer that seemed to show off two very different games.
At first, we see an experience that looks similar to Fortnite. There are multiple characters shooting, jumping and driving across different biomes, with an obvious metaverse-like social component built into gameplay. However, in the final third of the trailer, the game's art style changes and we're treated to more photo-realistic graphics. In an interview after the clip played, assistant game designer Adam Whiting didn't provide many other details about the project, but did say developer Build a Robot Boy hopes to release Everywhere sometime next year.
HBO Max has swung the ax on another six animated projects, according to Variety. One of them is Batman: Caped Crusader, a series produced by J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves and Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Bruce Timm. The show, which was announced last year, is a spiritual successor to Timm's classic '90s series.
Unlike some of the other shows and movies HBO Max has canned in recent weeks, production is continuing on these projects. The production teams will seek another home for them. The other projects in this wave of cancellations are Merry Little Batman, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, Bye Bye Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical, Did I Do That to The Holidays: A Steve Urkel Story and The Amazing World of Gumball: The Movie.
HBO Max is deprioritizing kids and family content. Last week, it yanked dozens of shows, including several animated series. It also removed hundreds of Sesame Street episodes in an apparent move to save on licensing fees.
On top of that, HBO Max canceled exclusive movies Batgirl and Scoob!: Holiday Haunt and took down other notable original shows and movies in recent weeks (one of Batgirl's directors seemingly tried to capture some footage from the movie on his smartphone to no avail). What's more, the streaming service and sibling HBO laid off several employees from the family programming division this month.
Parent Warner Bros. Discovery is removing certain shows and movies from HBO Max ahead of merging the service with Discovery+ next year. "As we work toward bringing our content catalogs together under one platform, we will be making changes to the content offering available on both HBO Max and Discovery+," it said.
The decisions to cancel and remove content come amid border cost-cutting efforts at Warner Bros. Discovery, which formed after the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery earlier this year. CEO David Zaslav and his team are trying to make $3 billion in cuts, but the moves have had an impact on the company's stock price, which has fallen by 25 percent since August 4th. The company's valuation has dropped by billions over the last month. That footage from The Last of Us sure looks good, though.
Warner Bros Discovery wanted to save $3 billion by deleting series, movies, killing payments to animation workers’ health funds, firing a lot of women and minorities and their reward has been losing $5.5 billion market cap in a month & alienating top talent. Great job. pic.twitter.com/QuocGhW3N6
After nearly 10 million people watched the premiere of HBO’s House of the Dragon, Amazon wants to remind you it too has a high-fantasy series that’s coming out soon. On Tuesday, the company shared a new trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. More than anything, the clip is a showcase for the $465 million Amazon spent to produce the show’s first season.
Dialogue from characters like Galadriel and Elrond set the stage for the Second Age conflict that’s about to unfold, but it’s almost secondary to the spectacle of the visuals on display. Every scene oozes with the money that went in to create the show’s cinematography, costume design and CGI. The Rings of Power will borrow some elements from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion. As the title makes clear, the series will recount the forging of the Rings of Power and Sauron’s return to Middle-earth. Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have outlined a five-season story. The first one will debut on September 2nd.
So HBO’s The Last of Us is almost here, but Sony forges forward with even more shows and/or movies based on PlayStation game franchises. With mixed levels of anticipation, I’d say.
Sony is reportedly working on a Gravity Rush movie with Ridley Scott's production team. The movie will be based on the original 2012 PlayStation Vita game, featuring Kat, an amnesiac who can manipulate gravity to traverse an open world in a novel way. Emily Jerome, the writer of upcoming thriller Panopticon, is working on the script. Anna Mastro, who helmed Disney+ film Secret Society of Second Born Royals, has been tapped to direct.
On top of that, Days Gone’s post-apocalyptic tale is going to be a film, with Outlander actor Sam Heughan reportedly to star in a script penned by Up in the Air and X-Men: First Class writer Sheldon Turner. It may seem like an odd choice: The game has sold nine million copies to date, making it one of the company’s least well-received first-party titles. But Days Gone has picked up a new audience since its release on Steam — a movie could repeat that magic.
The JWT has snapped a pair of near-infrared photos showing Jupiter's polar auroras. You can also see, above, the planet's extremely faint rings and two of its smaller moons, Amalthea (the bright spot to the far left) and Adrastea (the dot at the left edge of the central ring). Astronomers created composites with filters mapped to multiple colors. In several images, the Great Red Spot and other cloud formations are white because they reflect large amounts of sunlight.
MoviePass’ return is almost here. A beta of the revived service will launch on or around September 5th (Labor Day). Pricing depends on the market, but it will be a tiered system costing around $10, $20 or $30 per month. Insider, which reported the relaunch details, noted users will get a number of credits each month. There won't be an unlimited plan — maybe lessons have been learned.
The organization wants to end confusing response time specs.
The Video Electronics Standards Associated (VESA) wants to make buying your next monitor or TV easier, and it’s doing so by introducing a new standard. I know what you’re thinking: Between DisplayPort, DisplayHDR and AdaptiveSync, aren’t there already enough VESA standards? Well, yes.
But here comes another. VESA’s new Clear Motion Ratio Compliance Test Specification, or ClearMR for short, has tiered ranking designed to communicate the ratio of clear to blurry pixels a screen will produce when displaying a fast-moving image.
Dorsey previously endorsed Musk’s bid to buy Twitter.
Lawyers representing Elon Musk in his battle with Twitter have subpoenaed former CEO Jack Dorsey. It’s not yet clear how Dorsey factors in Musk's legal strategy. As noted by the Chancery Daily Twitter account, the subpoena refers to “documents and communications reflecting, referring to, or relating to the impact or effect of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business operations.” Interestingly, it also requests “documents relating to incorporating mDAU (monetizable daily active users) into executive or director compensation.”
Sony seems determined to turn every gaming property it has ever laid a finger on into a movie or TV show. PlayStation Productions has a whole heap of projects in the works and the latest, according to Deadline, is a Gravity Rushfilm.
The movie will be based on the 2012 PlayStation Vita game of the same name from Japan Studio's Team Gravity (the title was later remastered for PlayStation 4). You play as Kat, an amnesiac who can manipulate gravity to traverse an open world in a novel way. Kat uses her powers to protect the people of Hekseville from gravity storms and monsters. A sequel arrived on PS4 in 2017.
Ridley Scott's production company Scott Free Productions is reportedly working on the movie. Emily Jerome, the writer of upcoming thriller Panopticon, is working on the script. Anna Mastro, who helmed Disney+ film Secret Society of Second Born Royals and episodes of many notable TV shows, is onboard as director.
The Gravity Rush project underlines just how serious Sony is about expanding its gaming IP into the realms of film and television. It finally released an Uncharted movie earlier this year and over the weekend, it emerged that a Days Gone film is in development. That's on top of shows based on Twisted Metal,God of War and the Horizon games, as well as upcoming Gran Turismo and Ghost of Tsushima movies.
Last, but by no means least, a show based on The Last of Us is coming to HBO next year. The network released the first footage from the series in a sizzle reel on Sunday. With The Last of Us Day fast approaching, we likely won't have to wait long for a full trailer.
Companies already use The Game Awards to pitch related movies and shows, but now the event will officially recognize those productions. Organizers have revealed that the 2022 Game Awards will take place December 8th with a new Best Adaptation category. Companies will receive statuettes for any project that translates games to "popular media," including movies, TV series, podcasts and books.
The event will not only retain an in-person component, but extend that to theaters. The Game Awards will offer a live "IMAX Experience" in cities worldwide. While more details are due in the months ahead, it's safe to presume you'll get a richer audiovisual presentation as you watch ceremonies and game trailers.
The creation of an adaptation category isn't surprising. This year has had a flurry of game-inspired media, including the long-in-the-making Halo TV series, a well-received Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie and an anticipated (if unspectacular) Uncharted film. This gives The Game Awards a chance to capitalize on the trend, of course, but it could also reward those studios that do justice to favorite gaming franchises.
YouTube's interest in podcasts appears to extend beyond paying creators to make videos. 9to5Googlenotes YouTube has quietly launched a podcast Explore page. Only some people can access it on desktop or mobile, but those that can will see popular channels, episodes and playlists as well as categories and recommended shows. At present, you'll see standard video thumbnails and playback controls, even if you're a YouTube Premium subscriber who normally sees listening-oriented options.
We've asked YouTube for comment. The Explore page appears to have gone live near the end of July, but is only now becoming more widely available. It's not clear what (if anything) will happen to Google Podcasts.
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While YouTube's longer-term plans aren't evident, the new area suggests the Google brand is positioning itself as an alternative to major podcast clients like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. That wouldn't be surprising if so. YouTube already hosts numerous podcasts, particularly those that have video versions. The Explore page could draw more attention to those productions and encourage more podcasters to publish their work on YouTube.
HBO has shared the first footage from its upcoming live-action adaptation of The Last of Us. In a trailer the streamer published on YouTube before the premiere of House of the Dragon, we see about 20 seconds of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie. Despite the short length of the clip, it's filled with moments fans will recognize. We see an exchange between Joel and Ellie that's lifted directly from the original game. There's even a flashback featuring Joel's biological daughter. The footage also offers a glimpse of Nick Offerman as Bill.
Expectations for the series are already riding high. In addition to a star-studded cast, Craig Mazin of Chernobyl fame is involved in the project as writer, creator and executive producer, as is the game's original creative director, Neil Druckmann. The series is expected to premiere in early 2023. The first season will feature 10 episodes.
Netflix’s forthcoming ad-supported tier could include programming without commercials. According to Bloomberg, the company doesn’t plan to run ads during original movies, at least when they first premiere on the platform. In doing so, Netflix reportedly hopes to keep its service appealing to high-profile filmmakers who may find the idea of commercials interrupting their stories unappealing.
Content for children could also be free of ads. Netflix has reportedly told partners it won’t run commercials during original kids programming. Some of the company’s current agreements would not allow it to run ads during licensed content either. Netflix may feel serving commercials to kids would be more trouble than it’s worth. In 2019, Google paid $170 million for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act after the FTC found YouTube had illegally collected data from kids.
Bloomberg warns Netflix is still finalizing plans for its ad-supported tier, and the company’s strategy could change between now and when the service eventually launches. On that note, code recently found by developer Steve Moser suggested the new tier could also drop support for offline viewing. Netflix quickly responded to the rumor by pointing out it was still in the “early days of deciding how to launch a lower priced, ad-supported option.”
