After years of brand tie-ins and ill-conceived spinoffs, the series is back — and it’s just as tense as ever.

Read the full story at The Verge.

It was another sci-fi-heavy year for Apple’s streaming service.

Read the full story at The Verge.

In Squid Game, schoolyard games are turned into nightmares, as players compete to survive and — if they’re lucky — earn a massive cash prize. But in Unleashed, a new mobile spinoff that’s part of the streamer’s fledgling gaming efforts, those games are fun. It’s a strange experience that sands off much of the appeal of Squid Game in service of making a multiplayer party game.

Unleashed is sort of like Fall Guys but in a Squid Game wrapper. You compete against 31 other players across three random games pulled from the show, like “red light, green light” or racing across a bridge made of glass. Slowly other players die off, and by the end one wins a whole bunch of money.

Aesthetically, the game mostly follows the show. There are a bunch of characters to play as — some pulled from the show, others new for the game — and even though there’s a cartoon aesthetic, things still get bloody, with players being shot for breaking the rules or crushed under some obstacle. There are the familiar green track suits and masked guards.

But the connections to the show are really only surface level. There’s no story element, so if you haven’t watched the show, you’d have no idea the kind of personal anguish many of the characters are going through.

In fact, many of the elements that make Unleashed a pretty fun mobile game are also what keep it from being a good adaptation of what Squid Game is all about. In order to reduce frustration, most of the games have respawning. So even if you fail at “red light, green light” and get shot by a guard, it’s not game over. It simply slows you down in a race to be one of a pre-determined number of players to cross the finish line and move on.

Similarly, the games can all be completed in a few minutes. This is great for playing short sessions on the go; being stuck in a 30 minute multiplayer match on your phone typically sucks. But when you put elements like the short run time and respawning together it, completely erases any of the tension that’s so core to Squid Game’s appeal.

And despite having no in-app purchases — Unleashed is completely free for Netflix subscribers and, for a limited time, non-subscribers — it’s still structured like a typical free-to-play game. You earn cash from winning matches and completing various goals, which is used to unlock new characters, costumes, and emotes. Every time I log on I’m greeted with a jarring number of pop-ups and notifications letting me know I just unlocked a zombie costume or that there’s a Christmas-themed event going on. Just this morning I was gifted a twerking emote.

Yes, now I can make Kang Sae-byeok, whose death was one of the most tragic moments of season 1, twerk in the middle of a deadly obstacle course.

Unleashed isn’t a bad game. In many ways, it’s a clever reinterpretation of online party games for mobile. But, like most of Netflix’s expansions of the Squid Game universe, it also completely misses the point of the show. It’s sort of like what Fortnite is to the original movie Battle Royale: a playful, colorful take on a brutal, piercing story.

Fortnite largely avoided the tonal dissonance by creating a cartoon-ish, multiversal world that is far away from an island full of kids killing their classmates. Unleashed, on the other hand, is another part of Squid Game — one that doesn’t seem to understand why the series exists.

Netflix’s push into live sports has snagged another major event. Today the streamer announced that it has acquired US streaming rights for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in both 2027 and 2031. FIFA is calling the deal “a landmark announcement for women’s football.”

The 2027 edition of the tournament will take place in Brazil, while the following World Cup doesn’t yet have a host nation. The Netflix coverage in the US will include both English- and Spanish-language broadcasts, and the streamer says that it will be creating more coverage in addition to the live matches:

Studio shows and top-tier talent will supplement coverage with commentary and entertainment. And in the lead-up to the tournament, Netflix will produce exclusive documentary programming spotlighting the top players, their journeys, and the explosion of the sport around the globe.

The World Cup is the most ambitious addition to Netflix’s growing sports lineup, which to date has mostly included one-off events like the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight, or a pair of NFL games that will stream on Christmas day. The World Cup, meanwhile, spans a month of matches with 32 national teams competing. It will be a huge test for Netflix’s fledgling live infrastructure.

It’s all part of a growing trend of streaming services looking to live events — and sports in particular — as the next frontier. Apple has gone all-in in MLS, Amazon airs NHL games and is getting into the NBA next year, while the likes of Max, Roku, and pretty much every service have gotten into sports in some way.

The first season of Dune: Prophecy is about to wrap up — but there’s more on the way. Ahead of the finale on December 22nd, HBO has confirmed than the prequel series has been renewed for a second season.

The show premiered in November, and takes place 10,000 years before the events of the Dune movies from Denis Villeneuve. It stars Emily Watson and Olivia Williams as two Harkonnen sisters who form the galaxy-defining sect known as the Bene Gesserit.

“If you just know the Harkonnens from the movies, they’re these monstrous villains who are very clearly the bad guys,” showrunner Alison Schapker told The Verge about the series. “But that’s not where they started off, and this kind of story gave us a chance to complicate that understanding and dig into what made them that way.”

There’s no word on when to expect season 2, but it’s also not the only Dune project on the way: Dune 3 is in the works, as is a survival game set on Arrakkis.

There weren’t many exclusives this year, but Apple’s subscription service still had some notable new releases.

Read the full story at The Verge.

The first trailer for the next theatrical take on Superman is finally here. After some teasing, DC Studios released the debut look at the new film, which is simply called Superman. It opens with Superman crashing in a frozen landscape, clearly injured, before flashing back to his life as Clark Kent. A handful of villains make an appearance — including Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor — but overall the vibe seems to be one of hope. There’s even a very dramatic take on the classic Superman theme song. And yes, the dog makes an appearance.

The movie is a major part of the revamped DC Studios, which saw James Gunn and Peter Safran take over the division as co-CEOs back in 2022. Gunn is the writer and director for Superman. Meanwhile, David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan are the new Clark Kent and Lois Lane, with the latter taking up the red cape from Henry Cavill, who is now working on a live-action take on Warhammer for Amazon.

Gunn, who is best known as the director of the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, has previously said that he wants all of the new DC films — Superman included — to feel distinct from each other. “I want each project to have the feelings of the individual artist that’s working on it and to give them a lot of freedom — as long as it works — to create something special because what I’ve found through Marvel, what wasn’t exciting was when movies were tonally the same,” he explained.

Superman hits theaters on July 11th, 2025.

A24’s lineup of films for 2025 is starting to become stacked — with fantastical creatures, that is. While the fantasy adventure The Legend of Ochi is slated to hit theaters next February, the dark comedy Death of a Unicorn is due out in the spring. And you can get a feel for it in the brand-new trailer above.

The film follows a father and daughter (Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega) who are driving to a weekend retreat, and accidentally kill an animal ... which just so happens to be a unicorn. From there, it seems as though the dad’s rich boss (Richard E. Grant) and his family can’t help but see ways to exploit the creature’s magical powers for profit. While the vibe is light and funny early one, things not only get darker, but take a turn towards horror by the end of the trailer.

Death of a Unicorn is the directorial debut from Alex Scharfman, and it also stars Will Poulter, Sunita Mani, and Téa Leoni. Hereditary director Ari Aster serves as a producer, while horror legend John Carpenter.

Amazon’s push into video game adaptations shows no signs of letting up. Today the company announced that Secret Level — an anthology of animated shorts all based on different video game properties — has been renewed for a second season on Prime Video. No other details about the new season have been announced yet.

Secret Level actually just premiered on Prime Video, and comes from the same team behind Netflix’s animated sci-fi anthology Love, Death and Robots. Its 15 episodes span a range of notable video game franchises, including Warhammer 40,000, Dungeons & Dragons, Mega Man, and the recently-shuttered Sony shooter Concord. It also awkwardly straddled the line between TV show and advertisement. In fact, one of Secret Level’s most infamous episodes — a bloody, dark reimagining of Pac-Man — turned out to be tied to an upcoming game.

Seriously, just look at it:

The news comes as Amazon continues to find its footing both developing and publishing video games, as well as adapting them for its streaming service. This year the company had a major hit with Fallout on Prime Video (which is also getting a second season) and followed it up with a live-action take on Yakuza. A Tomb Raider series is also in the works.

The end of the end of the world is now in sight. Apple just announced that its post-apocalyptic series Silo, which is in the midst of its second season, has been renewed for two more seasons. That means that season 4 will be the show’s last.

Silo first debuted in 2023, and it tells the story of the remnants of humanity, who live in an underground silo where they’re largely safe from the ruined landscape outside. However, things get much more complex very quickly, and the show is laden with mysteries. The series is based on a trilogy of sci-fi novels from Hugh Howey, and Apple says that the final two seasons will tell “the complete story” of the books. (So far, the first book has been split across the first two seasons of the show.)

“With the final two chapters of Silo, we can’t wait to give fans of the show an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the many mysteries and unanswered questions contained within the walls of these silos,” showrunner Graham Yost said in a statement. Rebecca Ferguson, who stars in the show and serves as an executive producer, added that “I have always felt passionately about telling the entire story contained within Hugh Howey’s books, so I couldn’t be happier that audiences around the world have enthusiastically embraced the show.”

The second season of Silo wraps up on January 17th. That’s the same day that another sci-fi series returns to Apple TV Plus, with season 2 of the workplace thriller Severance.

Capcom had quite the surprise in store at The Game Awards. The developer announced a sequel to Okami, a beautiful and beloved action-adventure game that originally launched back in 2006.

The sequel — which doesn’t currently have a name — was revealed in dramatic fashion with a musical performance. Original director Hideki Kamiya is returning for the game, which will be developed by his new studio Clovers. It’s still very early though; during the reveal TGA host Geoff Keighley said that “production is about to begin.” Capcom, meanwhile, says only that “a new adventure in the same vein as Okami has been set in motion.”

Not only has it been quite some time since Okami debuted, its announcement also comes at a time when Capcom seems intent on doubling down on its biggest franchises. Right now that means a lot of Monster Hunter and Resident Evil. Up next is Monster Hunter Wilds, which is launching next year, as well as the mobile spinoff Monster Hunter Outlanders.

However, Okami isn’t the only Capcom franchise being revived: the company also revealed a new entry in the action franchise Onimusha, which is launching in 2026. Here’s the very bloody debut trailer for that.

We already knew it was in the works, and now we have an idea of how it will look and play. At the Game Awards, Gearbox Software revealed the first proper trailer for Borderlands 4, which is due out in 2025. The trailer starts with a cinematic depicting a large-scale conflict of some sort, before getting into the actual gameplay — which is as colorful and violent as you’d expect from the franchise. The game is playable solo or co-op with up to three other players, and Gearbox says that there are “billions” of weapons to use.

Here’s the basic set-up:

Break free from the oppressive Timekeeper, a ruthless dictator who dominates the masses from on high. Now a world-altering catastrophe threatens his perfect Order, unleashing mayhem across the planet. Ignite a resistance and blast your way through mechanical monstrosities, bloodthirsty bandits, and vicious beasts. Amass an arsenal of death-dealing firepower to wreak havoc as you tear your way across Kairos.

Borderlands 4 was first announced this summer, and will be the first new entry in the looter shooter series since Borderlands 3 in 2019. It also follows the franchise’s debut on the big screen, as the Borderlands movie hit theaters in August to less than critical acclaim. The game is also in development during an interesting time for Gearbox; in March the studio was sold to Take-Two by beleaguered publisher Embracer.

While Borderlands 4 doesn’t have a specific release date yet, it’s coming to PS5, Xbox, and PC next year.

The 2024 edition of The Game Awards started with a bang — the very first look at the next Witcher game. It’s called The Witcher 4 and was revealed via a lengthy cinematic trailer that starred Ciri in place of Geralt, who led the original trilogy.

There aren’t many details yet, but CD Projekt Red says that in the new game, “Ciri takes center stage as the protagonist, embarking on her own journey to become a professional monster slayer.” It will be a single-player, open-world RPG. The studio says that “the cinematic trailer is pre-rendered in a custom build of Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU.”

It doesn’t sound like the trailer will necessarily be representative of the final game, however. Here’s how CD Projekt Red explains it:

In the nearly six-minute trailer, viewers were introduced to Ciri, the adopted daughter of Geralt of Rivia, as she takes on a witcher contract in a remote village that has been terrorized for generations by a fearsome monster demanding human sacrifices. Framed as a short, self-contained Witcher story, the trailer showcases Ciri’s new abilities and tools, including a chain and advanced magic powers.

At the heart of the trailer is Ciri’s perspective as an outsider to the village. As the villagers say goodbye to one of their own — a young girl they are preparing for a traditional ritual sacrifice — Ciri chooses to intervene. Aiming to slay the beast and save the girl at the same time, Ciri finds herself at odds with the prejudices and superstitions of the people she tries to protect, leading her to confront a painful witcher lesson: that monsters come in all forms.

We’ve known for some time that CD Projekt Red was working on a follow up to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which is meant to kick off a new saga for the fantasy franchise. In November the studio revealed that the game, previously codenamed “Polaris,” was in the “full-scale production phase” of development.” It’s being built using Unreal Engine 5, which the studio shifted to following the troubled launch of Cyberpunk 2077.

No word yet on platforms or release timing.

Geoff Keighley’s enormous and expensive video game commercial show celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.

It’s that time of the year. The Game Awards 2024 starts December 12th at 7:30 PM ET / 4:30 PM PT on Twitch and YouTube. This year marks the awards’ tenth anniversary so expect some big surprises to celebrate the occasion. We already know Borderlands 4 will make an appearance as well as the next game from Hazelight Studios, the developers behind Game of the Year 2021 It Takes Two.

Keighley’s BFF Hideo Kojima will probably show up to show off more of Death Stranding 2 or maybe even his new game / movie hybrid project OD. And with 2025 mere weeks away, the GTA VI hype season will officially start, likely with a new, potentially record busting trailer. Here are all the news, trailers, and surprises for this years Game Awards.

As for me, the only thing I’m excited about for TGAs 2024 is the possibility of Flute Guy and Metaphor: ReFantanzio Monk Guy sharing the same stage.

It’s December, which means one thing: it’s time for another round of The Game Awards. As with last year — and every year — the awards themselves aren’t really the highlight of the Geoff Keighley-hosted event. Instead, the show has become a very long stream full of video game announcements, reveals, and trailers, punctuated by the occasional award and musical performance.

This year, we know at least a few of the major reveals, which will include the first gameplay trailer for Borderlands 4 and the next release from Hazelight Studios, the team behind surprise hit It Takes Two. Games like Palworld, Dying Light, and Mafia: The Old Country, are all confirmed to make an appearance, and it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Hideo Kojima showed up as well, either to show off Death Stranding 2 or OD.

If you are interested in the awards, this year’s top prize features a solid lineup of competing games, including Astro Bot, Balatro, Black Myth: Wukong, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Metaphor: ReFantazio.

How and when to watch The Game Awards 2024

The ceremony kicks off at 7:30PM ET on December 12th and, as per usual, it’s streaming a huge bunch of places including YouTube, Twitch, X, Facebook, Instagram, and many others. (You can find the complete list right here.) It’ll also be streaming inside of Fortnite, if the metaverse is your thing.

A year ago, Epic kicked off a bold plan to turn Fortnite into a broader ecosystem for all kinds of games. And that plan was led by the launch of Lego Fortnite, a Minecraft-style survival game that sits alongside the likes of battle royale and the music-themed Fortnite Festival inside of Fortnite. Now, Epic is pushing into another new direction with the launch of Brick Life, a Lego-themed city where players can live virtual lives, much like in Grand Theft Auto roleplaying servers.

The ongoing goal, according to Devin Winterbottom, Epic’s executive vice president of game development, is to keep expanding in ways that make people rethink what Fortnite actually is. “The worst outcome for us is that everything looks like battle royale,” Winterbottom says. “That’s not what we want to do.”

For Brick Life, that takes the form of a family-friendly nonviolent space where players can explore and socialize inside of a Lego city. It launches today as part of a broader rebranding of Lego Fortnite; now, those two words refer to a hub that houses all of the Lego experiences in the game, while the survival title has been renamed Lego Fortnite Odyssey. In between those two major releases, Lego...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Lego is building something new in Fortnite. A year after Lego Fortnite launched a new era inside of the game — one based on the idea that Fortnite is a collection of many game experiences, rather than just a battle royale — Lego is expanding its presence with a new title that sounds reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto V roleplaying as well as a rebrand of its core survival game.

First up is a game called Brick Life, which is billed as “an all-new social roleplay experience.” Players explore a Lego-ified city location with 31 other people and can take on specific jobs like courier, security guard, or sushi chef. Players can design their own homes and explore locations like a magical school and rooftop club, and there are missions to take on as well. From the sounds of it, Brick Life is a more family-friendly take on the enduring popularity of roleplaying servers in GTA V, and Epic isn’t being all that subtle about the connection:

Brick Life is launching inside of Fortnite on December 12th, though it won’t be available for players in South Korea.

As part of the announcement, Lego Fortnite — the Minecraft-style survival experience that launched last December — is being renamed Lego Fortnite Odyssey. From now on, “Lego Fortnite” will be the name of the hub inside of Fortnite that houses all of the Lego experiences. Epic and Lego have been steadily expanding their partnership over the last year, launching new games and also letting Fortnite players build their own Lego games.

The ongoing collaboration between Lego and Fortnite could provide a hint at what to expect from the upcoming “persistent universe” that Epic and Disney are making together, following a $1.5 billion investment from Disney in February. Since then, we’ve heard very little specifics about what the virtual world might look like.

Meanwhile, Epic has also announced that Fortnite is getting support for a revamped version of text chat, which will be available as an option across all of its experiences starting on December 10th. There will be three kinds of text chat available: party channel for talking with your squad; game channel for a public conversation with people on the same island; and DMs with people on your friends list.

Epic says there will be two kinds of chat filters — one that removes personal information, and another that filters out “various kinds of mature language and toxicity” — which will be always on for players under the age of 13 in all forms of text chat. They will also be always on for all players in the channel chats. The feature will also include a reporting system similar to the voice reporting tool Epic launched last year. Here’s an example of what text chats look like in the game:

Image: Epic Games

All of these announcements come at a particularly busy time for Fortnite. The battle royale game is currently in the midst of a brand-new chapter that kicked off following an ambitious music-themed season, and Epic also recently brought back the nostalgia-filled Fortnite OG as a permanent mode. Meanwhile, Epic just announced “Ballistic,” a multiplayer first-person shooter mode that launches inside of Fortnite on December 11th.

We already knew that the tensions and scares were going to ramp up in season 2 of Severance, and the latest trailer provides a deeper glimpse into what to expect — along with teasing answers to some important (and weird) questions.

The show follows a megacorporation called Lumon Industries, which utilizes a new procedure called severance that allows workers to spatially split their brains, creating two selves: one who works for Lumon, and another who lives life on the outside. The new clip shows the return of four Lumon employees — Mark (Adam Scott), Dylan (Zach Cherry), Helly (Britt Lower), and Irving (John Turturro) — who are back in the office after managing to bridge those two different worlds. However, it’s unclear if they’re actually in trouble for their actions; instead, they’ve turned into celebrities of sorts.

That doesn’t mean that the vibes are any less unsettling, though, with the always-intense supervisor Milchick (Tramell Tillman) saying things like, “I’m tightening the leash.” More than anything, the new trailer promises answers to some of Severance’s strangest questions. There’s the mystery of what actually goes down in Lumon’s basement, which we’re told “will be remembered as one of the greatest moments on this planet” as well as just what the hell is going on with all of the goats. The trailer also introduces an unexpected new question: how could a child be an office manager?

Clearly, there’s a lot going on in season 2, and it’s not too far off now. The new season of Severance starts streaming on January 17th. In the meantime, here are some excellent new posters.

Image: Apple

The League of Legends universe is expanding once again — this time with a physical card game. Riot Games announced today that it’s developing a physical trading card game set in the League universe. The game is currently known as “Project K,” and Riot says it’s working with an unnamed partner in China to release the game there in early 2025. As for a global release, Riot says, “We are taking our time to find the right publishing partners.”

There aren’t a lot of details available about Project K. According to Riot, the game “has unique gameplay and is best when played with friends and in person,” and development is being led by director Dave Guskin and producer Chengran Chai. You can get a sense of the game in the images below:

Of course, this is far from the first spinoff from League. So far, that has included mobile games like Teamfight Tactics and Wild Rift, the Netflix series Arcane, and the competitive fighting game 2XKO, which is expected to launch next year. Not all of these bets have paid off. In January, Riot announced that it was cutting more than 500 jobs, which included shutting down Riot Forge Games, a publishing label for indie games set inside of League. Also impacted was Legends of Runeterra, a mobile card game that launched in 2020, which Riot said “hasn’t performed as well as we need it to.”

The Project K news comes as card games are having another moment, led largely by the new smartphone version of the Pokémon Trading Card Game.

Before we all settle in for The Game Awards next week, this year’s PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted had its own assortment of interesting reveals and excellent trailers. It was an indie-focused showcase, which means that there was quite a bit of inventiveness on display; everything from a unique take on TMNT to a platformer where you jump around computer windows. If you missed the show live — which also included some news updates, like PlayerUnknown’s ambitious plans for the future — here’s a curated list of some of the best stuff that was on display.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault

The original Moonlighter mixed action RPG gameplay with the mundanity of running a shop, and the sequel looks like much of the same: only this time, players are transported to another dimension they need to escape. The Endless Vault launches in 2025 on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown

One of the biggest surprises was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, from indie studio Strange Scaffold. It’s billed as a turn-based take on the turtles, which is billed as an experience designed in part for “quick-play sessions that feel meaningful.” It takes place in a timeline without icons Shredder and Splinter. Given the studio’s history — see Clickolding and An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs — it will hopefully also be weird in a good way. Tactical Takedown launches on PC in 2025.

Cairn

This rock-climbing adventure / survival game has been looking good for a while now, and you can finally check it out for yourself: Cairn just got a free demo on Steam.

Sol Mates

There can never be enough co-op games. This release from Daruma Games supports local and online co-op for up to four players, who are tasked with surviving in the great expanse of space by doing “odd jobs through the galaxy.” It’s also pretty darn cute. Sol Mates launches in early access next year.

The Legend of Baboo

Billed as a “heartfelt nod to Middle Eastern fables,” this game looks like a potentially great mix of adventure, action, and puzzle solving, with a great big fluffy dog to ride on. In fact, you play as both the boy and the dog, who form a bond over the course of the game. Let’s hope it has a happier ending than The Last Guardian. The Legend of Baboo is launching in 2025 on both PC and Xbox.

Abyssus

Thanks to this game, I’ve learned of a fictional genre called “brinepunk,” where tech is powered by sea brine. It sounds weird, but this co-op shooter does take place in the fascinating underwater ruins of a long-gone civilization. Developer DoubleMoose says Abyssus will go into alpha on December 6th, with a full release next year.

MainFrames

All you really need to know is that this is a platformer where you’re jumping across a desktop PC interface, rearranging icons to solve puzzles, and fighting bosses controlled by the OS. It launches on both PC and the Nintendo Switch on March 6th.

Deepest Fear

Developed by Variable State, the indie studio behind games Virginia and Last Stop, Deepest Fear is an immersive sci-fi horror title with distinct shades of Alien and The Thing. The developers say that it “combines Metroidvania level design in the context of a classic FPS immersive sim, where the game’s setting is a puzzle to unravel and where creativity and improvisation are your greatest assets.” There’s no release date yet, but Deepest Fear will (obviously) be launching on PC whenever it’s ready.

Blue Prince

It looks a bit like a more colorful take on Myst, and Blue Prince is described as a game that “combines compelling mystery, strategy, and puzzle elements to create an unpredictable journey through Mt. Holly, a peculiar manor with ever-changing rooms.” It doesn’t have a release date yet, but according to the new trailer, it’s due out next spring.