Julius

In Tanta We Trust, the game's prequel DLC, just got a trailer and is still scheduled for May 26th:

The trailer for that Gran Turismo film is out: That From GAMER to RACER tagline makes me want to die

I'm kind of surprised it took so long after someone got the CE the other day. Apparently the game's files have now been dumped online, which is why there are apparently multiple people trying to stream it. Nintendo are shutting them down but pretty hilariously the streamer who lasted longest (I think the one you're referring to Ashley) got banned and then was streaming again within a few minutes. By the way, it's kind of nuts that's people are doing this so blatantly just a week or so after Nintendo ripped that hacker apart in court (ended up jailed for 3 years and 25% to 30% of his salary basically taken for life to put towards paying off his $15 million or whatever fine). It's a shame about the leak, and it's going to be a long week and a half or so now for those of us wanting to avoid spoilers, and it'll be a week in which I'm sure those files are going to be ripped to shreds and a very surface level view of the game from items to dialogue is going to start turning up everywhere (at least for people following game news). So that's potentially another game that's going to have it's discussion dictated early on by leaks. Think I'll be walking away from YouTube until launch later this week myself. Also, with them being proactive this time around about shutting down streams – does this all mean Ninty actively decided to not go after the people that were streaming Scarlet/Violet early last year?

The game's OST will be releasing physically in July, with Standard and Ultimate CD Editions announced. No word yet on the likely inevitable vinyl release, but man, that collection sure looks real purty

PSA: there is apparently a Collector's Edition of the game out in the wild, so if there was a time to go dark (if that's your sort of thing), it's probably around now Just 13 days to go...

It's been four hours and it's still installing But yeah, will definitely share some thoughts! Hope I don't encounter too many hiccups (I'm pretty sensitive to framerate variation and they can give me headaches), but well, it can never be worse than Cyberpunk was at launch I guess

It's been nearly three weeks since Celebration ended (), so what better time to post than now? Well, I've got to do something while I wait for Survivor to install... Day 1 - Friday 7th The first day of Celebration we didn't arrive until around 10:00, which was okay - we had won passes through the lottery to the Celebration Stage for probably the premier showing: the Lucasfilm Showcase (I'll also take this opportunity to say that we managed to pick up Celebration Stage passes for all of the other lottery events except for Ahsoka). I was honestly just getting hyped seeing so many Star Wars fans at the train station, and the conductor announcing as we arrived at the ExCel that "I know most of you are here for Celebration - stay safe, have a good weekend, and may the Force be with you!" was met with applause and laughter in equal measure. The Showcase was magical, so, so, so many reveals, so many guests (!), so many awesome moments which really just made me feel I was walking on clouds from the very start of Celebration. The highlight for me was probably seeing Daisy come out and get some love (I have issues with the sequels and zero of them can be put on the actors) as well as the timeline and the announcement of Filoni getting a film! Nah who am I kidding, it was the namedrop in the 8 minute preview we got of Mando S3 E7 - I still get chills when I watch that moment back Following this, we went straight from the Celebration Stage to the queues at the same stage for the Making of Andor panel, but not before I made a quick trip to the toilets and ran into the first of a few familiar faces over the weekend, Star Wars Sith, who was probably the only YouTuber to cover every SWC-related announcement in-depth (and is definitely a recommendation if you plan on going to SWC in the future), and so I thanked him for all his help in getting me ready for Celebration and wished him a good weekend; over the weekend we also ran into Eric Whiteley from Blind Wave (a few times, actually - the first time I was like "huh, swear that guy looks familiar..." ) and I recognised Father Roderick (yes, the priest who reacts to Star Wars trailers) on one of the other days we were walking the floor. The Making of Andor panel was brilliant, even if a little less energetic than the Showcase (which was much-needed in all honesty!), and I love just how much love the show got there and in the Showcase when showing off the next season and bringing out the cast. We got invited back to the premiere of Mando S3 E7 which started at 18:00, which meant quickly darting through from the Celebration Stage to the other side of the ExCel to pick up our Mando S3 posters, but not before I came across a not-so-tall guy posing for photos with one or two people...my first thought was maybe a smaller YouTuber, but nope, it was the legend himself, Doug Chiang! Almost didn't recognise him with the moustache he's been a hero of mine since I first started diving into the behind-the-scenes of Star Wars with the Making of Revenge of the Sith book I got from a carboot sale as a little kid, but I kind of blew it a little by taking too long to hype myself up enough for a photo - I was next to take a photo with him when he was whisked off by security as a small crowd had started to form. I didn't mind though (I'm really not one for being in photos, hence needing to hype myself up beforehand) - I got to see one of my heroes in the flesh, which was awesomeeeeeeee also made use of my Store reservation (all the tote bags were sold out immediately, and I really needed one because my bags were pretty full just on the journey into London; also spent a while trying to find the commemorative pins, and when it turned out they were at the tills, had a funny exchange with the cashier as I collected a small pile as she scanned my other items..."anything else?" "uh no I'm going to need to cut myself off there I think because I won't stop otherwise" ) Anyways, we ended up back at the Celebration Stage at the end of the day to watch S3 E7 of Mando, and it was magical to watch it with a 4000+ strong crowd. Honestly, it was depressing to go back to watching the finale by myself, but at least I got to see what turned out to be one of my favourite episodes of the season with a crowd! Met a lovely guy on the way back that evening who we spoke to until we got on the train, spoke to some strangers about their awesome art pick-ups and what happened at the Showcase (all the news for which they'd missed because the signal inside the centre was awful), and got given a Brit Batch badge by one of the girls we met in the lift back at our hotel. A lovely first day, set the stage for talking to more folks in the days that followed! Day 2 - Saturday 8th So, as stated above, Ahsoka was the one panel we didn't manage to get Celebration Stage tickets - or any tickets, in the end - to...which naturally meant getting up at 05:00 and queueing from 06:30 -- yeah, so much for the warning that we'd be removed if we queued before 08:00 talked to a bunch of folks in the hours we spent queueing for this (especially as we slowly trudged into , and eventually, even though we were in the first "lane" to enter the hall after making it through security, we decided to dart over to the Galaxy Stage (a streamed-to stage) rather than the Celebration Stage (to be in the room with everyone and the guests) because it seemed the safer option. We ended up queued up outside the Galaxy Stage for over an hour, no idea if we'd be getting in through standby lines, and made good friends with the German folks behind us - we formed a pact to not pick up our bags (which we'd put down, because, well, 4.5 hours of queueing!) until we knew what was going on; eventually, as they started to call lanes in one at a time, it got to a point that I refused to look in the direction of the stage. We did, however, make it through in the end - and there was PLENTY of space! Anyways, the panel was amazing, the extended trailer was AWESOME, and it was such a good time - well worth the wait! After that, we beelined it over to the Celebration Stage queues for the 40 Years of Return of the Jedi panel, and made more friends while doing so. The panel itself, while exciting to see Doug Chiang and some other ILM folk as well as Ian McDiarmid and other big names, was a bit of a mess? Ming Na-Wen was hosting a panel for the first time and it showed, and it got really awkward when Billie Dee came out and would answer questions minutes after the fact or seemingly not answer questions at all - it was clear his age was getting to him (struggled to read notes from a piece of paper) and it was honestly kind of heartbreaking to watch we got a cool poster for the 40th anniversary and the announcement of the film returning to cinemas at the end of the month (which I'll be going to watch tomorrow!) so not all hope was lost. Following this, we took a quick break and then went to start queueing at the Galaxy Stage for the Clone Wars - 15 Year Anniversary Panel at 15:30 (two hours ahead of it starting!) but were turned away and told to go to the smaller (and streamed-to) Twin Suns stage because they were at capacity with the Young Jedi Adventures panel and had no plans to clear the room. Told my friend that we'd go to Twin Suns, but guaranteed that there would be space there when people start to trickle out because that space was probably mostly taken up by families; it sucked, but on the off-chance I was wrong, Twin Suns seemed the safest option. Well, that turned out to be its own sort of chaos - we were a few lanes in and then they shuffled people in for the Hasbro panel, saying they wouldn't clear the panel, which left us in the first 20 in the first lane as the standby queue. Some people trickled out of the queue not thinking they'd get in, others because clearly they wanted to go to the preceding Hasbro panel and couldn't because people had now gone in to guarantee spaces for TCW panel, and they stopped allowing people to join the queue, so as the time came closer, we just saw more and more people get turned away, which was its own weird kind of heartbreaking (this included the guy we met at the end of the first day!) it was a mess, and what made it worse was that through the Discord myself and a girl in our front of the line cohort learned that there WAS space at the Galaxy Stage and that we would have made it in if we weren't turned away, but alas! Eventually we got in and I sat next to her - there was a LOAD of space, mind you, but anyways, it was worth the wait. There was a quick music quiz (I told my friend all the answers after not volunteering and crushed it haha) before we dived into the panel, which was honestly, in terms of panel chemistry, my absolute favourite of the weekend - Amy Ratcliffe is an incredible host (my favourite at SWCs past and she crushed it once again this weekend!), Dave Filoni is, well, Dave Filoni, and the voice cast obviously have great chemistry, just randomly breaking into lines from the show. It was an absolute treat. And that was it for Day 2! Day 3 - Sunday 9th On Day 3, we made it to the Villains of the Sequel Trilogy panel with Ian McDiarmid, Andy Serkis (who got so much love after Andor - and rightly so! Even joked about his Kino Loy being Snoke ) and Gwendoline Christie. This panel, hosted again by Amy who did another awesome job, was probably the surprise of the weekend for me - some funny digs at the sequels and politicians by Ian, and some great stories shared, as well as a couple Christopher Lee shoutouts! Was a bit unnerved by them not mentioning Adam Driver at all until the 53RD MINUTE of a 60 minute panel, but alas - there was also a fleeting moment where the room questioned for a split second if he was about to make an appearance, but it wasn't to be (geniunely think he'd get the greatest applause I would have heard all weekend) After this we queued up for the Look Back at Obi-Wan, which was really fun, best seats we got at the Celebration Stage all weekend - it was awesome to see Ewan and Hayden in the flesh - Ewan walked out on-stage with the Obi-Wan cosplays shortly before the panel started - and the applause lasted so long when they walked in that for a moment I thought we'd spend the entire panel standing! We did end up seated, watched a few of their favourite moments from the show back, but honestly, Vivien Lyra Blair stole the show - she had such great chemistry with everyone and awesome answers to Amy's questions! Still no official confirmation of the second season, strangely, even though it was clear everyone on-stage definitely were up for it. Had thought about attending the Animation Game Night but think my empty stomach and burning candles at both end finally caught up with me after the hype of the panel, so we went to get some food before finally getting to walk the floor. Not as big as I thought it would be, but still, lovely to see everything and everyone and talk to some folks! Day 4 - Monday 10th The final day started with the panel for The Bad Batch, which was awesome with the announcement of a third season and a trailer that I think no-one in the room thought would be dropping. It was a great panel and I loved the energy in the room! Highlight was taking a seat before it was clear a bunch of Press and other folks hadn't turned up, so following orders, we swamped ther middle section and ended up in Press seats After that, it was a case of getting some food down before sneaking into the Marvel Comics panel ahead of Doug Chiang: Designing Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Mandalorian, which was a real treat. Can see how the Inquisitor ended up looking the way he did in Kenobi (retrofitting his design to be based off a live-action character rather than realising they'd had a pau'an in live-action before, but alas!) even if I wasn't a fan, but overall, amazing panel - as expected. Beautiful art, Doug is always a joy to watch and listen to Lastly we decided to ditch the Galaxy Stage in favour of trying to see if we could find Alice Zhang and get our badges signed (she did the awesome art for the passes this year!) after ordering her full postcard set before the Doug panel (which had sold out on the Saturday I believe?), and she was lovely. We had hoped to catch some of the closing ceremony from the LIVE Stage (which we didn't get to all weekend before this!), but I just watched the stream while queueing (somehow had signal haha) and they announced Japan 2025! Which is exactly what I'd been expecting I explained my logic to my friend and sister before Celebration (already announced that up next was 2025, D23 being positioned for off-years, Star Wars is huge in Japan, if they go biannual then 2027 has to be Anaheim for the 50th anniversary so there's no way they'd do Europe again in 2025 and America then seems a bit more unlikely if it's there in 2027 - it's also ROTS's 20th anniversary and TFA's 10th, and I remember the former being especially massive in Japan), so obviously I was well chuffed at the announcement - was already planning to be in Asia in 2025 so that worked out well for me Final Thoughts And that was a wrap on Celebration. Oh boy did it hurt to walk away from it and see it slowly shrink and close that last day, I actually started getting post-con depression at the end of the Saturday (Day 2) because I realised we were already halfway through it so safe to say I missed it immediately, but enjoyed it a lot! So many highlights, from running into Doug Chiang in the hall to DJ Elliott and Atomic Blonde killing it on the Celebration Stage with their panel warm-ups, but honestly - and genuinely - my highlight was talking to other Star Wars fans, whether it be in queues, the DLR back to the hotel, or just randomly walking around the convention. So yes, this two-year wait for japan is going to be painful, but worth it I'm sure! Haul Yes, I stole the Reserved Seating - Press sign from the Bad Batch panel because it just seemed like a keepsake no-one else would have also learned on the first day through the Discord that the timeline t-shirt was made available on Day 1 but was very hush-hush, every time I went to the store no-one had a clue what I was talking about, but a fellow Discord user picked up a black version and so I paid a bit over the RRP for their white one - worth it for me, nice to have a timeline t-shirt! oh I also managed to keep all my wristbands intact too, so another nice keepsake for me! I just had them fit super loose because I have *questionable at best* blood flow sometimes Oh, and not pictured: the £100+ postcard set by Alice (the poster in the bottom right features her badge art, she also did Andor to complete the fifth row!), probably going to put together a frame at some point with her art, the commemorative pins, badge/sticker and wristbands at some point. Also forgot to include the exclusive POP figures, but those aren't for me, they're for my sister's bf, soooooooooo A smattering of pics (in the spoiler tag) And lastly, I took a bunch of pics (uh presented in no particular order because I forgot to arrange them before uploading to Imgur, but some favourites are at the top!); check a look! Quite fond of some of these

Survivor? I hardly know 'er This is a big boy install, on that front they've definitely outdone themselves

Per their End of Financial Year report for the year ending 31st March 2023, the PlayStation 5 sold 6.3 million units in Q1 2023, which is Q4 in FY23 for Sony, which has resulted in them breaking the recor for most consoles sold in an opening quarter for a calendar year and contributed to the highest revenue on record for Sony in their FY Q4. This comes after previously projecting sales of 5.2 million units and 6.2 million units for the quarter. Overall, this brings the PlayStation 5 up to a lifetime sales figure of 38.4 million units sold. Safe to say it's over the production slump which saw it (more than understandably) stumble out of the gates at launch! Now let's hope they deliver the good in June/September/whenever with some more game announcements ETA: Sony are aiming to sell a record number of PlayStation consoles in a 12 month window – 25 million units. Gentle reminder that publicly stated aims are almost always going to be a lowball for the sake of investors (so that they can outdo their own goals); this almost certainly means that, should things go smoothly, they're probably more realistically projecting 27 million to 30 million units sold in the next 12 months.

TWO WEEKS TO GO! Interesting, but might make some of the discrepancies in reported performance from previews make more sense (I think I heard everything from "it was practically flawless" to "it C H U G G E D").

Well this was fun to watch Now to wonder if this is the closest we'll get to ever seeing Luke and Cal on-screen together

A new trailer means a release date: 25th August?! I know it's been in the rumour mill a lot these last few weeks after rating in South Korea but hot damn are From on something else! Also FINALLY more people releasing games in July and August, FINALLY!! This coming out in August when it could easily come out later in the year suggests to me that maybe the Elden Ring DLC is due by year's end? Or at least that's what I'm going to tell myself Also the Premium Edition is nuts

On the upside I've seen in some of the previews that we have some sort of way to track recipes this time Because I won't lie I just tossed random things in the pot to cook 99% of the time in BOTW, and well, I saw this a lot more than a Hero really should... ...

Sure, but like I said, purely from a storytelling POV: it's also incredibly limiting and boring as hell to know how everything ends. We can debate all day and night on whether or not the prequels should have been made from a storytelling POV, but The Clone Wars covers only 3 years in the timeline and yet does so much to flesh out the clones, the Republic of that era, Anakin's eventual fall from grace, and so on, that from a storytelling POV I think it was an absolute necessity to tell those stories. There are 30 years (10x the amount of time TCW takes place over!) between the end of the OT and the start of the ST for them to fill out, as things stand. While I think a nod here and there to what is to come is fine, to flesh out the different factions of the Imperial Remnants and inform us about the New Republic, I'm sorry, but I'm going to be disappointed if all they do for that 30 year window is just wink and nod at Snoke, Palpatine's return, etc. This isn't me at all saying I'm right about Tantiss and it potentially tying into Thrawn, or anything else for that matter, but PURELY from a storytelling POV, that would be a huge waste of some seriously massive real estate in the Star Wars timeline as things stand. There's practically no space built into the sequel trilogy to flesh things out there, so by all means, set up the building blocks elsewhere - it's not like what they've done so far in talking about the Imperial Remnants and hinting at the creation of the First Order is anything particularly new for the New Republic era, as some of the novels have done plenty in that regard. For me, it's one thing to know where everything is heading, and something else entirely to have everything be leading to that place, if that makes sense. Heck, The Bad Batch made it clear as day that there were other things the Emperor was intent on cloning - a certain kaiju-style critter comes to mind - so I really don't think it's that far a leap to think there are other pet projects he has lined up for his cloning facility (whether or not they come to pass, like we've said, is a whole other thing). For me, I think the difference between the current New Republic era works (Mando, Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka) is that while they do take place earlier in the timeline and hint at what's to come, they are not being sold as prequels to the sequels, and nor should they be; similarly, they're not being sold as sequels to the originals, either. This is very different to the prequels and The Clone Wars, which were both sold as being prequels to particular storylines. It's clear that they have their own function within this New Republic era, and to be honest, Ahsoka is turning out to look like it'll be the direct Rebels sequel series we've been waiting for (and is being sold as such), and heck at this point even Mando - especially in S3 - has felt like it's been doing it's fiduciary duty by rounding off threads lingering back to TCW and Rebels. Again, you can tell Dave has been involved in this because of how many threads he's getting to tie up that he couldn't before. I don't know, for me, there are very few stories which serve as prequels - as in, actually serving as backstory in setting up a particular thread or beat in the original work - and amongst them I'd count things like Red Dead Redemption 2, Andor, and a few others which are escaping me, but the point I want to make is: a good story aiming to be a prequel is rare; very, very rare. Having two shows separately set up cloning for the villain returning some nearly 50/25 years after the fact would make The Bad Batch and Mando pretty important prequels in the grand scheme of things to the sequels in a way I personally wouldn't be a huge fan of. For me, what distinguishes stories like RDR2 and Andor is that they are character driven first and foremost, whereas I look at everything in the New Republic era of Star Wars and, by contrast, it is decidedly driven by plot. I have no issue with that - I loooooooooove a good plot and tie-ins as much as the next Star Wars fan - but everything being driven by plot to inevitably lead up to one point in another plot is, for me, and from a storytelling POV, incredibly boring and unambitious. Again, purely from a storytelling POV - not suggesting I'm right at all, nor am I really arguing for that but more the philosophy behind the story of it all - would it not be more interesting if we've basically been sleepwalking into these shows thinking that all of the cloning nods and hints were relating to the Emperor's return in the opening crawl of IX/his Fortnite-exclusive return message, only to find out it was actually hunting at something else entirely? I don't know, maybe it's just because I'm a huge fan of the old EU Vong theory stuff, where the Emperor didn't just create the Death Stars to keep planets in line, but also in fear of forces from outside the known galaxy swooping in and wrecking shop. I love that stuff and would love if we've been all been misdirected just by assuming we know exactly where this is going, just because we know where it leads to. But like I said before: just as likely they're not doing that, and that would be okay. I just really don't want the largest gap between trilogies be wasted, you know? Yeah, I agree, that's definitely one way it could end (with the destruction of Tantiss) and it could certainly be functional again by the NR era, but the only issue really I'd have with it is that Sheev is one hell of a vindictive douchebag (ahem, as one of his appearances as Sidious in TCW clearly shows) and I can't see any way he'd let any clone who had a hand in destroying his facility live. And that would extend to anyone who survived to Rebels, for me. I'm not sure I totally agree about the far-reaching victory part. It could be where it ends up - honestly, if I were a betting man, I'd bet that they do end up destroying Tantiss or some of those facilities - but I don't think anything beyond saving Omega and/or Crosshair is needed to be a win to our protagonists in The Bad Batch. Now, the clones at large? Sure, maybe they need or want a bigger win, but even in the old EU with the Kamino Uprising, that's not something they got. Like I said, Rex ends up pretty lost and defeated by the time we find him in Rebels, and him leading all of his brothers in one final charge against the Empire and getting crushed - and him feeling responsible for that - seems like a very easy way to put him into position for Rebels. Then again, they could just as easily make it so that a bunch of them sacrifice themselves while the Batch and Rex get off-world, which gives them both a victory against the Empire (in an incredibly pyrrhic sense of the word) and still gets Rex into position for Rebels. Also, like I said before, which is important to remember if we're talking strictly about Palpy's return, is that unless they tweak things, the Imperial Remnants/First Order ultimately aren't responsible for his return or Snoke's creation: the Sith Eternal were (not something I'm a fan of, but it was what it was). Again, they could tweak it, or make it so that they got a leg up with their dark magic through what they learned from the cloning projects, but for now... Ultimately, I'm sure I'll find things to enjoy in whatever we end up with – my points are more about storytelling potential and what I feel they could do to make it a bit more interesting (let's call it the sleepwalking subversion cliff), but yeah, I'm just here to enjoy the ride at least it seems like this time they've been allowed time for it all to be talked out and have a vision for where this is going!

Some of the BOTW custom icons are making a welcome return ahead of TOTK's release!

This has absolutely no bearing on what I'm about to say, but gosh darn do I hope we get the Hero's Path available from the get-go (and same for teleporting horse armour while we're at it) It's kind of crazy to me just how much stuff released in the DLC for BOTW feels like it should've been in the game from launch! Anyways, I'm grateful but also really curious about what Nintendo seem to have purposely veered away from with these previews. No underground, which is funny to me because they've shown shots of what we assume is the underground on one or two occasions already - heck the first trailer for the game starts off underground! There's no real caves in the previews at all to be honest, funny considering it was a big part of how they sold Ascend in Aonuma's demo. No word on temples. No word on the green swirly wisps which most reckon are shrines, etc. It's got to the point that I've seen one or two people asking those who got preview the game whether or not there's still going to be a minimalistic Pro HUD available! I know it's a sequel, but I genuinely can't remember the last time I was going into a game having such little idea about what I'm in for – there were one or two big surprises in Elden Ring, sure, but I also feel like the trailers hinted *a lot* at some of those surprises. And, honestly, I really appreciate it. It's always perplexed me why so many films, games, shows, etc., with huge existing fanbases like Zelda feel the need to blow their proverbial load in trailers and their extensive marketing campaigns which oftentimes seem hell bent on spoiling the fun. Showing restraint in marketing an obvious shoe-in for what will (at least) be a GOTY nominee by the year's end on a system which has broken absurd sales records since the game it is a sequel to launched is seriously commendable, because the argument could just as easily be made that they should throw the kitchen sink at us as much as they shouldn't. They've shown more or less the perfect amount – enough that the doubters about new content seem to have shut up shop (for now...let's see what happens around launch), and little enough that everyone else's eyes are on their calendars just counting down the days until launch. Of which there are now just 15 and a smidge!

Me working my way through that quote: huh, Jedi turns 40 this year so they aren't referring to the OT, and I doubt anyone is referring to the prequels that way, plus it's not 30 yet so it's too recent for that anyways... OH MY GOSH THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT ZAHN'S THRAWN TRILOGY AHHHHHHHHHHH (finished in 1993 for those curious ) Now that is a choice quote and reference which was a rollercoaster to work my way through if I've ever seen one Yeah, almost certainly a case of that and poor optimisation. Makes me wonder how many more open spaces there are vs more linear ones, hope it's fairly balanced to help with the game's pacing. I reckon I could Plat it before Tears of the Kingdom drops That combined with dropping reviews on the same day as previews for Tears of the Kingdom has to be one of the biggest accidental self-inflicted burns we've seen in...around a year, now that I think about it Because Sony were so hell bent on pitting Forbidden West against Elden Ring, after putting Zero Dawn against Breath of the Wild worked out *so* well for them

Time for a review round-up! Seems to mostly be 8's and 9's out of 10, so that's a good sign! Also just got a notification to say my copy has been shipped too! Just two more days to go

Preview time LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOO Going to make the next 2 weeks and 2 days an easier wait until I'm done watching them, and then after ... yeah that's going to be a long wait still

I don't know nearly enough to contribute to this overall discussion, but it's given me a good chuckle to see the move getting blocked (for now - don't really doubt it'll go through at some point) on what I would say is comparatively one of the smaller sticking points (cloud gaming vs, uh, pretty much every other reason to block a huge deal like this) and the randomly dropped-in hashtags in that tweet lmao Have been keeping up with the posts in this thread though, got to say I appreciate your breakdowns @Choze, great to have some fair and level-headed insight into what a lot of this stuff actually means

Per billbil-kun, these are the Essentials games for May: (not used their own Twitter post as they've started to keep the games hidden to get clicks, whereas I just want the image of everything )

As someone else who hasn't watched the trailer yet, I thought the exact same thing about some Doctor Who-style regeneration hijinks being afoot

Someone has managed to get their hands on the game early, so the story has started to leak, because of course it has. Only thing I've seen is the apparent time it takes to crit path the game, which is apparently... Very excited to see what they've got in store for us, but also a little nervous seeing as I wasn't completely head over heels for Fallen Order on my first playthrough (my second playthrough was much smoother in terms of pacing, and shorter thanks to not wanting to do everything again). The story in particular, for me, didn't really take off until the final third or so of the game (Dathomir and a certain sequence onwards until the end of the game), so I'm hoping for a bit more of a consistent approach, hopefully a greater variety of puzzles, and a more lived-in world (which from all the early looks we do seem to be in for). Ooo, and while I'm hoping for things, give me some cool boss fights too Less than three days to go!

Loved yesterday's ad for the game, You Can Do What?! "Master your imagination" is also one hell of a line, even if it sounds like it should be one owned by LEGO Two weeks and three days to go!

Some great artwork for the last two episodes of Mando S3: