Julius

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:

THQ Nordic announced their Digital Showcase yesterday, which will be taking place on 11th August: Alone in the Dark, the recently announced Trine 5, and Outcast 2 have all been confirmed to be showing up. Oh, and also, The Game Awards are hosting a concert to commemorate their 10th anniversary at the Hollywood Bowl on 25th June: Only two Japanese games listed in the rundown smh

Demo available now on PS4 and PS5, coming to other consoles next Wednesday (26th April): There was also last night's showcase:

What's funny about that is that the fourth dot was there in the draft the entire time up until just before I submitted my reply, and then I removed it purely because it just didn't look right in the font on here also probably because I just couldn't be bothered to centre the title, maybe that made it look a bit off too To be clear I don't think it needs to tie in the exact same way, but bringing it back and not having it tie in in any way would be the stranger move. The research living on into that era is more than enough of a tie-in if the facility itself isn't still around. Again, I'm all for whatever they decide to do, but I don't think that Tantiss and the cloning in Mando S3 need to necessarily lead up to being sequel tie-ins, because like I said above, it's a bit of a nothingburger in terms of a potential reveal. I mean, just thinking back to Mando S3 E7... The Batch can still have their victory while the research lives on, whether that be on Tantiss or elsewhere. Considering what/who the Batch are going after and the battle they'd be tied up in (for their brothers in a potential uprising), victory isn't contingent - yet - on the destruction of Tantiss, and they can still achieve some sort of victory without needing a Rebels-like victory. Because... Oh, and to be clear, this is obviously all just me spitballing and speculating, not so much predicting what's going to happen if you ever see a late night post written by me know that the point is there but the wording - and how absolute it is - might be a little off thanks to tiredness creeping in (but I've got to get to sleep somehow and aimless spitballing about stories is basically my daydreaming) I just think narratively that there are a few too many threads seemingly directly linking to certain things that, purely from the perspective of telling a story, aren't all that interesting to find out. I think things going the more predictable route would still be interesting simply to see the reaction of a certain Senate. For me, it's almost like having a post-credits scene at the end of a Marvel film having already seen the following films: it can be exciting for a fleeting moment, but for the most part, those post-credits scenes and how they link in are vapid. Oh yeah, agreed, I think we see him again, like I said I think it's just clear that, however they play this, he's not going to be one of the main characters in the same way that he was in the original Heir to the Empire. As for a Mara Jade type character being introduced, I'm not too sure, it almost adds too many questions around where Luke is at the time of the New Republic and where he is when we find him in the sequels. I also don't really see them giving him a romantic interest in live-action because of the time constraints already in place around Luke basically being limited in his appearances by the tech (cost and time), I just don't think there would be time to flesh that idea out fully with a deepfaked face, because he's just turning up randomly in other people's shows so far than a show of his own, which would be the more natural place to introduce such a character and begin to flesh out such a relationship. I don't think that there needs to be romance in every story, but, I will say that, if there is one, there is a bit of a natural route to follow it through with the Ezra and Sabine, and a history there that means it wouldn't need to be entirely introduced and then fleshed out in live-action – Rebels and how it ended, and the Ahsoka trailers, are set up in a way so that it could just as easily end up romantic as much as it could stay platonic. It's not necessarily something that I'm hoping for or predicting, but from a storytelling perspective, if there is to be a romance in this entire thing, I do think that would be the easiest place to write it in

Vol. 2 of Mando S3's score, covering Chapters 21 - 24, is going to be made available within the next 24 hours...but is already up on Spotify so maybe go listen to it there? Quick scan through and I haven't come across the epic theme from Chapter 23 that I'm looking for, but surely it's in there...right? In other news the Adelphi Jukebox music from Episode 5/Chapter 21 made it in Bad Batch is in a very interesting position considering its place in the timeline, all things considered, but if we're talking cloning, well... We'll just have to wait and see I guess! Could be a good while yet before we get a clear picture on how this is all going to pay off though! I'm getting chills just thinking about the film starting, the opening crawl kicking in and HEIR TO THE EMPIRE It has been over five years since the REBELLION destroyed the second DEATH STAR. In the wake of its destruction and the death of the Emperor, the fledgling guerrilla group laid down their arms and founded the NEW REPUBLIC. Despite the death of their Emperor, Warlords of IMPERIAL REMNANTS have amassed riches and fleets which continue to challenge the NEW REPUBLIC's grip on the fringes of the known galaxy. However, far beyond the reach of both the NEW REPUBLIC and the IMPERIALS REMNANTS, deep in the dark corners of [Wild Space/the Unknown Regions/idk maybe they call it something new], GRAND ADMIRAL THRAWN has been preparing for his return to the known galaxy as HEIR TO THE EMPIRE... Yeah okay so it'd be three paragraphs, too many things in all caps, and whatever, but I'm just excited Totally agree it wouldn't be a direct adaptation, like I said, I think it'll be their take on the story (within the confines of canon, new characters, and everything else). The thing that concerns me about that a little is that, from a storytelling and production perspective, I wouldn't be surprised if certain roles are adapted to new characters from wider canon (for example, if Ahsoka took the role of Luke, or maybe more likely, a returning Ezra and the potential to do a Luke/Mara-styled romance adapted to Ezra/Sabine), which I could see getting a lot of backlash, especially seeing as it's very likely that Dave's original characters from his animated series are likely to be at the centre of this story rather than Luke – because I struggle to see them wanting to have him be a main character when, so long as it's a live-action project, there are so many obstacles in the way of him being a main character because of the prohibitive cost and time it would take to deepfake him into a key role, much less to actually have him grow into a central role again, seeing as he's very much on the fringes (at best) so far. Then again, imagine they did put the legwork in and once the dust settles, the film ends with him, Leia and Han meeting with Snoke...hmm, just so many possibilities! I've read the Thrawn trilogy a handful of times growing up, but it has admittedly been a good while now since I last visited them - don't think I've read them since before Rogue One came out in 2016, so might need to revisit them (and dive into the Outbound Flight novels again, before returning to the current canon Zahn-written Thrawn stuff!), but yeah, things like Luuke I wouldn't worry about them carrying over. We all know they're just going to rename Luke's clone to be Lukealike instead

PlayStation have acquired Firewall Studios - not to be confused with the previously acquired Firesprite! Taken from the PlayStation Blog.

Yeah, definitely a common misconception if I can Google it and get the wrong answer a bunch! – thanks for pointing that out. I remember early talk about it being on UE5 and kind of just went with it, seems like they've since come out and discussed the potential of the next installment being on UE5. Makes perfect sense as UE5 definitely wouldn't have been development-ready when this game started development in late 2019/early 2020 (I don't think it was even released). I'm also not massively fussed, I love deleting games after completing them for the extra post-credits monkey lizard brain dopamine hit (though might need to go through some captures to make enough space for Survivor!) It's more a case of me just questioning how the game has ended up that big when so many other substantially-sized games are substantially smaller in file size (again: RDR2 being 90-100 GB at launch and this being 150 GB is something I'm having a hard time reconciling in my head), but I'm sure playing the game itself might answer some of those questions...maybe? Just give me an hour-long post-credits scene of Chopper randomly turning up and committing war crimes in 4K, and it'll be more than justified Yeah, there's no way I won't be veering off the beaten path. Not that I was planning on spoiling the game anyways, but I'll take extra care to use spoiler tags for your sake and just give more general thoughts on the game outside of them do think it's smarter to wait than potentially find yourself rushing through! I do generally find myself planning what I play anyways, but it's funny when we come up to a window like this and suddenly my plans get thrown up in the air. I think I can get through and 100% Survivor before Tears of the Kingdom (or die trying haha), Tears of the Kingdom I have absolutely zero idea on how long it'll take me - and I don't want to rush - but I imagine I'll be done with it by the time Final Fantasy XVI comes out some six weeks or so later (right..?). But it's this week before Survivor where I find myself questioning what I want to play between now and then. A bunch of smaller games? Just one game, which could cut it close? We'll see I guess! That's not a bad idea! loads up the launch version of Cyberpunk 2077

Right?! I can't remember anything major that was pre-rendered in Fallen Order, so unless I'm missing something, this just seems like a terrible job at (or complete lack of) optimisation for a next-gen only title and their first UE5 game (right?). Does make me wonder what the delay was about if it wasn't tied to optimising their assets though, and it'd be concerning if this was the best they felt they could do with it, but it is what it is I'm in a weirdly similar spot to you, where on one hand I do think I could 100% it in that time...but I am also a bit worried about scope creep making this game substantially bigger than the first game just in terms of story length, not to mention all the side content. It's funny because I went back to Fallen Order last year to finally pop the Plat (had a couple of rooms on a few planets and one or two of the seeds to collect for the terrarium), then played the game on the lowest difficulty to breeze through the story and see how well it was paced without dealing with the side content, and in terms of enjoying the story, it was heaps and bounds better than my first playthrough. Makes sense, of course, because side content makes pacing a game's main story impossible (which is why games like BotW and Elden Ring rubbishing that, to an extent, in an open world feels so good), but I think that playthrough only took 6 or 7 hours? So I might find myself just breezing through the story and not focusing on side content the first time with Survivor, before really exploring every nook and cranny the second time around, which means I won't need to rush to do before TotK but can instead chip away at it? But still avoid having the story spoiled... ...nah, who am I kidding, I'm 100% just going to try to do everything the first time

A fan-made anime/GBC commercial for the game: Man, I love these things. Said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again, but Nintendo fans go to stupid lengths with showcasing their talents with things like these, and I love it! love their adapted take on the trailer theme too, gosh darn it's a beaut of a track 3 weeks and 1 day to go...

Not to concern anyone, but today is the fifth anniversary of the game's release... Where the heck does the time go?!

The game on PS5 and Series X looks set to be 147 GB. Good lord. Some are throwing out that maybe there's some crazy big video files in there, but for this game to seemingly come in nearly 60 GB larger than a game like Red Dead Redemption 2? Kind of blows my mind whatever the reason is.

Thoughts on the Mando S3 finale: A great two-part finale, but for me, just taking the final episode individually, I think it's the weakest final episode to a season of Mando so far - but I think that's more a product of it leaning so heavily on the preceding episode as a foundation, and the final episodes for S1 and S2 being so damn strong. Overall, I think Mando S3 has been the biggest mixed bag we've had in a season of Mando so far (look no further than Episode 6: Guns for Hire and how it contrasts so starkly with my favourites this season, Episode 3: The Convert and Episode 7: The Spies), and like I touch on in the spoiler tag but won't expand on too much here: I think it was clearly impacted by the plans for other Disney+ Star Wars offerings, and so was always going to be trying to deliver on the tough ask of rounding off this trilogy of seasons while also serving as a launchpad for other things to come. Joseph Shirley stepping up to bat and then some in Ludwig Gorannson's absence to compose this season's music is the biggest takeaway of the season for me, because I think he absolutely killed it. Adapted and evolved Ludwig's themes, and implemented plenty of his own, excited to hopefully hear more from him in Mando S4. Time to begin the countdown to Ahsoka I guess! Oh, man, it's going to be a loooooooong four months

Pyra and Mythra double pack drops 21st July 2023, with some Xenoblade Chronicles 3 perks:

Next batch of Mega Drive games are available now!

Just realised that I never said anything about S3 E6 of The Mandalorian – Chapter 22: Guns for Hire. So here I am, just a guy, standing in front what's probably the worst episode of the entire series so far for me; I'm not going to crazy with it, but yeah, I'll pop what little I remember in a spoiler tag: Such a strange episode. But anyways, time to move on from that and talk about last week's episode (which was AMAZING to see with a 4000-strong crowd at Celebration!)... Which leaves the wait for tomorrow's (well, today's now!) finale. Got one thing I want to see and one tiny bit of speculation... Not been the best season of Mando for me, a bit of a mixed bag, but fingers crossed it ends on a high with its finale. Definitely a lot of layers to why it ended up going live-action rather than animated: Disney+'s and Mando's success, the live-action audience generally being much larger than animation audience problem (at least here in the west), gearing Dave up to transition - as was always the plan - from animation to live-action (and this is a huuuuuuuuuge test for him and much-needed prep for his film), and so on. There's zero doubt in my mind though that Dave has had plans for this series in some form or another for some time now, since before Rebels ended and I'm fairly confident in saying that they almost certainly started some concept work for a Rebels sequel series before they formally knew what they were doing, just because of the timelines when it comes to these animated projects. Heck, if I'm remembering right, one or two members of the voice cast teased they were going to be involved in something big, but ultimately never panned out – which was almost certainly a Rebels sequel series being animated. I don't so much buy the "they believed they could tell it better in live-action than animation", because while that's Jon's medium, it's not so much Dave's - yet - and if he wanted it to be animated, he could have played it safe and gone with trying to drive it down that route. Dave is better positioned than just about anyone to observe the limitations of live-action, and the timelessness of animation, if nothing else, makes it an interesting proposition which could have gone either way...before the success of Mando and Disney+. Again, think there's multiple factors at play here – if Ahsoka is tying into Mando and leading up to the culmination event film? Well we now know it is - but was that always the plan, I wonder? I'd guess not with the directions Mando has taken since its first season, and S3 E7 felt like a hard left turn into making aggressive ties to the sequels and setting up their future plans - which to be clear, I loved, but it's just interesting. With Dave's background in mind but also him wanting to transition into a central live-action role at Lucasfilm so he can put his fingers in even more pies - so to speak - I think ultimately it's a balance between him wanting to make the jump to live-action, being the only one positioned well enough to tell this story, but also for all the corporate bigwig reasoning you can think of, like how their live-action shows are bigger than their animated ones and so there is a need for this to be told in live-action rather than in animation, and so on. I wouldn't think words were exchanged too much about the medium it would end up in AFTER the success of Mando and Disney+, but were almost inevitable just Look, honestly, I'll take the story however it comes and have been onboard with Filoni since hearing him back in 2008 or 2009 for the first time when I watched The Clone Wars movie on DVD with the audio commentary, but I will say, if Ahsoka, for whatever reason, falls flat, I think it does place question marks over a lot of their current plans, because there's a LOT riding on Dave right now given how integral he is alongside Jon in setting up this post-ROTJ GFFA, especially with Dave set to direct the film that this is all going to be leading up to. And, excited as I am for Ahsoka, I do think there's a solid argument to be made for choosing live-action over animation to be a questionable decision for a series which is a sequel - in its plot - to an animated series which is criminally underrated and never had the viewership it deserved, which in turn is a sequel series to an animated series which was George's last solid and direct contribution to the franchise in everything that was TCW. There's then the voice cast not getting to continue what they started (or continued) in Rebels, and so on, and so while I'm here for whatever they decide to do, if not with Dave's progression in mind, I do think it would be a super weird decision to make in isolation. I'm also very, very, very curious to see how they handle filling people in on a titular character where, if you've only seen her in live-action through the Disney+ shows, you don't really have a great idea about who she is besides some winks and nods (for example: "I'm an old friend of the family") to her past. It's much easier said than done convincing people that animated series are worth checking out in the first place, at least in the west (and I'm speaking from a place of a whole lot of experience there!), but considering how someone as integral to individual backstories as Satine wasn't name-dropped in Kenobi or Mando (to this point), I really do wonder how that stuff gets treated. As for how the show itself turns out, and balancing Ahsoka's storyline and the search for Ezra and Thrawn, I'm honestly not too sure. Given we've seen marketing material (both footage and on t-shirts) that shows Sabine with long hair and shorter hair, got to imagine there's a time skip in there somewhere (before and to/after the end of Rebels), so perhaps the first half will be focused more on Ahsoka and the latter half more on finding Ezra and Thrawn? It's an interesting one with Ahsoka, because I don't know about you, but for me - and I say this as someone who has always liked the character, before people needed to be convinced about her with her growth in TCW - in the timeline it doesn't really feel like she's had much growth since The Clone Wars. Maybe that's more to do with the extent of her role being somewhat limited in Rebels and the Disney+ live-action shows, but it makes naming the show after her an even more interesting decision for me (then again, I generally hate the fact that we're just naming shows after characters, so ), so maybe some flashbacks or conversations with certain blue wispy folk could be a good opportunity for that. Dialogue I agree being a bit of a concern based on what we've had in the live-action shows so far, but with Dave being the showrunner, writer, creator, and having all the other important titles too, I do genuinely think it'll be a step up from what we've seen in Mando and Book of Boba Fett, simply because we're returning to characters he's either written for years or that he's had a hand in creating for the show. While Jon is no doubt going to be involved with Ahsoka - I mean, he's an EP, and he's a very atypically hands-on one if Mando and Boba are anything to go by! - I think it's clear that this is mostly going to be Dave's baby, and rightly so. I'm excited for Ahsoka, just generally cautious, because while I trust Dave and what he does, they do seem to be steering incredibly close to setting up their own take on Heir to the Empire (so much so that I'd be kind of shocked if Dave's film isn't called that) with everything they're setting up in the shows. That comes with its own load of baggage that I'm sure we'll get into some other time, though!

With or without E3, we've definitely hit the summer game news season!

We did, we made it into Galaxy Stage! But that's a whole other story haha, that'll be fun to get into, or to say it with a GIF... (& yes that action shot was beautiful!) I guess it didn't really hit me until Celebration, that even though it was clear the sort of direction it was heading (Rebels sequel/Thrawn stuff), just how much it was heading in that direction. Maybe it's because it's not animated and we've only seen Ahsoka sporadically since Rebels ended, but it hit me hard in the Lucasfilm (and then the Ahsoka) panel that, yeah, I've been waiting 5+ years for this since Rebels ended. It doesn't feel that long, but I remember when and where I was in my life when I watched that final episode, and I refuse to believe it's been 5+ years already. It's scary. Genuinely, think is the most hyped I've been for a Disney+ Star Wars project besides Kenobi If not the Darksaber itself, I wonder if we get to see some of Obi-Wan and Satine pre-TPM get animated? Something tying into Mandalore just feels like the smart move, but who knows I'll gladly just take ten episodes just following Gunji around! Do wish we'd see some Galactic Civil War era stuff, the Rebels look getting the boosted budget and animation bump that Bad Batch and TCW S7 had over TCW would be lovely!

I can't see them either, I'm in Chrome on my phone and tried both in Mobile and Desktop mode but nothing there either. Opening the images individually in a new tab seemed to be a workaround though – nice pics @Sméagol!

Yep, can't be down for too long! Plus I'm way more hyped for Ahsoka than I thought I would be, so that countdown has already started, and we're going to see ROTJ in cinemas next Saturday for the 40th too, so plenty to be excited about!! Yeah, for sure I want to see them jump around. I totally get why they started with prequels era stuff first (using very similar assets to Bad Batch, which is a facelifted TCW, and loads of reused models and planets as a result just made shinier), so I'm curious to see how they would handle jumping around: would everything be in the lens of TCW/Bad Batch, or would they go with different art styles for different periods? Funnily enough my mind went straight to Luke too, and I always thought a post-ROTJ Luke-centric show would be animated and have a different art style, but at this point, who knows? Hadn't thought about seeing Tarre in these but would love that. Honestly, given that The Bad Batch, TCW S7, and Tales of the Jedi have all shown different perspectives of incidents we've seen before (either from the films or animated series), I'd love three episodes dedicated to fleshing out the backstory of the Darksaber a little more, and essentially trimming the fat and summarising pretty neatly it's lineage and wielders (including throughout TCW and Rebels), just so people watching Mando that haven't watched the other shows have that little bit more context behind it in a more digestible way than the Disney XD YouTube compilations. It's funny, now that I think about it, that the Darksaber has essentially taken on the role the Skywalker legacy lightsaber was originally planned to in TFA! You bringing up Tarre reminds me, for my own sanity I'm going to need to rewatch Mando S3 E7 and post thoughts just so I've got them all in one place