Minecraft is getting a big new update soon that unifies it across most platforms (except for PlayStation devices). As a result, Minecraft players on Nintendo Switch will be able to play with those on Xbox One or PC. One of the interesting consequences of this new, unified platform is that Nintendo Switch owners will have to log into Xbox Live to play the game online.
Head of Xbox confirmed the news today while speaking on the Giant Bomb E3 2017 live show. In a discussion about cross-platform play, Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann asked about logging in, and Spencer replied that it'll be the same system across all devices. “It's an Xbox Live account; that's our gaming social network,” he said.
“We use Xbox Live as the way to make sure we know who our players are, controls around parental controls and other things that we put into our platform are there. And as you're buying things in Minecraft, you want to make sure you have them available on other platforms, so we have to know who you are. If you have a realm that you've created on the PC and you want to get to it on the Switch, we have to have an identity system and we just use Xbox Live.”
Gerstmann also asked if players will be able to earn Achievements. “I don't know yet,” he replied. “I'm guessing no. And this is a collaborative relationship between Nintendo and I; they don't have Achievements on their platform. If they want us to, I would love to be able to do it… The relationship with Nintendo is incredibly strong. We obviously did the Mario mash-up pack into Minecraft; that doesn't happen that often.”
Have you played Minecraft? Sorry. Yes. Of course you’ve played Minecraft – it’s the videogame equivalent of asking if you’ve ever played Tic-Tac-Toe or hopscotch. It’s this gaming generation’s most ubiquitous title, available (initially freely) on everything from PCs to low-end smartphones to the newly announced Xbox One X. It took an age, but Microsoft even eventually saw fit to bring it to its own mobile OS, hoping the Minecraft brand’s licence to print money would rub off on the flailing smartphone platform.
For the hardcore fan (of which they’re many – the game’s been bought more than 100 million times, and inspired Microsoft to buy the game outright for $2.5 billion), they’re probably seeing Minecraft blocks in their sleep, playing the game religiously and spending almost as much time trawling the pages of YouTubers and Twitch streamers for the latest news and builds in the game.
It’s easy to see what’s made Minecraft so popular, an alchemical mix of simplicity and creativity. Gamers are given free reign to use its block-based building system to create essentially any structure they can think of, from simple shacks to complex minecart systems and even a working in-game smartphone.
Although it’s since spawned many imitators over the course of its eight-year life, it was massively refreshing upon release, a taste of what an infinite digital LEGO box could be like – other brick-based games are available.
Block rocking beats
Its simplicity is key. Limiting the game world to blocky objects not only meant it could run on a huge number of devices without taxing a high-powered GPU, it also aesthetically separated it from the pack.
Bold, colorful and far removed from the grim-dark shooters that can dominate the gaming landscape, you could go as far as using the so often-misappropriated description and apply it to the Minecraft style: it was, it is, iconic.
Which makes Microsoft’s E3 Minecraft announcement of a new 4K-optimised ‘Super Duper Graphics Pack’ so groan-worthy. Designed to spruce up the Minecraft visuals in a way that takes advantage of the growing graphical grunt of 4K gaming systems (including, of course, Microsoft’s own Xbox One X) it gives Minecraft a significant makeover.
“Dynamic shadows! Directional lighting! Edge highlighting!” boasts the Minecraft blog, all coming as a free update to the game in the Fall of this year.
This all seems to be missing the point. It’s never been about the polygon count. It’s never been about the fidelity of the shadows, or the number of visible blades of grass. Minecraft’s appeal and its charm lay in its lo-fi chic.
You’re not drawn in by what the game presents to you (at least visually), but what you can present to the game through your creations. The simpler the palette, the more amazingly unexpected the eventual culmination of your greatest Minecraft works.
Mona Lisa overdrive
From humble beginnings come great achievements, and that simple original Minecraft aesthetic points to the promise of your imagination, rather than how many ones and zeroes are being pushed under the hood of your machine.
It’s like saying you’re going to give the Mona Lisa an HDR makeover – wholly inappropriate, not simply because it’s anachronistic, but also because it undermines the quality of the original work. Or, to use a more recent example, take the Star Wars: Special Edition remasters – tweak a beloved work too much, and you risk diluting the homebrewed charm of the original.
A few still shots of the new update.
In Microsoft’s defence, it does state that this in an optional look, “just one aesthetic vision for Minecraft – not THE vision for Minecraft,” according to Marsh Davies, Minecraft’s Creative communications manager.
“Our beloved pixels are going nowhere – and we’re thinking about ways to give you more choice over your game’s look in the future.”
And Microsoft did make one undeniably positive Minecraft announcement at E3 – the chance for cross-platform play for the game, expanding the ways gamers can play together, no matter what console they own, prefer or can afford.
Minecraft is a long play for Microsoft, with arms reaching out to education and design sectors as well as gamers. So it must evolve for it to survive long term. But while that’s being supported by smart moves like cross platform play, the Super Duper Graphics Pack suggests it may be losing sight of what makes Minecraft so special in the first place.
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The Mummy marks the official launch of Universal’s “Dark Universe” of monsters, borrowing from the shared universe models of Suicide Squad and The Avengers. Ever since Marvel Studios concluded Phase 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by bringing together various superheroes from solo franchises to form The Avengers – and earning more than $1 billion at the box office – the shared universe model has grown increasingly popular in Hollywood. While no other studio or franchise has necessarily copied the model laid out by Marvel Studios (introducing solo characters, then bringing them together for a team-up), Warner Bros. has been building its DC Extended Universe and Fox has continued to expand their X-Men universe with spinoffs from its the main series.
However, the idea of a shared universe has expanded beyond superhero movies. After Transformers: Age of Extinction wasn’t as well-received as previous installments of Paramount’s Robots in Disguise series, the studio announced they were turning the Transformers franchise into a cinematic universe. Paramount assembled a writer’s room to come up with a host of stories, which are being turned into Transformers: The Last Knight and the solo Bumblebee movie. Another high-profile shared universe that’s been in the works for a few years is Universal’s world of classic movie monsters, which was recently officially unveiled as the studio’s Dark Universe.
In terms of specifically how The Mummy sets up the larger Dark Universe, Kurtzman’s film introduces Crowe’s Dr. Henry Jekyll (as well as his alter-ego Mr. Eddie Hyde) and the organization he heads called Prodigium, which is positioned to be the common thread among all the shared universe installments. Though the specifics of the private organization are unclear, Dr. Jekyll lays out their intentions to research, hunt, and eradicate evil from the world. Jekyll even goes into a theory that evil itself is a pathogen and, if that’s the case, it must have a cure – which, of course, ties into his own condition.
The biggest Dark Universe tease in The Mummy, however, arrives in the final scenes. After Tom Cruise’s Nick Morton willingly accepts the Egyptian god of death, Set, into himself, he kills the mummified Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) – who had previously been positioned as the Dark Universe’s Mummy character – and essentially becomes Universal’s modern Mummy. Then, in a final voiceover conversation between Jekyll and Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), they discuss that Cruise’s character is now half man, half monster, with Nick forced to constantly battle the evil Set within himself. And, as Jekyll teases, one day Prodigium may need a monster to fight another monster.
The Mummy’s ending – particularly Jekyll commenting that Prodigium will need Cruise’s new Mummy to battle a force of evil later on – is strikingly similar to S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury’s recruitment speech to Tony Stark in the post-credits scene of Marvel Studios’ Iron Man, which laid the groundwork for not only The Avengers but the entire MCU. The implication of Jekyll’s comment is that the Mummy will return within Universal’s Dark Universe, but not necessarily in a direct sequel. Since we know this is a shared universe of classic monsters, and Prodigium will be the thread tying them all together (as S.H.I.E.L.D. was in Phase 1 of the MCU), Kurtzman’s film is setting the stage for The Mummy to return in the Dark Universe as an anti-hero fighting against a bigger evil.
At this point, it’s not exactly clear where the Dark Universe is headed. Universal has so far only confirmed a handful of solo films, and comments from franchise producer Chris Morgan indicated each monster reboot is a “standalone” entry in the series, though they are interconnected. Given the parallels between the ending of The Mummy and the post-credits scene from Iron Man, it seems as though future Dark Universe installments may be origin stories for the various characters, and the rebooted classic monsters will assemble one day for some kind of team-up.
Not only does this mirror the model of a shared universe laid out by the MCU, the concept of a team of villains joining together at the behest of an organization working to fight evil is reminiscent of Warner Bros’ DCEU entry Suicide Squad. And, in fact, if the Dark Universe continues to establish each of its monster characters as conflicted anti-heroes like Cruise’s Mummy, Universal’s shared universe is poised to become a more longform version of the DCEU’s villain team-up. There’s even an argument to be made, if one was so inclined, that there are broad similarities between Cruise’s character and June Moon/Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) – they’re both interested in exploring historical sites and become possessed by forces of ancient evil that give them unimaginable powers, after all. (Whether that makes Dr. Jekyll the Dark Universe’s Deadshot or Amanda Waller is up for debate.)
Of course, based on the characters already confirmed to appear in Universal’s Dark Universe, there’s also a comparison to be made between the burgeoning shared cinematic world and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The comic series created by writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O’Neill sees a number of literary characters team up to battle evil, and was adapted to the big screen in the 2003 movie of the same name. Dr. Jekyll and the Invisible Man are the most obvious characters that appear in both the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Dark Universe, but if Universal reboots Dracula again, the studio could potentially introduce Mina Harker, a character from Bram Stoker’s original novel who is a member of the League. Mina Harker did appear in the present scene at the end of Dracula Untold, so it would seem Universal does have plans to introduce the character in the Dark Universe.
So, if Universal’s shared universe brings its anti-heroes together, they could become a modern live-action version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though it should be noted that 20th Century Fox owns the movie rights to Moore and O’Neill’s comic series. The studio even hinted at a potential reboot of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as recently as 2015. Still, the Dark Universe isn’t exactly the same as the League (which is a good thing considering Universal is already facing a potential lawsuit from Warner Bros over the Dark Universe title), though the concepts may be similar.
All this is to say, Universal’s Dark Universe seems to be borrowing aspects of other shared universes to construct its new monster-focused reboots, which may be what winds up weighing the franchise down. Early reviews for The Mummy indicate the franchise isn’t bringing anything fresh to Hollywood or the now incredibly popular business of shared universes. Instead, the method of picking and choosing from what has worked before (though some would argue Suicide Squad didn’t necessarily work very well as a standalone film), is obvious to moviegoers who have been showing up for shared universe installments for almost a decade.
While the Marvel Cinematic Universe may be the gold standard of shared universes, other studios deliberately haven’t replicated it exactly. Instead, Warner Bros, Fox, and Paramount have built their cinematic worlds in ways that make sense for their characters and brings something new to the table. Although it may still be too early to truly know where Universal’s Dark Universe is headed, the blatant teaser at the end of The Mummy sets the stage for a shared universe with inspirations from The Avengers and Suicide Squad. However, without offering much of a different spin on those concepts aside from the use of classic movie monsters rather than superheroes, it remains to be seen if Universal’s Dark Universe will actually be able to rival the MCU and DCEU.
The critics agree that Wonder Woman is the best-reviewed film in the DCEU, but the good news for everyone is that Diana’s origin story makes Batman V Superman even better as a result. Those who found Zack Snyder’s Justice League lead-in not to their tastes, and the changes to BvS‘s Ultimate Edition not much of an improvement, Wonder Woman may remain the only DCEU movie they enjoy on repeat viewings. But if the showdown between DC’s biggest icons seemed like a promising, or at least interesting but ultimately flawed story, the depth and added weight behind Diana’s character may improve the film more than one might expect.
With Wonder Woman flying past $300 million box office already – and possibly on pace to make more money than Man of Steel – some fond of Diana may wish to simply look forward, not backward (and that includes the Wonder Woman Amazons returning for Justice League). Having gone to the trouble of seeing what new connections, ideas, DCEU themes, and specific plot clarifications arise thanks to Wonder Woman, we have to recommend that curious fans see if the points on our list catch their interest.
Needless to say, there will be plenty of DCEU SPOILERS in our look at How Wonder Woman Makes Batman V Superman Better.
“Gods Hurl Thunderbolts”
For reasons that should be perfectly obvious to anyone who has seen Wonder Woman, the scene in which Alfred addresses the apparent changing of “rules” in torturing criminals carries some new meaning. When Alfred corrects his employer and states that things have most certainly changed, it’s impossible to hear the following words the same: “Men fall from the sky. The gods hurl thunderbolts.” Considering that Wonder Woman‘s own history of humanity’s creation includes both those exact features, it pairs the final battles between Diana and Ares, and Superman and Zod. In the former fight, the bout itself is based on literally hurling thunderbolts.
Alfred continues to explain that when the gods do battle on Earth, or make this plane of ‘mortals’ their backdrop – as Ares, and Zod have – the result is that “innocents die. That’s how it starts, sir. The fever. The rage. The feeling of powerlessness. It turns good men cruel.” It’s a little eerie how much this claim resonates, since the notion that men are inherently “good,” and that they grow “cruel” only through a hunger for power (all stemming from envy, anger, and hate) are the basic thesis statements of Wonder Woman.
Unfortunately, the pattern has begun all over again with Bruce in particular – adding further fuel to the idea that men don’t need to be directly steered by Ares to be corrupted… unless you argue that Lex Luthor is now the one manipulating events, and trusting that all key players will react, and attack, as he assumes. More on that later.
“You Know, Dad Was Born in East Germany”
Wonder Woman may end with Diana saving the day, and The Great War ending in a ceasefire, but the wars of man were already set in motion. Even if we know that Diana didn’t “turn her back” on the world, she does admit to turning away from it with Ares defeated. It’s hard to blame her, considering how the so-called ‘good guys’ she was fighting alongside in her own solo movie handled Germany upon their defeat in World War II (which spun out of Germany’s defeat in World War I). In short, dividing the country up into sections each conquering country could claim – with East Germany falling under Soviet rule until 1990. By then Lex Luthor’s father had already spent his childhood in the controlled region, “marching in parades, waving flowers at tyrants.”
The likely history, then, is of Lex’s father growing up in the forgotten mess left behind by foreign powers. Only in adulthood did he clearly leave for America, have a son, and grow his empire in that child’s name. Consider how Lex views even virtuous heroes or ‘defenders’ as far darker than most realize, and you’re pulling at a compelling thread. Also of note: Germany largely lost the war Diana fought in by trying to knock out one superpower (France) before their other neighbor (Russia) could attack. Damaged, but aggressive and power-hungry trying to outsmart threats on either side… well, that describes Lex just as well.
The Metahuman Thesis
As manic as he may be in pursuit of power and authority, you have to hand it to Lex Luthor for realizing that Superman wasn’t the only superhuman to have walked the face of the Earth throughout history. The Kryptonite weapon he proposes is intended to deter more than just the Man of Steel, since he believes “there are more of them… the metahuman thesis. More likely than not, these exceptional beings live among us. The basis of our myths. Gods among men upon our little blue planet here.” We learn later in the film that he’s already found proof of one immortal Greek warrior woman, but it’s a solid theory to begin with, since we now know that it’s correct on even its most fundamental assumption.
If Diana would be defined as a “metahuman” due to her being the daughter of Zeus, then it stands to reason many other gods, demigods, and children of gods were similarly shifted from history to myth. Hercules seems just as likely a candidate proving Lex’s point, and may even be referenced in a Wonder Woman easter egg. But if you go one step further and assume that Zeus, Ares, and the rest of the Olympian Gods were also shifted from actual figures to ‘gods,’ Lex may give another hint towards the Gods of Apokolips actually creating the Greek Pantheon.
In a packed Captain America: Civil War, Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa stood out from the crowd, drawing both critical praise and fan adoration. Next February, audiences will get to see him lead a movie of his own. Today, Marvel released the first trailer for Black Panther, which is slated for a February 16, 2018 release. Already Twitter is abuzz with praise for the film’s visuals and cast, as well as eager speculation over the plot itself. Even with months left before the film’s release, the hype is incredibly, incredibly real. Below are twelve things that the trailer revealed that excited us the most.
Wakanda World-Building
Director Ryan Coogler and cinematographer Rachel Morrison look to have outdone themselves crafting the rich and beautiful world of Wakanda. The trailer is striking not only in it’s use of color but also in the way it visually establishes Wakanda. The culture of the country easily comes through in this one teaser alone, and one can only imagine how magnificent it will be in the final film. The blend of tradition and technology is well-balanced, and the production design is equally stellar. Much like the world of Asgard and then nine realms in the Thor films, Coogler and the Black Panther team faced a challenge in bringing the fictitious Wakanda to life. It seems they have more than risen to the challenge.
Costume Design
Another stunning element of the visuals in the trailer was the standout costume design. From Erik Killmonger’s (Michael B. Jordan) armor to the regalia worn by Wakandan leaders, such as the pictured above character played by Isaach De Bankolé, the costumes match the setting perfectly. The costumes were designed by Ruth E. Carter, a two-time Academy Award nominee who’s work ranges from historical films such as Amistad, Malcom X, and Selma to genre films such as Serenity. She has most definitely outdone herself here, and the film looks to have Marvel’s most stunning costumes yet. Could some awards season buzz for costume design be in the movie’s future?
Wakandan Technology
One of Wakanda’s greatest secrets is that it is perhaps the most technologically advanced country in the MCU’s. This is due in part to Wakanda having a rich store of vibranium, the metal that makes up Captain America’s (Chris Evans) shield. Audiences got a taste of Wakandan technology in Civil War with T’Challa’s powerful Black Panther suit, but Black Panther will bring a new level of futuristic technology to the Marvel ‘verse. There’s a reason that Ulyesses Klaue (Andy Serkis) says that the country was called El Dorado by explorers. Of course, not everything is perfect in Wakanda….
Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger
The trailer gave us a first look at Michael B. Jordan’s villainous turn as Erik Killmonger, an exile from Wakanda determined to overthrow T’Challa’s rule. This marks the third time that Jordan and Coogler have teamed up; they previously worked together on Fruitvale Station and Creed. An Entertainment Weekly article on the trailer said that Coogler is hesitant to reveal the background for Killmonger yet, but that in the comics it is one of the darkest villain origin stories. Marvel movies have often struggled with crafting compelling villains to match their heroes, but between Jordan’s talent and that tease, Killmonger might emerge as one of Marvel’s most frightening and effective villains. He’s also not the only villain to appear in the trailer; we get a brief glimpse of Winston Duke as M’Baku/Man-Ape, as well as M’Baku and Killmonger locked in combat. T’Challa will need all the help he can get to take on this crew of villains.
