Minecraft is still one of the most popular games in the world. It has 91 million monthly active players, according to Microsoft. And now The Minecraft Team is working to ensure the game doesn’t open with any references to its old creator, Markus “Notch” Persson.

In the latest update to Minecraft, the game will no longer say “Made by Notch!” or “The Work Of Notch!” when you first boot up the game. Other messages will continue to show up randomly when you’re loading into the block-building phenomenon. But any reference to Persson is gone from that splash screen.

But this isn’t Microsoft trying to erase Notch’s contributions from the game. His name still shows up in the credits. But Microsoft no longer seems interested in celebrating him, either. While that may have more to do with establishing Microsoft as the sole owner and operator of Minecraft, it seems likely that the company does not want to associate with Notch’s edgelord shitposting behavior.

Microsoft deserves the credit for saving Minecraft from its creator

Microsoft purchased Minecraft and developer Mojang from Notch for $2.5 billion in 2014. Since then, Microsoft has worked to transition the game into a live service with cross platform capabilities and a thriving, community-supported marketplace.

Notch, meanwhile, has turned into a lonely, bizarre internet creep. Despite having billions of dollars and a Beverly Hill mansion with towering candy dispensers all along one of its walls, he spends time trying to provoke people on Twitter.

He regularly makes bigoted remarks and claims to believe in conspiracy theories like QAnon, which isn’t worth explaining. It’s likely that he doesn’t care about what he’s actually saying. He just wants to trigger snowflakes.

And that is the person that Microsoft saved Minecraft from. Notch released Minecraft 10 years ago, but it’s still most popular among young kids. When children grow interested in the game, it’s inevitable that some will want to learn who is making it.

One option is to tell children that it is like a holy text that came to us from aliens.

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But Microsoft is solving this by taking ownership over Minecraft on a cultural level. Microsoft is the company that released the Xbox One Adaptive Controllerto make games more accessible for disabled people. And now it’s the company that is tearing Notch out of Minecraft while continually building the game up. In the decades to come, Microsoft will get the credit for establishing Minecraft as a time-tested pop-culture icon.

And as a parent, that is such a relief.

2019 is the 10th anniversary of Minecraft, one of the biggest games in the world. As part of its ongoing celebration, publisher Microsoft revealed today that lifetime sales of Minecraft have surpassed 176 million copies across consoles, PC, and mobile. It also said that developer Mojang is working on a new game in the beloved franchise. No, it’s not Minecraft 2. But it has the potential to be bigger than that.

Minecraft Earth is a free-to-play augmented reality game for iOS and Android that transports the familiar block-building gameplay into the real world. You’ll gather resources, fight against mobs (Minecraft’s deadly monsters), and interact with other people’s creations. Mojang will launch a closed beta this summer, and you can sign up for it here.

In a blog post, Microsoft said Minecraft Earth is using the company’s Azure Spatial Anchors AR tracking technology and integrates with its backend platform PlayFab.

If the worldwide success of Niantic’s Pokémon Go is anything to go by, Minecraft Earth should have no trouble finding a dedicated audience — just think of the millions of children who grew up with the original game. Minecraft is also known for having absurdly creative players who build the most intricate sculptures, and giving them the tools to put their creations into AR is an exciting prospect.

It’ll be a busy summer for Mojang. In addition to running the Minecraft Earth beta, the developer will be preparing to host its annual Minecon livestream (which use to be a physical conference) on September 28.

That’s usually the time where Mojang reveals big new updates about Minecraft, and assuming Minecraft Earth isn’t out yet, perhaps we’ll hear more about the new mobile game as well.

Above: Hard to believe that the game came out in 2009.Image Credit: Mojang

A strong but complicated legacy

Before Fortnite took the crown, Minecraft was gaming’s biggest pop culture phenomenon, leading to the creation of spinoffs, a boatload of toys, and other miscellaneous merchandise. More than 91 million people still play the game every month. A lot of streaming and YouTube personalities built their careers off creating videos that chronicle their Minecraft adventures.

The game’s ubiquity is one big reason for its success. While Minecraft originally launched on PC, it’s now available on practically every modern platform, including virtual reality headsets like Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR. The Minecraft Marketplace, where players can sell their fancy builds, also provides fresh content on a consistent basis.

Most of this expansion came after Microsoft bought the game and Mojang from original creator Markus “Notch” Persson for $2.5 billion in 2014. As GamesBeat PC Gaming editor Jeff Grubb wrote in March, the reclusive developer has turned into a “bizarre internet creep” who regularly espouses conspiracy theories on social media.

But with the recent removal of Notch’s name from Minecraft’s splash screen (he’s still in the credits), Microsoft has been slowly trying to distance itself away from him. And that’s for the best, especially as the company prepares to launch another potentially lucrative version of the game.

The Minecraft Marketplace had another huge month thanks to its Spring Sale. Players zipped into the store for 7,409,421 downloads. That’s approximately double March’s 3,705,978 downloads.

For the Spring Sale, Microsoft invited fans to get up to 75% off the various items in the Marketplace. It ran from April 19 through April 21, and seems like another big success for building the Minecraft Marketplace brand.

Here’s how the download and revenue charts sorted out:

Top 10 most downloaded

Click to view slideshow.

1. City Living by Noxcrew

Get the full lifestyle experience with luxury apartments, office buildings, and even vehicles you can drive. Pick your perfect home or take in the sights. Customize your world with brand new models, blocks, and textures. Comes with 30 free skins.

2. Pet Shop by PixelHeads

Welcome to Pet Shop! Choose between 17 lovely pets. Explore a town and earn coins by collecting poop or by catching stray animals. Play fetch with dogs, trim a poodle, or take a snake for a walk!

3. Dragons by InPVP

Take one of six dragons to the skies and become a legendary dragon rider! Surprise your enemies with custom attacks. Shoot fireballs and drop TNT. Explore three huge castles and the beautiful custom landscape.

4. Luxury Life by PixelHeads

Luxury Life is a world where you role-play life as a billionaire. Cruise the streets in a sports car or any of the 10 other vehicles, explore luxurious mansions and decorate with furniture!

5. Springtime by CubeCraft

Spring is here! Dress up as a cute Easter bunny or choose from a variety of pastel colored outfits – even onesies!

6. Dinosaur Island by PixelHeads

Overrun by prehistoric beasts after the scientists lost control of their genetic experiments, explore and discover the hidden mysteries of this intriguing island.

7. City Life by PixelHeads

Cruise through the big city in City Life! Chase down a bandit in your police car, save the day as a firefighter, or take your dog for a walk.

8. Steven Universe Mash-Up by Minecraft

Steven enters the Minecraft universe in this Diamond-worthy Mash-up! Contains Steven Universe themed skins, textures, original music from the show, and all your favorite locations, from Beach City to Homeworld.

9. City Mash-Up by Everbloom Studios

With over 1,000 hand-detailed rooms, there are stories, secrets, and mini-games around every corner. Build with the city’s full texture pack in your own worlds or take on any role you can imagine!

10. Dreamlife by Shapescape

Welcome to your Dreamlife! Get a tan at the beach, go shopping at the city mall with your friends, relax at the pool, or tear up the neighborhood in your own monster truck. Dress up fancy, sporty, or casual with our 12 included free skins.

Top 10 highest grossing

Click to view slideshow.

1. City Living by Noxcrew

Get the full lifestyle experience with luxury apartments, office buildings, and even vehicles you can drive. Pick your perfect home or take in the sights. Customize your world with brand new models, blocks, and textures. Comes with 30 free skins.

2. Pet Shop by PixelHeads

Welcome to Pet Shop! Choose between 17 lovely pets. Explore a town and earn coins by collecting poop or by catching stray animals. Play fetch with dogs, trim a poodle, or take a snake for a walk!

3. Dragons by InPVP

Take one of six dragons to the skies and become a legendary dragon rider! Surprise your enemies with custom attacks. Shoot fireballs and drop TNT. Explore three huge castles and the beautiful custom landscape.

4. Luxury Life by PixelHeads

Luxury Life is a world where you role-play life as a billionaire. Cruise the streets in a sports car or any of the 10 other vehicles, explore luxurious mansions, and decorate with furniture!

5. City Mash-Up by Everbloom Studios

With over 1,000 hand-detailed rooms, there are stories, secrets, and minigames around every corner. Build with the city’s full texture pack in your own worlds or take on any role you can imagine!

6. Steven Universe Mash-Up by Minecraft

Steven enters the Minecraft universe in this Diamond-worthy Mash-up! Contains Steven Universe themed skins, textures, original music from the show, and all your favorite locations, from Beach City to Homeworld.

7. Dinosaur Island by PixelHeads

Overrun by prehistoric beasts after the scientists lost control of their genetic experiments, explore and discover the hidden mysteries of this intriguing island.

8. The Nightmare Before Christmas by Minecraft

A nightmare? Before Christmas? Enjoy this themed pack by Minecraft.

9. City Life by PixelHeads

Cruise through the big city in City Life! Chase down a bandit in your police car, save the day as a firefighter or take your dog for a walk.

10. Advanced Farming by Gamemode One

Farm your heart out with new machines, vehicles, animals, pets, vendors, characters, and lands to explore. This peaceful and relaxing roleplay countryside experience also includes custom sounds and music!

Minecraft is now 10 years old, and Microsoft held an anniversary event last month to celebrate. That included a free level that helped push the Minecraft Marketplace to 9,412,745 downloads in May. That’s a huge result that’s ahead of the 7.4 million downloads for April.

As part of the anniversary, the Minecraft Team worked with community dev Blockworks to release a free map called “10 Years of Minecraft.” That map alone composed 4,059,094 of May’s downloads.Recommended Videos

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In “10 Years of Minecraft,” players get to experience a virtual walkthrough of the game’s history. In certain parts of the world, you can see what the game looked like when it began, get a look at all of the mobs, and interact with various Redstone machinery.

Let’s get to the charts, which only include paid content this month. Obviously, “10 Years of Minecraft” would top the list if it included free content as well.

Top 10 most downloaded

 6. Lucky Block Race10

 5. Furniture Shapescape

1. City Living by Noxcrew

Get the full lifestyle experience with luxury apartments, office buildings, and even drivable vehicles. Pick your perfect home, or take in the sights. Customize your world with brand new models, blocks, & textures. Comes with 30 free skins.

2. Furniture: Modern by Spark Squared

Decorate your home with over 350 furniture options. Mod your living room, bedroom, kitchen, and even your garden! Design your dream house like never before.

3. Dragons by InPVP

Take one of six dragons to the skies and become a legendary dragon rider! Surprise your enemies with custom attacks. Shoot fireballs and drop TNT. Explore three huge castles and the beautiful custom landscape.

4. Pet Shop by PixelHeads

Welcome to Pet Shop! Choose between 17 lovely pets. Explore a town and earn coins by collecting poop or by catching stray animals. Play fetch with dogs, trim a poodle or take a snake for a walk!

5. Furniture by Shapescape

Take your creative building and roleplaying to the next level by bringing some new furniture into your home! Load up the moving truck with all your latest purchases from the warehouse, drive home and live the luxury life.

6. Lucky Block Race by Volcano

The classic we all love is here and is better than ever! Race with your friends in the fun-packed Lucky Block Race. The rules are simple; if you’re the luckiest, then you’re our winner!

7. Luxury Life by PixelHeads

Luxury Life is a world where you role-play life as a billionaire. Cruise the streets in a sports car or any of the 10 other vehicles, explore luxurious mansions and decorate with furniture!

8. City Mash-Up by Everbloom Studios

With over 1,000 hand-detailed rooms, there are stories, secrets, and mini-games around every corner. Build with the city’s full texture pack in your own worlds or take on any role you can imagine!

9. Dinosaur Island by PixelHeads

Overrun by prehistoric beasts after the scientists lost control of their genetic experiments, explore and discover the hidden mysteries of this intriguing island.

10. Zombie Apocalypse by Pixelheads

The Zombie Apocalypse is here! Explore a run-down, overgrown city taken over by cyborg zombies. To survive, you must scavenge for food and weapons, and fight off the zombies.

Top 10 highest grossing

 6. Furniture Shapescape

 5. Pet Shop

1. Furniture: Modern by Spark Squared

Decorate your home with over 350 furniture options. Mod your living room, bedroom, kitchen, and even your garden! Design your dream house like never before.

2. Lucky Block Race by Volcano

The classic we all love is here and is better than ever! Race with your friends in the fun-packed Lucky Block Race. The rules are simple; if you’re the luckiest, then you’re our winner!

3. Dragons by InPVP

Take one of six dragons to the skies and become a legendary dragon rider! Surprise your enemies with custom attacks. Shoot fireballs and drop TNT. Explore three huge castles and the beautiful custom landscape.

4. City Living by Noxcrew

Get the full lifestyle experience with luxury apartments, office buildings, and even drivable vehicles. Pick your perfect home or take in the sights. Customize your world with brand new models, blocks, & textures. Comes with 30 free skins.

5. Pet Shop by PixelHeads

Welcome to Pet Shop! Choose between 17 lovely pets. Explore a town and earn coins by collecting poop or by catching stray animals. Play fetch with dogs, trim a poodle or take a snake for a walk!

6. Furniture by Shapescape

Take your creative building and roleplaying to the next level by bringing some new furniture into your home! Load up the moving truck with all your latest purchases from the warehouse, drive home and live the luxury life.

7. Epic Sky Block by Razzleberries

A lone island in the sky brings the most extreme survival challenge ever. With no resources, only skill and wit can save you from a certain demise!

8. Luxury Life by PixelHeads

Luxury Life is a world where you role-play life as a billionaire. Cruise the streets in a sports car or any of the 10 other vehicles, explore luxurious mansions and decorate with furniture!

9. Mineville Hotel Resort by InPvP

It’s time for a vacation. You deserve it! Join us today at the beautiful Hotel Resort, where all your wishes will come true. Enjoy an all-inclusive trip (free breakfast)!

10. Millionaire’s Luxury Boat by Nitric Concepts

Sail into your new luxurious mansion with a multi floor yacht! Explore the town or sail the seas with 6 colors of jet skis to fit your style. Inhabit the coastal mansions or build your own dream house over the ocean.

Spider-Man: Far From Home producer Amy Pascal speaks on the decision to update classic characters for the big screen.

The new Spider-Man trilogy hasn’t been shy about taking classic characters and reworking them for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This was somewhat of a risk for Sony and Marvel Studios, but co-producer Amy Pascal believes it’s paying off.

Pascal told ComicBook.com that these vintage Spider-Man characters, which were originally creations of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, were made to change with the times. In switching things up, Pascal believes she is merely following the lead of comic book creators who have put their own spin on the wall-crawler’s supporting characters:

“I think that they’re the great thing about what Stan and Steve did, is that they are characters that can be reinterpreted. It’s 1962, it’s a long time for something to remain fresh, and yet it’s been able to. I think that’s because just like all of the artist who did all of the various spectacular, amazing, ultimate, everything have been able to reinterpret these kind of classical characters. We’re able to do that, too.”

While Pascal didn’t grow up reading comics, she admits she quickly fell in love with the character of Peter Parker after Sony producer Avi Arad began developing a Spider-Man film at Sony in the late ’90s:

“Oh, you think I was born a comic book nerd? I was not. Avi Arad, when he first brought Spider-Man to Sony, which was in the late ’90s, I’m like, ‘I like that Peter Parker character,’ because I could relate to Peter Parker. I understood him. He’s just a normal kid with the same problem, money problems, love problems, family problems, the same stuff that everybody has. I could completely relate to him.”

Marvel Studios has updated a number of characters for the MCU, ranging from Doctor Strange’s Wong to Black Panther’s M’Baku. Although the characters weren’t entirely overhauled, key changes were made so they would better translate to the big screen.

Michael Keaton’s Vulture further proved that Marvel Studios can revitalize a character. Not only did the studio manage to make Adrian Toomes grounded and relatable, but he was also a far cry from the sometimes corny villain he was in the comics. Now, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio seems set to do the same. It’s likely Quentin Beck will end up becoming a villain in Spider-Man: Far From Home but, with the trailers touting him as an ally of Peter Parker, it appears there will be layers to him.NEXT: Spider-Man: Far From Home: 15 fan theories

Based on early reviews, Gyllenhaal gives a standout performance, and most of this can probably be contributed to the changes to his characterization. Given these reactions, Sony and Marvel Studios will likely continue to alter characters. Spider-Man: Far From Home swings into theaters on July 2.

If it isn’t entirely obvious from our years and years of coverage, we here at CinemaBlend are big fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Going back to 2008, the movies have continued to delight and surprise, and while some titles are better than others, each one has provided its own special flavor to the franchise that we’ve been able to appreciate in its own way. Of course, there are still many debates among the staff, from best villain to strongest hero, but one big question has always stood out among them all: what’s the best Marvel Studios film?

In order to get to the bottom of this everlasting conflict, our superhero podcast HeroBlend has spearheaded a little endeavor. A few weeks back we sent out a survey to interested members of our staff and had everyone rank the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe from best to worst. While no two rankings ended up being the same (seriously, you’d be surprised by the variety), we were able to average the results and determine our democratic picks.

Before we get into that, however, we want to get you in on this action too. Below you’ll find an exact copy of the same survey we sent out to our staff, and we’d love it if you would share your opinions on this great debate as well. We’ll then follow up by covering the final results of rankings in an upcoming episode of HeroBlend!

Now that you’ve done that, let’s dive into the rankings, shall we?

22. The Incredible Hulk

The Marvel Cinematic Universe was still trying to figure out what it wanted to be back in 2008, and while the franchise quickly made some interesting moves by foregoing a simple origin story when making The Incredible Hulk, in retrospect it’s not exactly their best effort. It has some good parts, and is a decent treatment of the character, but it’s also a mixed bag tonally, and doesn’t exactly have the most complex plot.

21. Thor: The Dark World

Sequels are usually a great opportunity to expand on characters and the specific worlds in which they live, but Thor: The Dark World is sadly a bit of a misfire. While it’s ultimately redeemed by its bonkers third act – which is a crazy amount of fun – this isn’t exactly the most exciting Marvel adventure, and it also notably has the weakest villain featured in the franchise to date (we’re still not entirely clear on what it was that Malekith and his Dark Elves were trying to ultimately accomplish).

20. Iron Man 2

There is no question that the Marvel Cinematic Universe wouldn’t be what it is today without Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, but to paraphrase the genius/billionaire/playboy/philanthropist, Iron Man 2 is an example of a franchise running before it’s ready to walk. There is no denying the importance of this chapter, especially because it brought both War Machine and Black Widow to life for the first time, but its story is definitely messy as a result of too many plotlines competing for attention in the narrative.

19. Captain Marvel

After more than a decade in existence, Marvel Studios tried to shake up the traditional origin story in the making of Captain Marvel, and while the movie doesn’t fully work in that respect (ultimately still including a number of the traditional tropes and narrative moves), it’s also a blockbuster with some really big surprises. Brie Larson is most definitely a rad addition to the franchise, adding a great dose of spunk and charisma to the cosmic and Earthbound hero, and we’re immensely excited about what kind of future adventures we’ll soon see the character take on.

18. Iron Man 3

Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe offered up the opportunity for blockbusters to start melding the superhero characters with a wide variety of different genres, and Iron Man 3’s take on a noir detective story is a lot of fun, and packs more than a few significant twists. It’s a smart look at Tony Stark – is he the hero, or is it all about the suit? – and features some of the best one-liners in the MCU canon.CLOSE AD

17. Avengers: Age Of Ultron

Expectations were crazy high for Avengers: Age Of Ultron back in 2015 – so high, arguably, that it never had a chance of fully reaching them – but the film is still an epic, thrilling, and fun example of super blockbuster storytelling. Both Scarlet Witch and Vision make for compelling and important new additions to the franchise, and it’s legitimately impressive what kind of threat the titular villain and his army of robots pose for Earth’s mightiest heroes.

16. Thor

Thor was a bit of a gamble for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, being a very out-there story being told as the franchise’s fourth feature, but it also provided a solid start on the big screen for one of the most important characters in the canon. It’s a film that was vitally important in establishing the tonal approach for almost every title that followed it, and it made some of the best early casting decisions in the brand’s history by bringing unknowns Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston into the fold (not to mention the star power of Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, and Idris Elba, among others).

15. Ant-Man And The Wasp

Given the nature of their powers, Ant-Man and The Wasp are characters who are best suited to star in “smaller” adventures, and Ant-Man And The Wasp delivers a super fun and fantastic one that wonderfully goes to all kinds of weird places. Picking up where they left in their first movie, Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly make for an awesome, kick-ass duo, and Peyton Reed does some delightful things with the action while utilizing the special growing and shrinking abilities.

14. Doctor Strange

Prior to the release of Doctor Strange, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was exclusively a science-fiction-based franchise, but the introduction of Benedict Cumberbatch’s titular hero totally changed the game. Featuring some awesome supporting performances from Tilda Swinton and Chiwetel Ejiofor, the movie is a mind-bender of the highest order, and features some of the most insane and beautiful visuals we’ve seen in modern blockbuster filmmaking. Even after multiple rewatches it’s still not entirely clear how the film was able to pull off some of its most bombastic sequences.

13. Ant-Man

Being one of the original Avengers, Ant-Man was one of the first films developed by Marvel Studios, and while it took an extra minute to arrive (and had a few behind-the-scenes issues), it’s still one of weirdest and best origin stories we’ve seen from the franchise. Under other circumstances a blockbuster about a shrinking hero who can control ants might not fly, but the special Marvel magic – not to mention the endless charisma of Paul Rudd – make this one a winner.

12. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2

Audiences were left asking some big questions about the Guardians of the Galaxy following their big screen debut, and through thoughtful care and his excellent filmmaking abilities, James Gunn delivered yet another awesome story for the titular team with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It’s still kind of nuts that we live in an era when a ridiculous comic book character like Ego The Living Planet can be brought to the big screen (and played by Kurt Russell, no less), but that’s the world we live in now, and along the way we’re also getting excellent stories with deeply-felt themes about family.

11. Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America has arguably had the strongest run thus far in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it all started with his fantastic debut in Captain America: The First Avenger. The period storytelling gives it a style totally unto itself, with Joe Johnston perfectly recapturing the magic he previously generated with The Rocketeer, and Chris Evans immediately elevated the character beyond the simple boy scout/propaganda tool he could have been depicted as. It’s also extra fascinating to watch when you know the direction that the hero goes in as his big screen arc continues.

10. Black Panther

Ryan Coogler took on one of the greatest challenges so far in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by introducing the nation of Wakanda, and he not only successfully pulled it off, but crafted one of the most complex and philosophically intriguing chapters we’ve seen yet within the franchise with Black Panther. It’s crazy rare to see a blockbuster where both the hero and villain’s perspectives carry comparable weight and deserve equal consideration, and the Black Panther/Killmonger conflict brings just that – and on top of it all it’s fantastic to see how the simple addition of Vibranium can spice up an action sequence.

9. Iron Man

Marvel Studios movies have obviously come a long way in the last 11 years – explaining why only two titles in this Top 10 come from pre-2012 – but that being said Iron Man is still a phenomenal delight. Not only is Robert Downey Jr.’s charisma just totally off the charts, and the visual effects surprisingly spectacular, but even at the very start of everything the brand was upending expectations about what a big screen superhero story could be (we’ll never forget the way it tore down the secret identity concept with its final line). It’s a film we’re excited to watch every time we start a few franchise rewatch.

8. Captain America: Civil War

It was once thought that Marvel Studios would save all of its big team-up adventures for its Avengers movies, but then Captain America: Civil War came along in 2016 to blow minds. It’s honestly remarkable how the film perfectly plays on the developing arcs of both Cap and Iron Man, putting them on opposite sides of a smart and considered philosophical conflict, and on top of that it makes fantastic use of its broad ensemble of characters. These blockbusters are all crazy juggling acts, it’s amazing to see the way it manages to keep all of the balls in the air without missing a beat.

7. The Avengers

The Avengers is the picture-perfect definition of a game changer. Prior to 2012 it wasn’t entirely clear if the grand Marvel Cinematic Universe experiment would actually pay off, but Joss Whedon, armed with a very clear personal love for the characters and their history, put together a blockbuster that wonderfully highlights the greatest aspects of all of them – both when they are in extreme conflict and working together. It goes without saying that the franchise wouldn’t be what it is today if this one didn’t work, and its 45 minute-long third act action sequence remains as one of the best spectacles we’ve seen in modern cinema.

6. Spider-Man: Homecoming

Prior to the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming, it wasn’t entirely clear if the world was ready for yet another film about the wall-crawler – specifically because the hero had already been featured in two other separate franchises. Fortunately Spidey’s first solo film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe totally changed everybody’s mind by offering up a fresh, funny, and exciting new take on the high school-aged character. Not only is Tom Holland perfect in the lead role, but Michael Keaton’s Vulture is one of the best villains we’ve seen in the canon thus far – managing to somehow both be sympathetic and scary.

5. Thor: Ragnarok

As reflected in the rankings above, Thor didn’t have the greatest run when it came to solo movies prior to 2017, but Taika Waititi totally changed that pattern in the best way with Thor: Ragnarok. It required stripping away everything the character loves, including his father, his hammer, and even his hair, but the reinvention works perfectly, and it’s shocking just how funny the film is. It’s also arguably the best depiction of Hulk we’ve seen on the big screen to date, with the big green monster not only finding a voice, but also doing quite a lot of exciting smashing.

4. Guardians Of The Galaxy

Prior to 2014, nobody knew who the Guardians of the Galaxy were, but James Gunn worked his magic and now they are some of the most popular heroes around the globe. How? Because Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the best space operas ever committed to celluloid. The writer/director took some liberties with the source material, brought together some bizarre misfit heroes, and put together one of the best MCU casts, and end result was two-plus hours of delightful fun unlike anything any other comic book movie had previously attempted. Marvel took an absolutely massive swing with this property, but wound up hitting a home run on the first pitch.

3. Avengers: Infinity War

The Marvel Cinematic Universe started teasing the arrival of Thanos all the way back in 2012, and while some thought it was building too much hype to possibly pay off, Avengers: Infinity War proved all doubters wrong. Taking the spotlight in the 2018 blockbuster, the Mad Titan proved to be every bit the formidable and dangerous foe that audiences were promised, and the results are incredible and epic – all building to one of the most devastating endings in blockbuster history. The scope of the film is remarkable, not to mention the careful treatment of its absolutely massive ensemble, and it is amazing how it highlights just how much we’ve grown to care about these characters over the years.

2. Captain America: The Winter Solider

Joe and Anthony Russo never directed a blockbuster before taking on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, let alone an action movie, and that’s a stunning fact in retrospect. The movie’s plot channels 1970s conspiracy thrillers in the best way, crafting a wonderful mystery surrounding its two eponymous characters, but what truly makes the film standout is its endless series of insane and pulse-pounding action sequences that make you want to leap out of your chair every five minutes. After this debut, it was a surprise to nobody that Marvel trusted the brothers with three of their most ambitious projects ever.

1. Avengers: Endgame

It should have been an impossible task distilling 11 years-worth of films into one epic blockbuster, but the craftsmanship in the making of Avengers: Endgame is second to none – which explains why our staff has ranked it as the best Marvel Studios film we’ve seen so far. It’s not only an immensely satisfying experience for fans who have been following the franchise from the beginning, it’s also just a ridiculous crowd-pleaser in every respect. It’s hilarious; it’s tear-jerking; it’s thrilling; and it’s endlessly surprising. It’s everything you want it be after 22 movies, and makes our imaginations run wild thinking about what the next 22 movies might bring to the big screen.

How does our list compare with yours? If you haven’t already, go back to the top and take our survey, and stay tuned for more of our Marvel Cinematic Universe coverage here on CinemaBlend!

Disney re-released Avengers: Endgame this past Friday, presumably as part of a push to outperform Avatar at the global box office. In an effort to incentivize fans to revisit the film, directors Joe and Anthony Russo attached spoiler-y treats at the end of the credits. Even Captain America actor Chris Evans is urging fans to re-watch the film. But even with these boosts, the final Avengers installment may not reach the numbers it needs to in order to beat James Cameron’s box office behemoth.

Avatar pulled in $2.79 billion worldwide, earning most of its money overseas. According to Deadline, only 34% of the film’s lifetime gross came from the U.S. and China, contrasting starkly with Endgame‘s 53% U.S./China haul. Avatar‘s near-mythic number sent box office analysts, critics, and other industry experts reeling and, at the time, seemed impossible for other films to top. And it still might be.

That belief still holds. Even now, against a glut of superhero movies fighting for its coveted status, Avatar remains a formidable opponent. Only about $30 million stands between Avengers: Endgame and that close-but-not-that-close crown, but without substantial hauls overseas, its victory isn’t guaranteed. Nor is it likely. No matter how badly Robert Downey Jr. wants it to be. As charming and persuasive as he might be, he may not even be able to influence enough viewers to make a box office thrashing possible.

The Avengers: Endgame re-release is largely a domestic push, but it will also play in Mexico, the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Spain, Russia, Japan, and Australia/New Zealand. Avengers: Endgame has no shot at beating Avatar‘s huge numbers in a lot of key countries, including France, Japan, Germany, Russia, and Italy. Also, it’s not re-releasing in China, so that extra potential money is off the table.

Here’s the thing: When Avatar hit theaters back in 2009, it was an absolute sensation. Screenings sold out quickly and frequently (even weeks into the film’s release), and it seemed to be all people were discussing. James Cameron’s revolutionary technology stunned, thrilled, and enthralled audiences, many of whom probably took the beauty at face value without realizing how special it was. Even knowing that everyone and their mom had seen the movie and were going back for seconds, I didn’t expect its box office numbers to climb as high as they did.

Personally, I’d watch Endgame over Avatar any day, but my opinion doesn’t mean anything when I’m staring up at the piles of cash obscuring the sun.

Whether or not you think the extra content is worth it, you could also just re-watch the movie because it’s a good movie. That seems to be what many are doing, anyway. We will see if Endgame can make enough to dethrone the unofficial Dances With Wolves remake. Who knows? It may surprise us all and completely destroy the competition. Either way, it fought the good fight.

It’s also possible Disney could decide to bring Avengers: Endgame back again for a double feature with The Lion King later this summer, or bring it back again for one last play over Labor Day weekend. There are more options.

Avengers: Endgame is back in theaters with new footage, so get your tickets now if you’re eager to see it end a 10-year reign.

Bless his heart to 3000, but Chris Evans is not the person to go to for Avengers: Endgame timeline continuity questions. And he really won’t know what to say when you ask if Steve Rogers went “Alabama” with Peggy Carter‘s niece, Sharon Carter. However, Evans did land on some nice compliments for the Marvel Cinematic Universe storytellers, and Don Cheadle jumped in with a decent enough timeline explanation. Also, the Russo Brothers provided a longer explanation on the Steve/Peggy front.

First, the Captain America star joined Don Cheadle (Rhodey/War Machine) and Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton/Hawkeye/Ronin) at ACE Comic Con. A fan stepped up to ask Chris Evans about the Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter reunion at the end.

Steve returns the Infinity Stones to their original timelines and then chooses to stay in the past to live his life with Peggy, finally getting that dance. It was a beautiful bookend to their storyline in Captain America: The First Avenger. But it also confused some fans, like this one, who noted:

Like, was he then therefore Peggy’s husband in this universe and kinda went Alabama with her niece?

The crowd laughed. Jeremy Renner quipped, “Lotta strange things happen in ‘bama.”

The moderator said that’s a time continuity question and joked that no one up there was qualified to answer. But Chris Evans did his best to answer, with backup from Don Cheadle:

Chris Evans: You know, I’m not sure if I can give you those answers. … But you know what, look, that’s weak as shit if I’m like I don’t know… But ask the writers! [laughs]. I mean, look, I mean there’s a lot of things you can question about the time continuum. But if there’s anything I’ve learned about working with Marvel, they don’t leave stones unturned. They really don’t. I at times might share some of the questions, but anytime I’ve kind of asked the question of people, there’s always an answer. There’s always someone who kind of explains it to me.

Don Cheadle: And then you immediately forget what they said.

Chris Evans: And then I forget it. And then I come onstage, and then I say ‘Hey, ask Don Cheadle what it’s like to be Don Cheadle!’

Don Cheadle: Steve exists on multiple planes and time is not just a straight line. There’s multiple timelines.

Actually, that was a fine enough answer on its own. Thank you, Don Cheadle. I’m no expert, but isn’t the running explanation that Steve created a new timeline? Or a “branch reality,” as the Russos put it? See their full explanation below.

Watch Chris Evans attempt to answer the question around the 24:00 minute mark of this helpful fan’s ACE Comic Con video:

Avengers: Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely even said it was “always our intention” that Steve Rogers was the father of Peggy’s two children. They added “there are time travel loopholes for that.”

Directors Joe and Anthony Russo also explained what happened to Fox 5 DC:

Joe Russo: The way that it would work, right, is that when Captain America goes back, he would create a branch reality. OK? Now he would exist in that branch reality with a second Captain America who was frozen in ice.

Anthony Russo: Peggy understood that he was dead at that point in the storytelling because Cap went back to a point in time where nobody knew he still was alive, frozen in ice.

Joe Russo: Now what’s also a story for another time is, of course, if he created a branch reality, he would then have to use a Pym Particle to come back to this reality to hand that shield off.

A story for another time? When do we get to see that?

The Endgame writers also tried to explain the Avengers/Spider-Man “plot hole”that stumped the Far From Home cast. Best not to ask the actors technical questions and save those for the writers, the director, or Kevin Feige himself. Make the MCU boss talk about going ‘bama with Peggy’s niece!

Avengers: Endgame is now playing in theaters in a re-release, in advance of Spider-Man: Far From Home opening this Tuesday, July 2.

Lucifer fans, it’s time to lower the pitchforks. It wasn’t long after Netflix announced that the 10-episode Season 5 would be the series’ last that some attempted to spark up renewal efforts on social media, and now it appears that all those efforts and future efforts will be in vain.

Disappointed parties needn’t worry, though, as Lucifer‘s executive producer Ildy Modrovich assured fans that things are different this time around. In a lengthy statement via Twitter, she explained how this cancellation differs from the last, and why it’s ok (although she is torn) that the series is actually going to go away for real this time.

Straight from the horse’s mouth, it appears that there’s no use in trying to bring Lucifer back from the dead a second time. The good news is that Ildy Modrovich and others are grateful Netflix was upfront about this information, and that there’s now plenty of time to figure out the correct way to draw this series to a close over its next ten episodes.

Which, as many Lucifer fans may remember, is a luxury that wasn’t afforded to the former Fox drama the first time it was cancelled. Now an intentional series finale can be plotted out, which will at the very least be more satisfying than when it initially ended on a cliffhanger. It’s still not as satisfying as a Season 6 renewal, of course, but the best case scenario any cancelled series can hope for.

It’s also a situation that could’ve happened in this most-recent season as Season 4 delivered a pretty big cliffhanger in its season finale that would’ve left Lucifans incredibly frustrated had Season 5 never happened. It appears as though viewers did all they could to ensure that renewal happened, by the way, as a third party report said Season 4 was one of May’s most-binged shows on Netflix.

And right now, it appears that the major players in the Lucifer camp are thankful for how generous Netflix has been. Ildy Modrovich’s message was shared by series star Tom Ellis specifically, who hoped he could help clear up some of the “confusion” that has plagued the show’s loyal fanbase ever since the renewal.

Now, whether or not this means Tom Ellis isn’t as upset about Lucifer being cancelled again we can’t say. We do know that when Ellis spoke to CinemaBlend, he felt the story wasn’t done yet. Whether he was thinking one more season would do it or he was hoping for a bit more we can’t be sure of, but at least he and the crew have plenty of time to figure out this final act this time.

Details on Lucifer Season 5 are still scant at the moment, but CinemaBlend will keep an eye out for details and report on the major reveals as they come. In the meantime, be sure to stick with us for all the latest news in in television and movies.

The superhero movie landscape looks a lot different than it did at the beginning of the decade. For one thing, back then, the film rights to properties like X-Men and the Fantastic Four still belonged to 20th Century Fox, a studio a long ways away from being owned by a certain Mouse House. As such, the chances of seeing these Marvel characters share screen time with those in the Marvel Cinematic Universewasn’t possible.

However, evidently at one point Fox was considering making its own Avengers-level crossover superhero movie. During his recent appearance on Fatman Beyond, screenwriter Zack Stentz, who co-wrote both X-Men: First Class and Thor, was asked which of his movies that he’s written that will never come out is his favorite, Stentz answered:

My ex-partner and I, when we were working at Fox and working on X-Men: First Class, we did a secret movie for them that, I can’t tell you what the plot was, but I can tell you that it used all of the characters, all of the Marvel characters that Fox had at the time in 2011. It used the X-Men. It used the Fantastic Four. It used Daredevil. It used Deadpool. Daredevil was still at Fox at the time. And it was a really cool freakin’ script. We almost had Paul Greengrass directing it, which would’ve been so cool, but he had another project to do instead. It didn’t end up going, but it was a script I was really proud of and it would’ve been really good.

Man, this takes me back. While the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool were obviously Fox-only Marvel characters up until the Disney transaction went through, it’s easy to forget that Daredevil was also part of that group for a long time. The Man Without Fear only starred in one movie, and while Fox tried to get a reboot off the ground by 2012, that fell through and the rights went back to Marvel, paving the way for the Daredevil Netflix series.

Having Paul Greengrass direct this Fox crossover movie also would have been a cool choice, as the man had proved his action mettle with The Bourne Supremacyand The Bourne Ultimatum. Going off the loose time frame Zack Stentz laid out, I suspect Greengrass turned down this opportunity in favor of directing Captain Phillips, which went on to be nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, among other accolades.

Had Fox moved forward with this movie featuring the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Deadpool and X-Men, this might have placed the Fox Marvel franchise on a higher pedestal. Granted, the X-Men film series has been chugging along steadily for nearly two decades, which includes the surprise success of Deadpool, but along with Daredevil barely getting a chance to shine, the Fantastic Four movies didn’t fare particularly well, with the 2015 reboot ending up a critical and commercial bomb.CLOSE AD

Perhaps new life could have been breathed into all these characters had they been able to join forces in such an epic tale, although I worry introducing Deadpool here might have resulted in the character not being adapted as well as he was in 2016. It’s also a good bet that this movie would have taken the X-Men down a much different path than they are now.

Fast-forwarding to now, all of these properties now rest under Marvel Studios, and while the plan is to keep Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool around, it’s expected that the Fantastic Four and X-Men will are rebooted down the line. Daredevil was cancelled over a month after Season 3 premiered, and it remains to be seen if we’ll ever see Charlie Cox’s version of Matt Murdock again or if the character will be rebooted again to better fit within MCU continuity.

Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for updates concerning Marvel’s plans for any of the above characters on the big or small screens. Those of you who are curious about what the MCU has lined up next can look through our comprehensive guide.

Earth’s most lucrative heroes will reassemble in May 2020 with Marvel’s Avengers, Square Enix announced today, to kick off a story that’ll unfold over several years of updates. Unlike everything else to do with Marvel’s marvelous moneymakers, story additions with new places and characters will be free to all players. Most importantly, yes, it will let you play superheroes with your pals and duff up baddies together in co-op. Come watch the announcement trailer.

Tony Stark done goofed, apparently, causing a disaster that becomes known as “A-Day”. Probably not Arsehole Day, but you never know. So the Avengers disassemble, Cap looks like a gonner, and superheroes are banned until whoops, looks like something worse is coming so it’s time to reassemble. Square Enix say the story has both singleplayer and cooperative missions for up to four heroes. I’m game for that, as long as I get to do the smashing.

“The narrative will be delivered over multiple years, with no random loot boxes or pay-to-win scenarios,” Square Enix say. “Every new Super Hero and region will be delivered to players at no additional cost if you own the core game.”

The initial lineup looks to be Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Black Widow, then more will follow as the adventures continue. They already teased that Hank Pym might be next. One of them. Someone. A shrinkman.

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This looks to be in that confusing netherrealm between the movies and comics, wanting to appeal familiar primarily to moviegoers but also drawing from the world of paper, which I think is a situation that technically creates a hybrid alternate universe where- oh Alice no, don’t start with this nonsense, not at this time of night.

So if story chapters are free, what isn’t? No way Ian Ix is doing the ‘games as service’ dealio without some extra post-purchase cash coming in. I’d wildly guess at alternate costumes, considering even a hero of average might can amass dozens of the devils when left unsupervised for a week or two. If it’s something like that, sure, whatever.

The game’s slated to launch on May 15th, 2020. Marvel’s Avengers is being made by Crystal Dynamics with help from Eidos Montreal, Nixxes Software, and Crystal Northwest.

The past two months have been a very exciting time for Marvel fans. Avengers: Endgame hit theaters (for the first time) in April, and brought endless plot twists and satisfying conclusions to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Spider-Man: Far From Homewill wrap up Phase Three, and moviegoers are eager for any information regarding the future and the mysterious Phase Four.

One great venue for a possible announcement would be San Diego Comic-Con, which is usually a hub for exciting news, delivered directly to the fans. When speaking with Kevin Feige about Spider-Man: Far From Home, CinemaBlend’s Sean O’Connell posed this very question to the Studio Head. Feige said the following:

I don’t know that we’ve officially announced either way. We usually only go to Hall H when we have a lot of stuff to talk about and reveal. Seems like we have a lot of stuff to talk about or reveal. But we’ll see what we officially announce one way or the other. There’s also D23 later this summer, and we’ve always gone to D23.

Well, that’s delightfully cryptic. While Kevin Feige admits that it might be a good year for the MCU to have a big presentation at Comic-Con’s Hall H, he admits there aren’t any concrete plans at the moment. But with D23 and the opening of Marvel land offering another opportunity just one month later to update the fans, some big announcements feel imminent.

Hall H is the biggest venue within San Diego Comic-Con, able to hold a whopping 6500 people at full capacity. It’s historically where the biggest announcements about the MCU have come, including the lineup of the original Avengers cast. As such, all eyes are on what the studios will do this year. Marvel Studios is expect to open up regarding the shared universe’s future soon, so Hall H seems like the perfect place to break the news to the public.

But for now, Marvel Studios seems wholly focused on the impending release ofSpider-Man: Far From Home. CinemaBlend’s own Sean O’Connell got to speak with the cast and crew about the blockbuster, including Kevin Feige himself.

The studio has been very methodical about handling each latest blockbuster. Over the past few years, focus has been on each new release, rather than teasing the overarching future too soon. Ant-Man and The Wasp and Captain Marvel were both given the attention they deserved, with fans left waiting the long year between Infinity War and Endgame for any glimpse into the MCU after Thanos’ snap.

Still, Kevin Feige did mention that there’s plenty of exciting updates to give the public, whether it was at San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H, or Disney’s annual convention D23. The MCU has typically announced full phases of movies to the public, although it’s unclear if that’s the plan this time around. While the schedule was still subject to change (shout out to Inhumans), it provided a rough outline that allowed anticipation to stew for years before each blockbuster arrived.

Whether Marvel’s future will be revealed at Comic-Con or D23 remains to be seen. But CinemaBlend will keep you updated on the latest in in the MCU.

Spider-Man: Far From Home will arrive in theaters on July 2, 2019. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Is Hancock 2 happening with Will Smith? Hancock arrived in 2008, at a time when cinema, as we know it today, was just beginning to be shaped by the influence of superhero movies. Just two months before, Iron Man premiered and effectively launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But while Iron Manand the rest of the MCU flourished, Hancock‘s future was murky, despite delivering key superhero story ingredients – smarmy hero, a complicated past, big action, unique powers, etc. – and the sequel never came to be. Why didn’t Hancock 2 end up happening?

Directed by Peter Berg and starring Smith, Charlize Theron, and Jason Bateman, Hancock told the story of the John Hancock (Smith), a superhero with the potential for doing real good who preferred to self-sabotage with substance abuse and a general disdain for others. PR man Ray (Bateman) sees there is potential to rehab Hancock, as well as his image, and turn him into a force for good. Hancock cautiously accepts Ray’s offer to help him get back on track but as the two start their work and things seem to be turning around for Hancock, the truth about his past and why he is the way he is come to light, thus affecting his future in the process.

Despite promising reports that Hancock 2 would be made, nothing has materialized. Let’s look at what happened after Hancock was released and see what reasons led to Hancock 2 getting permanently pushed to the backburner.

HANCOCK’S STORY COULD CONTINUE IN HANCOCK 2

Hancock was based on the millennia-old connection shared by Smith and Theron’s characters, powerful gods who couldn’t defy their attraction to one another but knew only bad things would happen to others if and when they eventually joined forces. The reveal of Theron’s character, Mary, as a superhuman, as well as Mary’s connection with Hancock, left the story at a place where it could be expanded, diving deeper into their history while also investigating if other superhumans were out there in hiding, just like Mary. Berg teased in August 2009 a key plot point for Hancock 2, telling SciFiWire, “There might be another god out there… Might be another one.”

HANCOCK DID WELL AT THE BOX OFFICE

Hancock did well enough at the box office that it would have justified a sequel happening. Hancock had a modest opening weekend of $62.6 million domestically. When it left theaters, Hancock had made back its estimated $150 million budget in spades, walking away with $624.3 million globally. Add in the fact that, individually, Smith and Theron have been able to open up films over the course of their careers, and on paper, Hancock 2 looked like a safe investment.

WILL SMITH AND CHARLIZE THERON SIGNED ON FOR HANCOCK 2

Progress on Hancock 2 was still going in a positive direction in August 2009, when it was reported the film had secured two writers, The Shield‘s Adam Fierro and Glen Mazzara. (A year later, they both went to work on The Walking Dead.) It appeared at the time like Fierro and Mazzara would be working with Berg and Smith, who themselves were working on expanding the world and bringing in new story elements. More good news arrived in September 2009 when Berg confirmed at the time both Smith and Theron has signed on for the sequel, telling MTV News that “Everybody’s going to come back for a sequel.” Although Smith and Theron remained relatively quiet about coming back, it was promising that the two stars were all in.

PETER BERG CONFIRMED HANCOCK 2 WASN’T HAPPENING

The last word spoken about Hancock 2 was in December 2009, a year-and-a-half after Hancock released. At the time, Berg offered up a vague but telling response on just how much of a priority a sequel was and at what stage of development the sequel was in. Speaking with HitFix, Berg remarked, “There are so many cooks in that particular kitchen that are so busy,” later adding that “to get us all in the same room where we can talk and then agree on anything? You’ll never meet a group of people who will have a harder time agreeing on anything.”

Salma Hayek rumored of joining the cast of the 2020’s upcoming movie The Eternals alongside Angelina Jolie.

Salma Hayek Pinault is a Mexican and American film actress, producer, and former model whom we might remember from the movie Grown Ups (2010) and Grown Ups 2(2013). She was also recently seen in films like The Hitman’s Bodyguard and How to Be a Latin Lover Now a days, recently she is being rumored to be cast in the upcoming Marvel movie “The Eternals,” starring actress Angelina Jolie. Earlier, Keanu Reeves was also lightly rumored to have joined the cast of Eternals, but nothing was confirmed, and the rumor faded.

This Marvel movie is going to based on the Marvel comics of the same name, where the “Eternals” are a group of fictional species of almost immortal humans with powers. With this movie, Marvel is going to launch a set of new superheroes and to play the character of these heroes we need a new cast

Although there are many “Eternals,” Marvel has decided to use only a few in this movie, One of which is the female character- Sersi, whose character would be played by Angelina, and for now Salma is being doubted for playing the role of either of the two female character -Elysius or Thena

Apart from Angelina Jolie the Game of Thrones actor Richard Madden (Robb Stark) was also cast as Ikaris along with comedian Kumail Nanjiani whose role has yet not been decided and although there has been no confirmation of Salma’s role. Nevertheless, the production of the film is expected to begin in the upcoming months- August or September with Chloé Zhao as the director and the movie is rumored to release in November 2020.

The team behind Marvel’s ambitious upcoming Avengers video game have revealed how the ‘games-as-a-service’ title – similar to the ongoing DLC updates made popular by games such as Destiny – will actually roll out when the game launches for consoles next year.

Speaking to Digital Spy last week at E3, the biggest gaming expo of the year which is held annually in Los Angeles, where the game was first unveiled, developers Crystal Dynamics explained that the game will receive ongoing updates and new missions for players to complete online. 

Noah Hughes, Studio Creative Director at Crystal Dynamics, explained to Digital Spyhow the Marvel team plan on rolling it out, saying: “One of the ways we think about it is, it’s not so much DLC as much as just regularly looking forward to updates within the game, and changes within the world’s stories.”

Marvel’s Avengers will see players get to live their wildest superhero dreams as they play as the Avengers themselves in the third person-action adventure game, and allow players to team up with others online to form their own Avengers teams to take down bad guys and save the world together on multiplayer co-op missions.

The game will also exist in a separate, non-canon universe to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with new designs of the iconic Marvel heroes and an original storyline which will unfold over a sustained, updating timeline.Marvel’s Avengers: A-Day – Official Trailer (Marvel Entertainment)by Digital Spy GBPlay VideoPlaylist VideosADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW

So far, Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow and Thor have been revealed in the game’s line-up, though more characters will be confirmed later on too.

On how you’ll be able to play as the iconic heroes, and assembling an online Avengers team, Hughes explained: “There are specific areas where you play a specific hero, but then there are also lots of missions that open up and you can play with any hero. You can also team up with three other players on those missions.SQUARE ENIXMarvel’s Avengersgame.co.uk£54.99PRE-ORDER NOW

“Missions have story significance, but also allow you to tell your own story, and those are also designed to be replayable,” Hughes added.

The ‘games-as-a-service’ model of video game, where the game receives ongoing content and updates after launch, is not a new one – Destiny, followed by its sequel, follows this method of continuing content, as well as Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siegeand the free-to-play Fortnite: Battle Royale.

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Usually, this model is used to monetise games after launch by charging gamers for the additions to the game. However, the Crystal Dynamics team have confirmed that the updates added to Avengers will come at no extra charge to players, confirming to Digital Spy: “Those updates are all at no additional cost.”ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW

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“We want players to be able to continue to play in this world,” revealed Hughes of the longevity of the Marvel game. “One thing that’s unique about our game is it blends the best of single player campaign experiences with some of the multiplayer and replayability aspects of some of these other games.”

You’ll also be able to customise your Avengers in-game, explains Hughes.

“You can continue to level up your heroes and gear that allows you to customise their specific abilities and cater to your own play style,” he shared.

Marvel’s Avengers will be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Google Stadia on 15 May 2020.

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UPDATE, writethru: Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far From Home came swinging into China, Japan and Hong Kong this weekend to nab an early $111M at the international box office. The launch sets the webslinger 45% over Spider-Man: Homecoming and 21% above Captain Marvel in the like-for-likes. The opening result is slightly higher than what the industry was seeing pre-weekend, which then increased as the markets saw strong play-through.

China was robust at $98M for the No. 4 all-time superhero bow behind Disney/Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War, and Sony/Marvel’s Venom. Social scores are strong in the Middle Kingdom and next weekend sees little in the way of competition with local movie The Eight Hundred off the release schedule. Currently, FFH is above Homecoming by 46% and Captain Marvel by 17% in the market where the webbed wonder excels.

Japan is also a big hub for the character and welcomed the Tom Holland follow-up with the 2nd best superhero debut of the last decade (behind Endgame). In Hong Kong, European vacation Spider-Man flew in with the 5th biggest FSS opening of all time and the best ever for a standalone superhero movie as well as Sony’s top launch ever.

There’s joy on the Culver City lot today as the early dates rep a strong start for Far From Home, which picks up after the events of Endgame. The Hong Kong bow offers a taste of how South East Asia is expected to respond when Spidey gets there later this week, and the current percentage increases over Homecoming and Captain Marvel are encouraging. The fact that the movie will land in Europe when the weather has returned to regular summer temperatures after a stifling heatwave, is also a bonus.

The Jon Watts-directed Far From Home is primed for release throughout the rest of the world in the next frame. Australia goes tomorrow followed by a week-long rollout pattern that includes domestic. There is every possibility that FFH is in the $500M global neighborhood through next Sunday.

In other new play this session, Warner Bros/New Line’s Annabelle Comes Homescared up $45M from 63 markets including No. 1s in 22. The latest in the doll series is tracking ahead of Annabelle (+6%) and The Conjuring (+55%) in like-for-likes. Globally, the start is $76.2M.

Danny Boyle’s Beatles-inspired fantasy music romance Yesterday opened in 30 overseas markets this session, grossing $7.7M for a global debut of $24.7M. On a like-for-like basis, the Universal/Working Title pic is in line with Me Before You and above The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (+18%), The Intern(+31%) and About Time (+67%).

In its sophomore frame, Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 4 added $80.6M from overseas for a $259.6M cume in 45 material markets repping 76% of the offshore footprint. The global cume, after just 11 days, is closing in on $500M and with several majors still to release. While a heatwave gripped France and other parts of Europe this weekend, TS4’s regional drop was 37%.

Also from Disney, Aladdin’s surprising performance continues with a cume now of $568.3M overseas and $874.M globally. Japan ($66.6M) and Korea ($60.2M) have been major standouts on the Will Smith-starrer. This weekend it reclaimed the No. 1 spot in the latter while overall, the international drop was just 30%.

In milestones, Lionsgate’s John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum shot past $300M worldwide with a strong start in Korea that came in 251% above the lifetime of John Wick: Chapter 2.

Disney/Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame is now at $1.92B internationally for a global total of $2.76B which includes this weekend’s Bring Back event at domestic and select offshore cinemas.

The next frame will be dominated by Far From Home, with ongoing rollout throughout the week. Beyond that, Disney’s The Lion King is poised to roar into China early on July 12, one week ahead of domestic and other international markets.

In the meantime, breakdowns on the films above and more have been updated below.

NEW
SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME

Spider-Mania kicked off this weekend in three early markets with China, Japan and Hong Kong grossing $111M on 33,900+ screens. The start for the Sony/Marvel pic is above where the industry had it ahead of the weekend in what has been a challenging time at the box office, particularly in China. But first numbers out of the Middle Kingdom on Friday, along with strong social scores, propelled the webbed wonder to a promising debut that is 45% above Spider-Man: Homecoming and 21% over Captain Marvel, the standalone superhero movie that acts as the other bookend to Avengers: Endgame.

Signs point to Far From Home being in the $500M neighborhood through next Sunday when it will have the benefit of all other global markets save Italy which releases July 10.

The three-day China debut this weekend was $98M for the 7th best studio bow and the No. 4 all-time superhero launch behind Disney/Marvel’s Avengers: Endgameand Avengers: Infinity War, and Sony/Marvel’s Venom. This is Sony’s 2nd best start ever in the market. Currently, FFH is above Homecoming by 46% and Captain Marvel by 17%.

Working in Far From Home’s favor, beyond the built-in Middle Kingdom love there is for the character, are the social scores and word of mouth, as well as the fact that Better Days, a local movie that was expected to have great potential, was pulled off its June 28 date at the last minute last week. That this is also the first MCU title after Endgame in the Marvel-loving market is also a clear factor. Holland, Watts and Jake Gyllenhaal also visited Beijing pre-bow and were sporting in their promotional efforts.

Homecoming debuted in China in 2017, about two months after the majority of the world, and made $67M in its first weekend at today’s rates. The Middle Kingdom final was $116.3M (unadjusted) and Far From Home will well exceed that. There was some early concern that Homecoming had less resonance with local audiences because the U.S. high school experience doesn’t fully translate, but Far From Home is bucking that.

China was nevertheless the biggest overseas market on Homecoming as well as the previous two Spider-Man movies. It is also the top MCU hub with Endgame having taken in a staggering $629M there to become the highest-grossing import ever. Far From Home picks up following the events of Endgame as Spidey must step up to take on new threats in a world that has changed forever. Zendaya, Samuel L Jackson, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon and Cobie Smulders also star.

Along with China, Japan took in an amazing $9.4M, making it the 2nd biggest superhero movie launch in the last decade behind only Endgame. There is another week of clear play ahead in Japan. Hong Kong kicked off its run with a 3-day total of $3.8M, which represents the 5th biggest FSS opening of all time, the best-ever for a standalone superhero film, and the best-ever for Sony.

In IMAX, FFH grossed $12.3M across the three debut markets. The $10.8M from 620 China screens set a new record for the franchise and for Sony as well as being the 4th best bow in the MCU.

In Japan FFH snared $1.1M from 31 screens for the top franchise opening, Sony’s best and the all-time 5th best for the format. In Hong Kong, the film earned $300K from 5 screens, also a franchise and Sony best.

ANNABELLE COMES HOME

Gary Dauberman’s feature directorial debut sent shivers to 63 overseas markets this weekend, collecting $45M on about 15,520 screens. The Warner Bros/New Line doll landed No. 1s in 22 of the debuts while there are still 17 markets to come in the next weeks. Including the domestic debut, the global launch is $76.2M.

So far, Annabelle Comes Home is running above the original Annabelle by 6% and over the original The Conjuring by 55%. Annabelle: Creation is the highest grossing in the scary doll series overseas with $204.4M unadjusted while The Nun leads the overall Conjuring universe at $248M.

In Asia, the opening weekend is tracking on par with The Conjuring 2, 31% over Annabelle and 80% over the original Conjuring. In Latin America, it’s boasting the best opening of a horror title this year. And, in Europe/Middle East/Africa, the homecoming is about on par with Annabelle: Creation and above the other comps.

Mexico was the top launch this weekend at No. 2 with $6.9M on 2,660 screens for 6% over Annabelle. Indonesia scored a No. 1 debut of $5M on 1,095 screens to best all Conjuring titles save The Nun. India follows with $2.6M on $1,650 screens to more than double Annabelle. Russia came in at a No. 1 start of $2.5M on 1,880 to beat all Conjuring pics outside Nun. Rounding out the Top 5 is Malaysia and a No. 1 bow of $2.2M from 480 screens and on par with Creation.

Further market totals to date include Vietnam ($1.9M), Brazil ($1.8M), Thailand ($1.6M), Taiwan ($1.5M), Colombia ($1.4M) and Australia ($1.4M). Italy and Germany are next to bow in the coming frame.

YESTERDAY

Danny Boyle’s Beatles-inspired fantasy opened in 30 overseas markets this session, grossing $7.7M for a global debut of $24.7M. On a like-for-like basis, the start is in line with Me Before You and above The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (+18%), The Intern(+31%) and About Time (+67%).

Scriped by Richard Curtis and starring Himesh Patel and Lily James, the Universal/Working Title music romance was No. 2 in the UK where Toy Story 4 is dominating. The film bowed to $2.8M at 642 locations to land Boyle’s 3rd best start ever and track in line with Marigold Hotel and James-starrer Baby Driver. The actors and Boyle recently appeared on The Graham Norton Show while a London premiere was held the same week that European exhibitors got a sneak of the movie at CineEurope.

Australia was the next best bow with $2.52M at No. 2 and from 276 sites. This is the biggest opening for Boyle and tracking in line with Bridget Jones’s Baby and above La La Land.

In the Netherlands, which has been suffering from the heatwave, the film was No. 3 with $419K from 149 locations, also tracking above La La Land and Curtis’ About Time.

The film fared well versus its comps in Europe, though all play was affected this weekend by the sky-high mercury. There are many markets still on deck for the counterprogrammer to summer’s mega-tentpoles. They include France, Spain, Germany, China, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Korea, Italy and Japan. Korea, where Curtis’ movies over-index, will be one to keep an eye on in September.

HOLDOVERS/EXPANSIONS
TOY STORY 4

In its sophomore session, Disney/Pixar’s fourquel packed another $80.6M into the toy chest, bringing the offshore cume to $259.6M and global to $496.5M after just 11 days. This weekend added 7 international markets including some of those hit hardest by the heatwave. Nevertheless, Forky was top toy in each.

In France, the No. 1 start was $7M for the5th best Pixar start and the best of the TSfranchise. Overall, Europe dipped 37% from opening. Russia and Spain dipped 26% each and the UK saw a 46% drop from a record-setting debut.

Asia Pacific fell by 38% with strong holds in Philippines (-15%), Australia (-19%), Taiwan (-21%), Malaysia (-22%), Korea (-29%), Indonesia (-34%), Vietnam (-42%) and Thailand (-48%).

Latin America, which saw a huge opening last frame dropped by 46% in the current session. It maintained the No. 1 spot across the region.

Still on deck for Toy Story 4, which should continue to see good holds over the next few weeks, are Japan in July and Germany in August.

Currently, the Top 5 markets are Mexico ($49.5M), UK ($33M), China ($24.3M), Korea ($16.7M) and Brazil ($15.9M).

ALADDDIN

Through the 6th weekend of play, Disney’s Aladdin has now grossed $568.3Minternationally and $874.2M globally. The surprise of the summer so far, the Will Smith-starrer filled its lamp with another $24.5M this session in 55 material offshore markets. The overall drop was just 30%.

In Europe, there were increases and soft drops in some markets including Finland (+106%), France (-9%), Israel (-20%), Spain (-28%), Russia (-31%) and UK (-49%). Asia overall dipped by 18% with Koreaunable to get enough of the genie. Aladdin retook the No. 1 spot from stablemate Toy Story 4 there and has now grossed over $60M. Japan also saw a light slip (-14%) and is nearing $67M. Latin America’s regional gross is $86M.

The Top 5 are Japan ($66.6M), Korea ($60.2M), China ($53.3M), UK ($42.8M) and Mexico ($32.1M).

THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS 2

As the long rollout continues on Illunimation/Universal’s sequel, 11 new markets joined the menagerie this weekend for an additional $11.8M. The overseas cume is now $91.8M for $223M worldwide. Among the new hubs Germany was tops with $2.2M for No. 1 from 720 locations and tracking in line with Coco. Brazil, where competition is fierce, bowed to No. 3 with $1.83M at 676, also in line with Coco. Poland (amid heatwave temperatures) grossed $1.29M at No. 1 from 239 sites to track above Coco and Despicable Me 2.

The top holdover hub was Australia with a 28% drop in the sophomore frame for a $5.5M cume to date. Russia continues to lead all play with $23.3M so far, followed by the UK at $22.6M.

The coming weekend adds China (the first Pets did about $58M — unadjusted — in its full run there in 2016) as well as some Euro and Latin American markets. Japan, Korea, France, Spain and Mexico are still to come in July and August.

MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL
Men In Black: International saw a 62% drop this session, adding $11.5M. The offshore cume is now $154M and the global total through three frames is $219M. Italy is still on deck July 25 and the news is much rosier for Sony in the coming weeks with Spider-Man: Far From Home.

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 – PARABELLUM

Lionsgate’s super-assassin crossed the three-century mark at the global box office this weekend, now clocking $306.3M through Sunday. The current split is $161.3Mdomestic and $142.3M at the international box office. The offshore weekend in 77 markets this frame was $6.6M including a strong start in Korea that bested John Wick 2’s lifetime by 251%. The Top 5 markets to date are the UK ($13.2M), Germany ($10.9M), Australia ($10.7M), Russia ($7.5M) and Mexico ($7.3M).

UPDATED CUMES/NOTABLES

Rocketman (PAR): $2.6M intl weekend (47 markets); $81.4M intl cume ($165.6M global)
Dark Phoenix (DIS/FOX): $3.4M intl weekend (43 markets); $181.1M intl cume ($244.7M global)
Godzilla: King Of The Monsters (WB): $2.4M intl weekend (73 markets); $270.4M intl cume ($376.9M global)
Avengers: Endgame (DIS): $2.3M intl weekend (40 markets); $1.92B intl cume ($2.76B global)
The Hustle (UNI): $1.8M intl weekend (24 markets); $40.6M intl cume ($50.2M including non-Uni markets/$85.4M global)
A Dog’s Journey (UNI): $1.3M intl weekend (6 markets); $10.1M intl cume ($42.9M including non-Uni markets/$66.2M global)
The Dead Don’t Die (UNI): $300K intl weekend (9 markets); $4.4M intl cume ($10.3M global)

SATURDAY UPDATE: Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far From Home has caught an estimated $71M in its China web through Saturday, putting it on track for an opening in the high $90Ms there. This is slightly lower than where we saw it yesterday as the increase from Friday (not including Thursday midnights) was about 8%, but $100M is still possible. Japan and Hong Kong are also launching this weekend with strong debuts that will push FFH to a $110M+ overseas launch in just three markets.

All-in this is a win for the Jon Watts-directed sequel that picks up after the events of Avengers: Endgame. And, it’s bigger than what the industry was projecting ahead of the weekend.

China has been ornery of late and even if FFH does not swing to the century mark in its launch, it still will have bragging rights to the 3rd best 3-day MCU debut in the market, behind Endgame and Infinity War. It would be the 4th best superhero launch behind the pics listed above and Sony’s own Venom. Given Venom may still be higher than FFH, the webbed wonder would notch the 2nd best start in China ever for Sony. What’s more, the estimated 3-day final would be above Captain Marvel and well higher than Spider-Man: Homecoming.

In Japan, FFH is on track to be the top superhero opening of the last decade outside of Endgame. Hong Kong is eyeing Sony’s best debut ever as well as the biggest superhero standalone and 5th best industry start of all time. In both markets, FFH is coming in higher than Homecoming and Captain Marvel.

Looking towards overseas play-through, and with an early projected $165M +/- opening through the rest of international next week, Captain Marvel will be a comp to keep an eye on. As Anthony and I reported separately, FFH could be nearing $500M worldwide through next Sunday including the new offshore bows, the holdovers in Asia and the domestic debut.

In wider release this weekend, Warner Bros/New Line’s Annabelle Comes Homeadded $8.8M on Friday to bring the offshore cume to $21.1M. With No. 1s in 25 of 63 markets now in play, the franchise entry is led by Mexico at $3M, followed by Indonesia with $2.6M, Russia at $1.2M, and Korea and India tied with $1.1M.

Full international update to come on Sunday.

PREVIOUS, FRIDAY: Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Far From Home swooped into China today with an estimated $35.5M Friday which includes $3.2M in Thursday midnights. This well outperforms previous entry Spider-Man: Homecoming and sets FFH on track for a $100M+ opening weekend in the Middle Kingdom. That would land it above pre-debut projections which we noted yesterday were conservative based on lower than expected pre-sales. But with terrific social scores, an Avengers: Endgame halo and a lack of competition, Spidey’s off to a swinging start.

The opening day (with midnights rolled in) is Sony’s best ever in China, topping last year’s Venom. This is also the No. 1 standalone superhero debut and the 3rd best superhero launch behind Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War. While the opening weekend certainly looks poised to pass $100M, there is some caution over the three-day multiple in the wake of another standalone breakout, Captain Marvel, which did a 2.6.

However, ticketing platform Maoyan has given the Jon Watts-directed Far From Home a 9.2 while reviews aggregator Douban is at 8.3. Both are higher than CM while the latter is over Infinity War, but slightly lower than Endgame. (NB: these ratings do sometimes shift up and down in the first days.)

Working in Far From Home’s favor, beyond the built-in Middle Kingdom love there is for the character, are the social scores and word of mouth, as well as the fact that Better Days, a local movie that was expected to have great potential, was pulled off its June 28 date at the last minute this week. That this is also the first MCU title after Endgame in the Marvel-loving market is also a clear factor. Tom Holland, Jake Gyllenhaal and Watts also visited Beijing pre-bow and were sporting in their promotional efforts.

Homecoming debuted in China in 2017, about two months after the majority of the world, and made $67M in its first weekend at today’s rates. The Middle Kingdom final was $116.3M (unadjusted) and all signs point to Far From Home well exceeding that. There was some early concern that Homecoming had less resonance with local audiences because the U.S. high school experience doesn’t fully translate, but Far From Home appears to be bucking that.

China was nevertheless the biggest overseas market on Homecoming as well as the previous two Spider-Man movies. It is also the top MCU hub with Endgame having taken in a staggering $629M there to become the highest-grossing import ever. Far From Home picks up following the events of Endgame as Spidey must step up to take on new threats in a world that has changed forever. Zendaya, Samuel L Jackson, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon and Cobie Smulders also star.

All of the Spider-Man films have released in China, going back to 2002 with the subsequent sequels growing apace with the market. The five-year gap between Sam Raimi’s 2007 entry and Marc Webb’s 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man made for exponential increases. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 then nearly doubled its predecessor with an over $94M cume (non-restated), and Homecoming topped that.

Along with China, there are only two other overseas markets going on FFH this weekend, Japan and Hong Kong. The rest of international starts Monday in Australia and carries on throughout the week to cover 98% of the offshore footprint. Italy goes on July 10.

Elsewhere, Warner Bros has debuted Annabelle Comes Home in 50 overseas markets this week to gross $12.5M through Thursday. The latest in New Line’s horror franchise bowed to No. 1s in 30 of the 50 openings. There are 13 more markets coming online today with some majors, including Germany, Italy, UK, France and Spain getting dolled up in July. Japan goes in September.

In highlights, Mexico opened on a non-traditional Thursday, grossing an estimated $1.1M on 2,359 screens, ranking No. 2. The launch is on par with Annabelle and 55% ahead of The Conjuring. Including previews, the running cume is now $1.5M.
 
Indonesia debuted on Wednesday to an estimated $807K from 989 screens at a dominant No. 1. This is the 2nd best opening day ever for a WB horror film, only behind The Nun. The 2-day running cume is $1.7M.

Russia had a No. 1 start of $604K on 1,880 screens Thursday and bested all of the Conjuring universe titles except The Nun. In Korea, the 2-day come is $733K. In Vietnam, Annabelle coming home gave WB the studio’s 3rd best debut ever at $442K on Wednesday. The running tally through yesterday is $1M.

Further cumes through Thursday include UAE at $376K, Brazil at $327K, Malaysia at $326K and Australia with $227K.

We’ll have updates on the above titles throughout the weekend.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of the last seven days. Some popular favorites and lesser-seen titles fill out this week’s list of updates, along with a few games that fall in between. Like coins in the sofa! Does that still happen anymore? I feel like pockets are better these days and sofas aren’t as prone to sinking in the way they used to be. Well either way, there be updates here, friends. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself using AppShopper or by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is just here to fill you in on the things you might have missed. Let’s go for it!

Flappy Fighter, Free A new challenger has arrived! Birdette enters the arena, and if you’re expecting her to be a clone of Street Fighter‘s Chun Li, you’re only half-right. I mean, the inspiration is obvious and some of her moves draw from Chun Li’s signature moves, but Birdette does have a personality all her own. The fight this time is Birdette versus Flappy, with Splashy hitting the bench for the time being. As with previous updates, this match-up fully replaces the previous one, so you’ll have to go through the tutorial and unlock all the difficulty settings again. Honestly, while Birdette is cool, she isn’t quite as fun to play for me as Flappy and Splashy are. I suppose it’s at least nice to get away from the Shoto Twins, if nothing else.

SEGA Heroes: Puzzle RPG Quest, Free Guilds are slowly coming along in SEGA Heroes, and this latest update added the biggest thing to that feature so far. You can now engage in battles against massively powerful bosses with the rest of your guild, working together to whittle the enemy down for various rewards. Feel free to come and check out the TouchArcade guild if you’re playing. The guild is starting to fill up a bit, but we’ve still got some empty spaces for anyone who wants to hang out and chat.

Dan The Man, Free Dan the Man has got a plan, and that plan is to update whenever the budget says he can. Luckily, last week was one of those times. That means you can look forward to a new beach background to kick off the summer, with a new ice cream costume available to make you seasonally appropriate. Some elements of the story mode got a little extra tender-loving care, and bugs all over the place have been stomped on as needed.

ANOTHER EDEN, Free This game has been getting a bit of my attention lately. I appreciate how the story unfolds, and it’s relatively low-pressure when it comes to trying to sell you things. This new update adds Cerrine as a new chance encounter, and Cetie and Yazuki join as new characters. Aside from that, it’s a whole mess of bug fixes, UI adjustments, balance tweaks, and that sort of thing. Sure, keep unloading that truck on me, WFS. Make with the beeping sound and the off-brand Chrono Trigger as long as you want.

Jetpack Joyride, Free Halfbrick positively splurged on updates last week, with the perennial favorite Jetpack Joyride also getting a decent little spiffing up. There are some new S.A.M. skins with their own music available in the vehicles section of the shop, a new global leaderboard so that you can compare to everyone else in the world playing the game, and some improvements to the results screen to make it more readable. There have also been some changes made to how missions are presented in order to make things clearer. Yeah, not bad.

Knights Chronicle, Free Well, Knights Chronicle is now officially one year old. Hard to believe. It feels like just yesterday when it came out and I didn’t notice it all for a few months. Anyway, the anniversary has a few things going on. A daily check-in provides tons of free crystals, and a Yo-Kai Watch collaboration event is going on that brings Jibanyan, Komasan, Komajiro, Hovernyan, and Blizzaria to the game until July 3rd. There’s a new Ancient Labyrinth dungeon to test your team to their limits, and Awakenings for Electra and Edwin. New heroes, new costumes, new minigame content, and a lot of other little improvements all add up to one nice update.

MARVEL Contest of Champions, Free Last week, Susan Richards was added to the Contest of Champions. But she’s not coming alone. As you probably could have guessed from the story surrounding Sue’s arrival, Namor the Sub-Mariner will also be jumping into the Contest of Champions line-up. If you don’t know Namor, I don’t blame you. He hasn’t had a movie and he probably never will because of weird licensing nonsense. Basically, he’s Marvel’s version of Aquaman, except he came two years before Aquaman and never had a decades-long dorky period the way that character did. Nope, Namor’s been pretty awesome the whole time, and is one of Marvel’s most unpredictable characters. I feel like we need more Namor in Marvel games, so I’m happy to see him here.

PUBG MOBILE, Free PUBG Mobile has a whole new mode to dive into: Team Deathmatch. You and your friends can team up in groups of four to battle other teams in an oddly small-scale PUBG experience. That’s the biggest part of this update, but there are tons of other little things as well. You’ve got control settings for first-person play, a new MVP showcase system at the end of matches, some extra details in Vikendi and its snow, a newly-added dedicated climbing button, a new charisma ranking, and a whole lot more. I don’t think I’ve ever given PUBG Mobile a coveted UMMSotW award before. Let’s change that as of this week, alright?

Injustice 2, Free The less popular younger brother of WB’s most popular mobile game, Injustice 2 is still out there giving it the ol’ college try. This update makes some big changes to the League of Anarchy team. The Last Laugh Joker, Heartbreaker Harley Quinn, and Entangling Poison Ivy can now join up in a potent threat to teams with high defense. They deal nasty damage over time, and that spells serious trouble for the Justice League. This update also adds in new store items, and fixes some outstanding bugs on lower-end devices like the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Star Traders: Frontiers, $6.99 Mmm, yes. This is a Trese Brothers update, as you like it. The bulk of this update is wrapped up in new talents. A new Bounty Hunter talent, two new Pistoleer talents, and a new Diplomat talent, to be specific. You also get a new De Valtos ship component, the Grand Luxury Suite, which gives you a 22% bonus for each passenger. There are also a few balance adjustments, some bug fixes, and a couple of name changes for talents. Those Trese Brothers sure know how to polish the gems they put out, that’s for sure. And this is indeed quite the gem, friends.

That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so please feel free to comment below and let everyone know if you think something should be mentioned. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back next Monday to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!

The co-creators of Fallout are teaming up to make a new first person role-player that aims to put the fun, and the funniness, back into the genre. Bleeding Edge hands-on and interview – Xbox’s ambitious new fighter The Outer Worlds is so dripping in irony they should probably get Alanis Morissette to do the theme tune. It’s a video game about the evils of capitalism by a developer that’s just been bought out by one of the biggest companies on the planet. It’s also a game which celebrates what can be done on a very modest budget, even though, suddenly, that’s not a problem at all. And then, finally, there’s the fact that it’s full of comic irony, an action role-player by the original creators of Fallout that remembers that one of the main appeals of the series used to be that it was purposefully funny. Although there’s no post-apocalyptic setting (thank goodness, we think we’ve had enough of those for now) The Outer Worlds is not ashamed of the debt it owes to Fallout. But then it’s being made by two of the original creators, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, who, unlike Bethesda, were with the franchise from the beginning and partly responsible for creating the original setting and concept. Cain was the producer on the first Fallout and co-director on the second, while Boyarsky, who we got to interview, started as an artist on the first two games before going on to become co-director of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and senior world designer on Diablo III. So between the two of them they’ve been involved in some of the most acclaimed Western role-playing games of all time. The idea in The Outer Worlds is that you’re on an alien world that was originally meant to be terraformed into a paradise but things went wrong and the process ended up turning the wildlife into aggressive monsters, leaving behind only the less principled corporations and a colony ship that’s only there by accident – and with most of its passengers still in hibernation. As one of those that has been woken up your goal is to make a life for yourself and, if possible, find a better planet. The basic set-up seems closer to Borderlands than Fallout but the gameplay clearly has a lot in common with Bethesda’s first person titles, as well as the original isometric entries. The graphics though are unlikely to be winning any awards, at E3 or elsewhere, and it’s a testament to The Outer Worlds’ other qualities that the low budget visuals don’t get in the way at all. ‘We never really had much choice!’ says Boyarsky, when we ask him whether he got frustrated having to working with a relatively small budget.

‘Even when we were pitching this three years ago, when we first started working on it, Private Division [2K’s new indie label] were interested but we didn’t have a lot of other people that were. So we had to pitch this as a smaller game. It’s less risk, but it also means we get more freedom in what we do.’ The hands-off demo starts with you picking up a mission in a Wild West style town, where one of the local gang/business leaders wants you to take out a rival who’s making a killing selling a bacon-esque product that is actually a disgusting-looking tumour that has to be harvested from creatures called cystypigs. That’s not the sort of mission you’d ever get in Fallout and while Boyarsky is reticent to comment on why Bethesda took the black comedy out of the series he does know why it was added back in for The Outer Worlds. ‘That’s really a result of the people who are making it’, he says. ‘You get a snapshot of our personalities in that game [the original Fallout] and that was when we were sitting around talking about the game we wanted to make. So my darkness and Tim’s silliness, and a couple of other people’s personalities, all wedged together and that’s what we came up with. There was no one around telling us we couldn’t do it and it’s kind of the same this time as well.’ The Outer Worlds – we forget what these are called but we were told they were dangerous Despite the irony provided by Obsidian’s new owners the game does have a serious side to it, in that it pokes fun at corporate logic that, while exaggerated for The Outer World’s sci-fi world, is not as far removed from reality as it first seems. We suggest to Boyarsky that that works because the more you poke fun at seemingly serious institutions the more absurd you realise they really are. ‘That’s a fantastic way to put it’, he says. ‘And I think one of rules, when we’re talking to our writers and level designers, when they were trying to make something that would fit with the humour of the game, is that if you’re going to do something that’s very dark it has to have a silly, humorous edge to it and vice versa. ‘Because, even beyond just making a point, if you want to do something that has an impact on the player… if you just have it so dark and miserable it’s not fun to play it turns people off because it’s too heavy. We knew we wanted to do this world that was kind of on the verge of collapse and it could have been very depressing if we played it straight, so we wanted to be a fun game.’ ‘And to me, the way I like to make points, is through humour. I feel like it’s more effective, I feel like people don’t think you’re lecturing at them so much. And even then I’m way more about raising questions than trying to tell you what the answer is’, adds Boyarsky. ‘Because even with the corporate side of this game we try to make it that when you go and talk to them they have logical reasons for doing what they’re doing. They think they’re in the right.’ ‘‘They’re not sitting there thinking, ‘How are we going to make people’s lives horrible?’ They think they’re creating this perfect society that works for the best of everybody. So I always try to approach things that way, where it feels like they’re characters with believable motivations even if it’s coming from an absurd situation.’ The demo mission involves a quick trip into the wastelands, where the more dangerous creatures are avoided and the smaller ones dealt with for a quick bit of loot. That’s almost the only action we see in the demo though as the guy playing opts to instead talk things out with the various guards he meets. Although rather than the po-faced dialogue of Fallout that involves bullying, charming, and even romancing other characters – from bluffing your way past lazy, dim-witted guards to whispering binary poetry into robots’ metal ears. Even with a non-player character in tow you have a special disguise which is convincing enough that you can talk to most people and have a chance of convincing them you should be there, rather than them just shooting you on sight. That even works with the robots, which you’re able to reprogram to shoot the guards, allowing you to sneak into the main office and confront the big boss. ‘Charlie and Tim looked at a lot of different shooter action games to see what kind of things they wanted but our main game was always about an in-depth story with a lot of reactivity’, says Boyarsky of the core mechanics. ‘I’m really happy that we were able to get the disguise system in there, because I think it’s a wonderful way for talking characters to be able to get through restricted areas. It’s like your sneak path for a talking person, because I can talk my way past guards.’ Once you reach your target you’re given the option to simply shoot him, as per your contract, to take more money from him to do the opposite, or convince him that he should team up with the other gang leader and find a peaceful solution. The Outer Worlds has all the role-playing depth you’d expect of a Fallout style game but it’s the ability to talk your way out of trouble that really sets it aside from the crowd. That and the fact that the dialogue is interesting, and funny, enough that you actually want to sit through it all.

The obvious parting question for Boyarsky is whether he knows what he’ll work on after The Outer Worlds and whether it will take advantage of the larger budgets offered by the Microsoft acquisition. ‘I think I know’, he says. ‘But hopefully the budget will be within reason. I don’t wanna fall into that trap.’ ‘Obviously a bigger budget is better, but only within reason. Because I feel like some of the best ideas that me and Tim have come up with, in our careers, were forced onto us by having to have creative solutions to things like not enough time or not enough money. ‘I feel like if you are not given any restrictions or things you have to overcome, I feel like people can end up spinning their wheels or trying to put too much into it. It’s a great way to focus your thinking when you have to figure out, ‘How are we going to do this with this amount of money and this amount of time? ‘I think it just gives you a lot more freedom in a lot of ways. It doesn’t give you as much freedom on the technological flashiness end, but it gives you more freedom on content.’ Formats: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC Publisher: Private Division Developer: Obsidian Entertainment Release Date: 25th October 2019 The Outer Worlds – the graphics are okay, but nothing more