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RIP Kevin Conroy

News has sadly broken that Kevin Conroy, best-known for voicing Batman across numerous animated series and video games over thirty years, has passed away at the age of 66.

Who was he? He was the goddamn Batman.

Born in Westbury, New York, in 1955, Conroy studied drama in New York City. He was room-mates with Robin Williams and was in the same study group as Kelsey Grammar. After graduation he started working in the theatre and, starting in the early 1980s, began splitting his time between stage acting in NYC and TV acting in Los Angeles.

Conroy achieved his first breakthrough by being cast as lawyer Bart Fallmont on Dynasty. By the end of the 1980s he had become a regular guest castmember on various American TV shows including Cheers and Murphy Brown, and a regular on Vietnam drama Tour of Duty.

Conroy's gravelly voice made him the natural choice to voice Batman and Bruce Wayne in Batman: The Animated Series (1992-95). Taking his cue from Michael Keaton in Tim Burton's two films, Conroy gave Batman and Wayne different voices to help hide the character's secret identity. Conroy continued to voice Batman in spin-off shows The New Batman Adventures (1997-99), Batman Beyond (1999-2001), Justice League (2001-04) and Justice League Unlimited (2004-06). He also voiced Batman in the theatrical movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) and various straight-to-video and DVD projects. He also played Batman during guest spots on related DC shows, such as Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000).

Conroy returned to the role for the Arkham series of video games: Arkham Asylum (2009), Arkham City (2011) and Arkham Knight (2015) (he skipped 2013's prequel, Arkham Origins, which featured a significantly younger and less-gravelly Batman). The games gained blanket critical acclaim and introduced Conroy to a younger audience who hadn't grown up with the prior animated series. Conroy's co-star from The Animated Series, Mark Hamill (who played the Joker), noted that his pleasure in working with Conroy was such that he would sign onto projects without seeing a script if he knew Conroy was involved.

In 2019 he finally played the role in live-action, starring as an older alternate-universe Bruce Wayne in the CW's Batwoman (as part of their Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event).

Conroy's immense popularity led to voicing gigs on many other shows, including The Venture Bros. and the various recent He-Man projects for Netflix.

Kevin Conroy passed away on 10 November from cancer. He is survived by his husband, Vaughn C. Williams.

With the physical actor playing Batman constantly changing, Conroy arguably became the definitive voice of the Caped Crusader, one of its most popular players and the longest-running and most prolific actor in the role when counted by the sheer number of episodes, films and video games he appeared in. The impact he had on an entire generation of kids growing up should not be underestimated; during search and rescue efforts after 9/11, Conroy helped out providing food to emergency responders and, at a friend's urging, geed up the police and firemen with Batman lines. He will definitely be missed.

Netflix releases trailer for DRAGON AGE: ABSOLUTION

Netflix has released a trailer for its animated series, Dragon Age: Absolution, and confirmed it will launch on 9 December 2022. The show is a tie-in with BioWare's Dragon Age series of fantasy CRPGs, the fourth of which is expected to be launched in 2023.

Mairghread Scott is producing and writing the show, which will consist of six 30-minute episodes. The show is set in the Tevinter Imperium, which is also the setting for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, the new game in the series. To what degree the TV show ties in with the game or sets it up remains to be seen.

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is apparently now feature-complete and has passed its alpha milestone, so hopefully it will launch in 2023 (or early 2024). BioWare has also begun teasing its new Mass Effect game a bit more, although that is still a few years off. BioWare has a steep hill to climb to restore player confidence after years of mismanagement and underwhelming game releases, so hopefully the two new games in its signature franchises will deliver.

CARNIVAL ROW Season 2 gets airdate and confirmation it will not return

Amazon's much, much-delayed second season of Carnival Row will hit screens on 17 February 2023 and will not return for a third season.

Season 1 of Carnival Row dropped in August 2019 and picked up solid reviews and streaming figures, although it didn't set the world on fire (I quite liked it though). Season 2 of the show seemed to be plagued by difficulties and delays, with shooting interrupted by the COVID19 pandemic and then by star Orlando Bloom taking paternity leave (with some rumours that he ended up shooting most of his scenes separately to everyone else on greenscreen, which will be interesting to see if it's true or not). The show also chewed through executive producers and showrunners, with three leaving between the two seasons or during production of the second season.

The date may hint at a later airdate for the second season of The Wheel of Time. Wheel of Time's second season has been in the can for some time, and in fact shooting is starting on the show's third season fairly soon. Season 2 will likely not now premiere at the earliest until Carnival Row completes its second season, which should be around late March.

HBO cancels WESTWORLD after four seasons

HBO has cancelled its SF TV series Westworld after four seasons. The producers had been angling for a fifth and final season to wrap up the story, so there will be some disappointment that the show will not get its originally conceived ending.

Westworld started airing in 2016 and came from the team of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, who had previously worked on Person of Interest. The show was a reboot of the 1973 film of the same name, written and directed by Michael Crichton. The first season attracted blanket critical acclaim and high ratings for HBO, but each following season saw both the acclaim and ratings reduce significantly. After the 8-episode fourth season failed to arrest the decline (scoring barely 300,000 viewers on the initial airing), and still costing over $100 million, HBO decided to cancel the show rather than press on with it.

As well as the acclaim and ratings, the show suffered from a protracted release schedule that saw two or more years pass between seasons, frustrating viewers.

The show won nine Emmy Awards during its time on-air and featured highly-rated performances by the likes of Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, Aaron Paul and Tessa Thompson.

The show was produced under the banner of J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions. The cancellation means that 2023 will be the first year since 2000 that Bad Robot has not had a TV show airing or in production. The company is developing six other shows, but these are not expected to hit the screen until 2024 at the earliest.

SANDMAN renewed for a second season at Netflix

It's been a wait, but Netflix have renewed The Sandman for a second season.

Netflix released the first season of the show on 5 August, immediately garnering very strong reviews and solid streaming numbers. The streamer took the unusual step of releasing a bonus extra episode two weeks later.

Despite the rare mix of both critical and commercial success, Netflix have taken an unusually long time to renew the show, something attributed to the first season's budget of upwards of $15 million per episode. Although Netflix is no stranger to spending big on a show, they normally prefer to start lower and gradually increase the budget over time, such as Stranger Things' gradually building budget from $7 million per episode in its debut season to over $20 million per episode in the fourth, with some episodes reportedly hitting $30 million. Sandman was a bigger up-front investment and the streaming numbers were very healthy, but perhaps not a slam-dunk on cost. However, Netflix were in danger of acquiring a reputation as the company that always cancels even good shows prematurely, and word-of-mouth on Sandman was so strong that the streamer likely feels a second season should boost the whole show's numbers positively.

The first season adapted the first two graphic novels in the Sandman series (of ten in total, at least in the main series), Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll's House, as well as two of the stories in the third graphic novel, Dream Country. The second season will, presumably, complete Dream Country and adapt the fourth and fifth graphic novels, Season of Mists and A Game of You, bringing the story to its halfway point and allowing them to adapt the entire series in four seasons (a more enticing proposition than the 5-7 season plans being mooted by other streamers for their big fantasy projects).

The Sandman Season 2 will likely shoot in 2023 for release in 2024.

HBO's LAST OF US adaptation to launch on 15 January

HBO's adaptation of the video game The Last of Us will launch on 15 January 2023.

The TV show's first season will consist of nine episodes and is based on the first game in the series. The show stars Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie, two survivors of an apocalyptic event caused by the arising of zombie-like monsters. They travel across America, linking up with other survivors (friendly and not), avoiding the "clickers" along the way.

The show also stars Gabriel Luna, Merle Dandridge, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlett, Nick Offerman and Anna Torv, whilst the original game voice actors Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson will also appear.

Chernobyl writer-producer Craig Mazin is co-showrunner of the project, alongside the video game's creator and head writer, Neil Druckmann.

New DEUS EX game in development

Eidos Montreal are "very early" in development on a brand new Deus Ex game. The studio was recently sold by Square Enix to Embracer Group, along with all of its attendant IP.

Eidos Montreal previously developed Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011) and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016), which were both extremely well-reviewed and Human Revolution sold very well as well. Mankind Divided underperformed according to Square's expectations and the studio moved to developing Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018), and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (2021). Eidos Montreal is currently providing assistance to Playground Games in their reboot of the Fable franchise for Microsoft.

It is unknown if the new game will continue the prequel story of Adam Jensen that began in Human Revolution and was left unresolved in Mankind Divided, or will be a sequel to the original two games, Deus Ex (2000) and Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003). It might even be a modern remake of the original game, which remains one of the most highly-acclaimed video games of all time but could do with a makeover in terms of graphics and UI (although, strictly, only if the original game's insane freedom and branching story are kept intact).

As the game is in its earliest stages and the last Deus Ex game took five years to make, it might be a fair while before we hear any more about the project. At least it's good to know the franchise will continue, eventually.

THE WITCHER renewed for a fourth season, but without Henry Cavill

In startling news, Henry Cavill has confirmed he is moving on from the role of Geralt of Rivia. He has played the role in two seasons of Netflix's The Witcher, and recently completed filming for the third season, due to air in the summer of 2023. However, he will not be back for the newly-confirmed fourth season. Instead, his role will be taken by Liam Hemsworth.

Cavill has played the role of Geralt since the first season of The Witcher aired in 2019. He is a noted huge fan of the character from Andrzej Sapkowski's novel series and the CD Projekt Red video game series. Cavill has since waxed lyrical about his love of science fiction and fantasy fiction and his addiction to PC gaming.

The critical reception to The Witcher has been mixed, but nobody can doubt Cavill's capability in the role, and he has been highly praised for his performance.

The reasons for Cavill's departure are vague, but he recently re-committed to playing Superman in the DC film universe under incoming new creative head James Gunn, and will apparently play the role in small doses in other films as well as a new solo movie, potentially clashing with the intensive filming schedule for The Witcher.

The news will likely fuel conspiracy theorists, as The Witcher writing team was recently criticised by a former writer who said that his love of the source material was not shared by some of his fellow writers, who instead mocked and belittled the books and video games. Cavill is a noted fan of the books and games.

Liam Hemsworth is seven years Cavill's junior and is best-known for playing Gale in the Hunger Games movie series.

It will be sad to see Cavill go, but at least we have one more full season with him in the role first.

George R.R. Martin confirms he was a HOMEWORLD player, confirming status as man of culture

In a wide-ranging interview with Stephen Colbert, George R.R. Martin has cited the original Homeworld as one of his favourite video games, confirming his status as a man of culture.

The original Homeworld was released in 1999 and was a real-time space strategy game, praised for its peerless atmosphere, graphics, music and genuine use of 3D space (allowing your ships to move up and down and attack from above or below the ecliptic; this was a big deal back then). It was followed by sequels Homeworld: Cataclysm (2000, recently retitled Emergence) and Homeworld 2 (2003), as well as prequel Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (2016). Homeworld and Homeworld 2 were spruced up and re-released as Homeworld Remastered in 2015. The team are currently working on Homeworld 3 for release in early 2023.

Whether George has played any of the other games in the series is unknown.

GRRM also named Railroad Tycoon (1990) and Master of Orion (1993) as among his favourite video games. In other interviews he has cited Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1985), Sid Meier's Pirates (1987), Civilization (1991) and some games in the Total War series (2000-present) as titles he enjoyed playing. Martin notes that his addiction to Civilization and Railroad Tycoon may have cost him "a couple of novels" in the early 1990s and he stopped playing video games regularly in the early 2000s to focus on his books. He hasn't even played the hugely-acclaimed Elden Ring, the recent video game he provided backstory and lore for.

Various other SFF writers have reported having to manage their writing time and gaming time effectively. Iain Banks was so addicted to Civilization in the early 1990s that he had to remove the game from his hard disk and smash the disks so he could complete his in-progress Culture novel. Terry Pratchett was famously a huge fan of Lemmings (who make a cameo appearance in a Discworld novel), Tomb Raider (for which he once joke-planned a prequel called Tomb Stocker) and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which he got so into that he even contributed some writing to a fan mod of the game. Contemporary writers like Joe Abercrombie regularly report on their video game habits and Brandon Sanderson recently ran a series of reports for his playthrough of the aforementioned Elden Ring.

Does this mean that GRRM should use his clout to get a Homeworld TV show made at HBO? Yes, clearly, it does.