CBS has released the first trailer for its upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Stand.
The Stand is set in a United States where almost the entire population has been wiped out by a disease dubbed the "superflu" and the survivors are drawn to two charismatic figures with very different views of how the aftermath will pan out.
The ten-part mini-series will debut on CBS All Access in the USA on 17 December.
BBC America has released the first trailer for its controversially "loose" adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.
BBC America also confirmed some additional casting for the show, with Wendell Pierce (The Wire, Treme) playing the voice of Death and Matt Berry (The IT Crowd, Toast of London, What We Do in the Shadows) playing a magical talking sword called Wayne. Ralph Ineson (Game of Thrones, Chernobyl) is playing the voice of Sergeant Detritus, with Paul Kaye (Game of Thrones, again) as Inigo Skimmer, the Duke of Stab.
The Watch starts airing on BBC America on 3 January 2021.
Talsorian Games have confirmed that Cyberpunk Red, the latest edition of the long-running Cyberpunk tabletop RPG franchise, is to launch on 14 November, just ahead of the release of the Cyberpunk 2077 video game (set in the same universe) five days later. They also have a detailed breakdown of the game contents here.
The Cyberpunk RPG franchise began in 1988 with the release of the original Cyberpunk RPG, set in the year 2013 in the new metropolis of Night City, a custom-build technical megalopolis located in Morro Bay, California. It depicted high-end corporate warfare and espionage in a high-tech future (which is now, of course, an alternate past), with street hustlers and hackers working missions on the Net and in the real world on behalf of shadowy interests.
The RPG hit its stride with the release of the second edition, Cyberpunk 2020, in 1990, which became arguably the definitive version of the game and remained in print for fifteen years, spawning dozens of expansions, several novels and a stand-alone spin-off, Cybergeneration, aimed at younger players. The game also inspired the immensely popular collectible card game Netrunner as a spinoff (although the current edition of the game, Android: Netrunner, has used a different setting since 2012).
A third edition, Cyberpunk V3.0, was released in 2005 and saw the game move to a further-future transhuman setting, with major changes to the rules system that were received negatively.
Cyberpunk Red features a revamped (and better-received) rules system and advances the timeline of the tabletop game to the 2040s. The title - which was decided before CD Projekt Red optioned the franchise for a video game - comes from the skies over Night City, which have turned red after particulate matter thrown into the atmosphere during nuclear exchanges in the Fourth Corporate War.
Cyberpunk Red's digital edition will launch on 14 November. Its physical release - a chunky 456 page rulebook - will be on 19 November, the same day as the video game, although the publishers note that COVID-related delays are possible.
Cyberpunk ranks as one of the great, venerable tabletop RPGs, alongside the likes of Dungeons & Dragons, Traveller, Shadowrun and World of Darkness, and it's good to see it back in print and its world about to be introduced to vastly more people than ever before through CD Projekt Red's video game.
Amazon has released the trailer for Season 5 of the hit SF show The Expanse, as well as confirming its release date: 16 December. In a change from previous seasons, The Expanse will be released on a weekly schedule following the success of Amazon experimenting with the format for the second season of another of its shows, The Boys.
Season 5 of The Expanse is based primarily on the fifth book in the novel series, Nemesis Games, although it appears it will also draw on the novella The Churn. After Season 4, which was primarily restricted to one colony planet, Season 5 will again be an epic space opera spanning the Solar system, focusing on the criminal activities of Marcos Inaros as he strikes a blow against Earth and Mars which he hopes will win him the support of all the Belters. As usual, the crew of the Rocinante are called in to help save the day, but this time run into problems when the crisis erupts when they are on shore leave and scattered across several worlds, and they have to fight their way back home.
Production of Season 5 of The Expanse was completed a few weeks before the coronavirus pandemic shut down TV and movie productions worldwide. However, controversy struck the show in June when actor Cas Anvar (who plays pilot Alex Kamal) was accused of improper conduct by multiple women. The production team and studio have been investigating these claims ever since, but have not yet announced how they will proceed. However, Anvar has been notably absent from the publicity for the show ever since.
The ninth and final Expanse book, Leviathan Falls, will be published in 2021.
Kate Mulgrew is reprising her most famous role, as Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager, for upcoming animated series Star Trek: Prodigy.
The new animated series - the second from the new Trek franchise, after Lower Decks - is aimed at a younger audience and will premiere on Nickelodeon, with a possible later appearance on CBS All Access. The series will be unusual in that it does not focus on a Starfleet crew, but instead a group of youngsters from various races who find themselves in control of a derelict Starfleet vessel. It's unclear how Janeway will interact with the new characters, or, indeed, what the timeframe for the series will be.
Star Trek: Prodigy is in production at the moment and expected to debut in 2021.
Hasbro's Hero Quest relaunch crowdfunding campaign has launched in the United Kingdom, thanks to a partnership with UK retailer Zavvi.
Hasbro unveiled their reboot of the game on 22 September with a crowdfunding campaign via their HasLab crowdfunding service. The game sailed past its target of $1 million within a few hours and is currently just short of $2 million. The success of the crowdfunding campaign means that the game will ship with two expansions, extra miniatures (including alternate-gender versions of all characters), more dice, one brand new character type and a whole new, second campaign from the original creator of the game.
Currently included in the "Heroic Tier" is:
The "Mythic Tier" comprises all of the Heroic Tier and in addition (so far):
The total Mythic Tier package now therefore consists of 118 miniatures, 4 Quest books and 3 Rule books in total.
There are further bonuses which are waiting to be unlocked (for no extra charge), which no doubt the influx of new European orders should help with. The known extra unlocks so far comprise:The Resident Evil franchise is having a second stab at a live-action film franchise, with a new reboot film in pre-production.
The new film stars Kaya Scodelario (Skins) as Claire Redfield, Robbie Amell (The Flash) as Chris Redfield, Hannah John-Kamen (Ant-Man and the Wasp) as Jill Valentine, Tom Hopper (Black Sails, Umbrella Academy) as Albert Wesker, Avan Jogia (Now Apocalypse) as Leon S. Kennedy and Neal McDonough (Captain America, Agent Carter) as William Birkin.
The film is directed by Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down, Darkhunters) and is designed to be a much more faithful adaptation of the video game series than the six-film movie series produced by Paul W.S. Anderson between 2002 and 2016 and stirring Milla Jovovich.
The Resident Evil video game series consists of 21 titles, although only seven are counted as part of the core series; the eighth main game in the series will be released next year. The games have sold more than 100 million copies, making them the biggest-selling series by Japanese video game giant Capcom.
The new film sounds like it is combining the storylines of the original Resident Evil (1996) and Resident Evil 2 (1998). In the former, a special police taskforce, STARS, investigates a strange series of murders which leads them to a mansion on the edge of Raccoon City. STARS agents Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine investigate the mansion, inadvertently discovering that the redoubtable Umbrella Corporation has created a pathogen, the T-virus, which transforms humans into zombie-like creatures, as well as more monstrous mutations. The sequel sees the T-virus spread to nearby Raccoon City, turning it into a nightmarish hellscape which police officer Leon S. Kennedy and student Claire Redfield (Chris's sister) must navigate in their attempt to find out what's going on. Resident Evil 2 was remade and re-released in 2019 to critical acclaim and massive commercial success.
The new film has zero connection to Netflix's live-action Resident Evil TV series, greenlit in August. Netflix's take follows twin sisters Jade and Billie Wesker in two timelines, one set during the events of the games and one set in a post-apocalyptic future when the virus has gone global and almost wiped out humanity (notably something that does not happen in the games).
If that's not confusing enough, Netflix and Capcom have also collaborated on a CG animated TV series starring Claire and Leon, Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness, which is already in production and due to air in 2021. It appears this series may take place in the video game continuity, but at this point who knows?
The film should start shooting imminently and is aiming for a late 2021 release date.
House of the Dragon, HBO's prequel spin-off from Game of Thrones, has its first confirmed castmember.
British actor Paddy Considine will be playing the key role of King Viserys Targaryen, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. At the start of the series - 170 years before the events of Game of Thrones begin - he is seated firmly on the Iron Throne, but his health is ailing and jackals are circling. Viserys has declared his eldest child and sole daughter, Rhaenyra, to be his legal heir and this has been acknowledged by all the lords of Westeros. But since that declaration, Viserys has remarried, to the formidable Lady Alicent of House Hightower, and had several more children. Alicent is intent that her son, Prince Aegon, will take the throne. The two factions at court - the "greens" and the "blacks" - begin recruiting powerful allies.
The political intrigue may sound familiar, but there is a key difference. At this time House Targaryen's dragons are still alive and well, with more than a dozen of them spread between the two factions. In the war to come, the two sides will find they have the ability to inflict far more destruction than in any war in history.
Considine is a familiar face on British television and in film, having played many key roles in films such as This is England, 24 Hour Party People, My Summer of Love, Hot Fuzz, The Bourne Ultimatum, The World's End and The Death of Stalin, as well as TV shows including Peaky Blinders, The Outsider and The Third Day. He has two BAFTA Awards to his name.
The character description for Viserys states that he is the heir of the hugely successful and beloved Old King, Jaehaerys I Targaryen, and is a kind and gentle man who finds that he may not have the temperament to be a powerful ruler. This suggests the show may feature extensive flashbacks over his entire reign.
More casting news is expected over the coming weeks, with key roles including Queen Alicent, Prince Aegon, Princess Rhaenyra, Lord Commander Criston Cole of the Kingsguard and Prince Daemon expected to be cast. The show is expected to debut on HBO in early 2022.
In unsurprising news, the release of the new Dune movie from director Denis Villeneuve has been pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, the length of the delay is surprising, the the film being delayed a full ten months until 1 October 2021.
The film had originally been due to arrive in mid-December, and the marketing hype had just started up with the first trailer and behind-the-scenes footage. However, the film's release date had been notably missing from all the build-up. As coronavirus cases began mounting up in Europe and the United States and release strategies for films like Tenet and Mulan gave disappointing returns, studios began delaying their films, often for the second or third time. No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film, has been delayed until April next year, whilst the next Marvel movie, Black Widow, has fallen back to May.
The move has caused the British Cineworld chain and its US affiliate Regal Cinemas to shut down altogether, with the company expressing grave concerns about the long-term viability of the business. Some films, such as Bill and Ted Face the Music, have found success by switching to VOD services for their initial release, but that was always going to be an immense risk for the mega-budgeted Dune, especially since the film only adapts the first half of Frank Herbert's novel and the viability of a sequel is dependent on the film doing well. Warners and director Denis Villeneuve agreed that the film could only really debut on the big screen.
The delay of Dune will also likely have knock-on effects. Warner Brothers had delayed Wonder Woman 84 until Christmas Day, but that's also likely to fall back to a mid or late 2021 date. Meanwhile, Dune is now set to launch on the same day as its Warner's own The Batman, which will almost certainly have to move out of that slot as well.
Although the pandemic is having a huge impact on film releases, movie production is ramping up all over the world with the shooting of a number of films getting back underway, including Marvel films and the aforementioned The Batman. This could create a serious bottleneck issue with studios having too many big movies to release and not enough time to get them out the door. Already Marvel's plans to have storytelling synergy between their Disney+ TV shows and the next slate of films is being put at risk with the TV shows ready to roll but the films being constantly delayed.
Warners will be banking that by late 2021 the pandemic will be over or under control and a safe release strategy can be undertaken.
A radio broadcast brings the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 to Nuka-World, an old theme park located west of the Boston Commonwealth. The Survivor finds three raider gangs working together under the leadership of a brutal but lazy warlord; eliminating the warlord, they find themselves unexpectedly in charge of three large raider armies who want nothing more than to conquer the Commonwealth. The Survivor must also unlock the secrets of Nuka-World, and choose carefully how to handle their new charges.
Fallout 4 is, by itself, an enormous sprawling CRPG offering more than a hundred hours of content, divided between a complex, multi-sided storyline; exploration; combat; and even settlement-building. To expand the story and world, Bethesda released first Far Harbor and then Nuka-World to add new content to the game.
I must admit that I never got round to Nuka-World the first time around. It was released too long after my initial playthrough of Fallout 4 had left me a bit burned out on Bethesda CRPGs, so it sat on my to-play list until I felt motivated to replay Fallout 4 itself from the start.
The expansion is definitely a bit less engrossing than Far Harbor, though. Far Harbor Island was about the same size as the Nuka-World park, but the more interesting and varied terrain and all-enshrouding fog resulted in a much more interesting and atmospheric setting. Nuka-World itself is wide open and sits on a rather dull flat plane; you can see almost the entire park from many points on the map, resulting in less of a surprise as you explore. There's much less of a focus on settlements, as Nuka-World has only one settlement which only unlocks at the end of the story, unlike Far Harbor's four settlements which unlock much earlier on. This means that if you are collecting supplies for settlement building, you need to constantly travel all the way back to the Commonwealth to dump your supplies rather than a local workbench, which gets old quickly.
As an area to explore, the theme park is fun and there's some nice side-quests as you travel through the park. The expansion's biggest weakness is trying to follow the main story. This starts well and there is great comic potential as you end up inadvertently in command of three different raider gangs, each one made up of deranged lunatics, and have to navigate between them cautiously. The problem is that the main story assumes that you're playing an evil or at least amoral character and you're happy to send the raider gangs back into the Commonwealth to take over settlements, including ones you've already taken over on behalf of the Fallout 4 factions, which will pitch you into war with them. If you refuse to do this - because it doesn't make a lick of sense if you're playing a good character - then the story screeches to a halt and the only way to proceed is to trigger the quest that requires you to wipe out all three gangs (which is surprisingly tough; the game matches the raiders to your level and these can provide quite the challenge even for high-level characters). A more inventive approach would have been giving you the option to pitch the gangs against one another or bring in one or several of your Commonwealth-allied factions in to help eliminate them. The Minutemen seem particularly annoyed by the raiders but decidedly unwilling to help you eliminate them, which is odd.
This narrative disconnect is a bit of a shame, because there's a lot of fun to be hand in the expansion. Fighting alligator-deathclaw hybrids in a Jurassic Park-style setting is superb, and a Tarzan-inspired mission where you have to team up with a buff almost-naked guy and his adopted gorilla family to wipe out deathclaws is one of the funniest things in the franchise. A trip through a "world of tomorrow" exhibit promising to create space-borne vaults is entertaining and a solid side-quest carries you over the park looking for secrets to unlock the founder's own personal vault (with some amusing riffs on Walt Disney's life story).
Fallout 4: Nuka-World (***½) gives you more Fallout 4, which for a lot of people will be enough. There's some fun to be had here and some fun quests and side-stories, but the main story doesn't seem to have been well-thought-through, resulting in a less compelling experience than it could have been. The expansion is available for Fallout 4 on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
