We’re not far off from the August 9 premiere of Borderlands, and Lionsgate is giving the final hard sell for the upcoming adaptation in the form of a new trailer.
Like the first game, Borderlands centers on a group of gun-toting Vault hunters searching for treasure on the planet Pandora. They also get roped up to save a mysterious girl who holds the key to a great power. If you’re still not sure what to make of the film after watching its first trailer, hopefully, this last preview will help you decide whether or not you’ll be making the trip to theaters in a couple of weeks to see it.
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Borderlands is directed by Eli Roth and stars Cate Blanchett (Lilith), Kevin Hart (Roland), Arianna Greenblatt (Tiny Tina), Jack Black (Claptrap), Edgar Ramírez (Atlas), Florian Munteanu (Krieg), Gina Gershon (Moxxi), and Jamie Lee Curtis (Tannis).
Warner Bros. Games has acquired Player First Games, the developer of its cross-over platform fighter MultiVersus. The price of the sale was not disclosed, but according to a press release, Player First Games will continue to operate under its current leadership of co-founders Tony Huynh and Chris White.
The announcement comes only a couple of months after MultiVersus’ relaunch on May 28. Player First Games served as a work-for-hire studio on the game, and Warner Bros. is apparently pleased enough with its performance to formally bring the studio in-house. The move comes only a few days after Warner Bros. shuttered the entire mobile division of Mortal Kombat developer Netherrealm Studios.
“We have worked with Player First Games over several years to create and launch MultiVersus, and we are very pleased to welcome this talented team to Warner Bros. Games,” said David Haddad, president of Warner Bros. Games. “The bright and creative team at Player First Games adds to our extensive development capabilities.”
“Our team is excited to join the Warner Bros. Games family, and we feel that this will be great for MultiVersus overall,” Huynh said. “We are working to make the MultiVersus game experience the best it can be and having our development team integrated with the publisher is optimum for the players.”
MultiVersus is a 2v2 spin on the Super Smash Bros. blueprint that pits a variety of characters from different Warner Bros. properties against each other. It was first launched in open beta in 2022 (read our review of that version here), then taken down months later to be rebuilt and expanded before returning this year. MultiVersus recently kicked off its second content season, and it has received new fighters such as The Joker, Agent Smith, Jason Voorhees, and the recently announced Samurai Jack and Beetlejuice.
The Casting of Frank Stone is Game Informer’s cover story this month, and we learned some exclusive details about the upcoming horror game during our trip to Behaviour Interactive’s studio in Montreal. Speaking to Supermassive creative director Steve Goss, he clued us in on the game’s most central and unique mechanic: the Super 8mm camera.
Set within the Dead by Daylight universe, the game story unfolds in the summer of 1980 in the unassuming small town of Cedar Hills. It follows a group of teenagers who set out to film a horror movie at an abandoned steel mill that has ties to a murderer named Frank Stone. At its core, The Casting of Frank Stone is a Supermassive game through and through. It’s a cinematic choice-driven horror game that sees players making decisions and executing split-second button prompts that can decide whether a character lives or dies. If you’ve enjoyed the studio’s previous works like Until Dawn or The Dark Pictures Anthology, you have a good idea of what to expect. But the experience features some intriguing new mechanics, such as the camera.
The teens buy the 8mm camera from a store called the Curiosity Shop after dropping and breaking their original Super 8. However, it later becomes apparent that this is no ordinary camera, a fact players will experience first-hand. Given how vital movie-making is to the narrative, Goss says it would have been “absurd” not to lean into the idea of letting players actively participate in filmmaking. “You actually do filming,” he stresses. “You do film. And then it becomes ‘you film’ to ‘you have to film.’”
Goss is cagey about providing too many gameplay details about the camera, and we didn’t get to see it in action during our visit. However, he does reveal that players can freely take it out and film everything around them, which unfolds in first-person view. It’s a fully functioning camera; you have to wind it to record and reload it with more film. The camera is also imbued with some kind of magical energy and will be useful for survival. For example, one section of the game features an invisible enemy that can only be spotted using the camera’s viewfinder, which causes the camera to crackle with energy. The camera’s capabilities evolve throughout the adventure; Goss even teases it may not be the only camera players use.
The camera is necessary for story and gameplay sequences and serves as the core intersection between the teens. Although the camera brings them together, it also becomes a point of tension. “If you’ve ever been engaged in a kind of a group creative exercise, people do try and vie for the leadership of the group,” Goss teases.
It’s tough not to draw parallels to the 2011 supernatural thriller movie Super 8, and that’s partially by design. The film was cited as one of the reference points for The Casting of Frank Stone more than once during our discussions. Both the game and the movie center on youths creating their own movie before spooky occurrences flip things on their head, which Goss says highlights Super 8’s producer Steven Spielberg’s penchant for creating stories about people making things, often forms of art. He hopes the theme of characters wanting to be the makers of things comes through in The Casting of Frank Stone.
“When I was a kid […] I bothered my parents until they bought me a camera and then made terrible things that were just absolutely worthless,” Goss says. “But it was the nearest I could get to being creatively kind of significant, I suppose. That’s the thread here: a bunch of kids, probably [in] not the most forward-thinking place in the universe, probably not the most economically exciting place to be, certainly it doesn’t have any kind of cool stuff to do, so they’re making up for themselves. So that’s why this is at the heart of that story.”
The Casting of Frank Stone launches on September 3 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Be sure to visit our cover story hub for more exclusive stories and videos by clicking the banner below.
Dead by Daylight (DBD) has been one of the most popular multiplayer games (and horror titles in general) since its launch in 2016, but fans have dreamed of experiencing its universe in a single-player format. Developer Behaviour Interactive agreed and enlisted the cinematic storytelling expertise of Supermassive Games (Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology, The Quarry) to create an original story in the DBD universe. That game became The Casting of Frank Stone, and it terrorizes Game Informer’s cover this month.
We traveled to Behaviour’s studio in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to play an early slice of the game and speak to lead developers from both studios to learn how the collaboration came to be. The story also reveals some of the DBD-style mechanics remixing Supermassive’s traditional gameplay template and also provides exclusive details on the game’s filmmaking mechanic.
Check out the cover art below, which was executed by Behavior’s senior concept artist Maïlys Garcia.
In addition to the cover story, issue #368 also features a six-page Dead by Daylight retrospective. Writer Alex Van Aken interviewed two of the game’s principal creators to learn the history of the DBD’s development and its future, including exclusive details of its upcoming Castlevania crossover.
But wait, there’s more! Contributor Pao Yumol spoke to the creator of Vampire Survivors to learn the story behind the game’s creation and its surprising success. Editor Charles Harte wrote a six-page preview for Visions of Mana, including insights from its principal creators. With Devolver Digital celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, Brian Shea spoke to its founders to learn how the company grew from a small renegade startup to an indie publishing behemoth. The issue also includes previews for upcoming titles such as Lego Horizon Adventures, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Persona 3 Reload’s Episode Aigis – The Answer, and more!
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Kunitsu-Gami is the kind of wonderful, left-field Capcom release we don’t see often these days. Bound to be a cult classic in the future, Path of the Goddess is original and does not lean on any of Capcom’s established properties. Instead, it relies on an admittedly difficult-to-explain but well-executed gameplay loop that I found hard to put down with an art style that is equally challenging to look away from.
Players take on the role of Soh, a masked swordsperson bound to protect the divine maiden Yoshiro as she slowly dances along the path of Mt. Kafuku to purge and cleanse it from invading demons. During the day, Yoshiro moves through a level while you explore to find experience points and villagers who can be assigned a job to help protect the maiden during the night as demons pour out from gates in all directions. The loop is intense and engaging as you rush through the levels during daylight to prepare and fight the demons under the moon.
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Kunitsu-Gami is undeniably original, but it is not without its inspirations. If I had to assign it a genre, I would say tower defense with a heavy dose of Pikmin, but I spent plenty of time executing combos with my sword, strategically placing troops before and during combat, and even restoring each village I saved between the action-focused levels. Kunitsu-Gami never overstays its welcome or spends too much time making you repeat yourself.
The moment I got the hang of the basics, I encountered a boss who made me re-evaluate my strategies, or I was forced to play out a scenario while making my way across a lake on a series of boats. I was impressed by how Kunitsu-Gami never let me get too comfortable and forced me to try new strategies in new settings in ways that were exciting instead of frustrating. There are even levels where all you can do is direct your villagers with no opportunity to fight yourself, and even those were thrilling and fun.
New Game Plus options and harder difficulties will undoubtedly test your resolve, but I appreciate that the strategy and action never got too complicated or difficult. Nothing frustrates me more in comparable genres than when I spend hours preparing for an encounter, only for it to fall apart at the end and force an extended restart. I certainly had to replay certain attempts, but I never felt fully cheated, and thankfully, no level is so long that a restart became a consistent nuisance.
Between the Yoshiro protection levels and boss fights, you return to rescued villages and assign villagers to fix up their demon-destructed homes. Restoring villages rewards experience and other goodies that can be used to upgrade Soh and the various villager classes. That simple loop frequently made me stay up late. The quiet period between action sequences serves to excite you to try out new upgrades and is perfect at setting you up for one more try – I always fell victim to it.
Kunitsu-Gami’s story is light but effective, with every moment delivered through simple choreography free of dialogue. I was more invested in the upgrade loop than the story and felt it ended without an emotionally satisfying conclusion, but I enjoyed making my way along the path of Mt. Kafuku. Time will tell if Capcom pushes Kunitsu-Gami along the same track as games like Monster Hunter or Resident Evil, but I would be perfectly happy for it to forever exist as an excellent standalone experiment that delivered satisfying results.
We’ve reached the end of Game Informer’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard cover story coverage as we prepare to launch our next exciting issue. But I still have this one last feature to publish, and it’s about Bellara Lutara, the Dalish elf and member of the new Veil Jumpers faction in the game. During my visit to BioWare’s Edmonton, Canada, office earlier this year, I checked out the game’s expansive character creator, its in medias res prologue, and the first mission after said prologue.
Though BioWare released a big look at Veilguard’s prologue via a 20-minute gameplay trailer last month, they haven’t released much about that subsequent mission, where you meet and recruit your first companion, Bellara. I learned a lot about this character, and knowing I was one of the first outside of the studio to see the mission where you meet her, I spent a chunk of my interviews with the team’s leads talking about Bellara. So, for my final feature on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, here’s everything I learned about this quirky elven mage.
Everything We Learned About Bellara Lutara In Dragon Age: The Veilguard
In talking with BioWare’s various leads, like game director Corinne Bushce, creative director John Epler (who is personally responsible for writing Bellara and leading her development), and BioWare general manager Gary McKay, it’s clear the team has a deep love for this character. She’s energetic, effervescent, and academic, and as a companion for combat, she’s a character I’m pretty excited to use in my party.
“I love Bellara, I think she’s fantastic,” McKay tells me. “I see people that I know in her and so that’s how she really resonates with me. I love the whole tinkerer aspect to her. It was a collective to bring that character to life. It was everything from the writers, to the editors, the animators, to character modelers, to the texturing, to how we light her. I’m really proud of that character.”
Bellara In Combat
When I ask Busche about Bellara, she gives me some insight into what I can expect of the mage on the battlefield. And Bellara sounds like an excellent choice for both support and elemental combos.
“Oh my goodness, she is amazing,” Busche says. “So, first of all, she is a mage. She is an explorer of ancient Elven ruins. She is an elf herself and a member of the Veil Jumpers faction. They investigate the ancient ruins of Arlathan. Everything about her character as a mage leans into that, but she also challenges the kind of archetypal idea of a mage.”
She does that by attacking with a bow at range using electrically charged arrows. But she’s also casting spells that slow down time or heal allies and Rook. She does that by challenging magical energy into her gauntlet. Busche says she starts as a support character in combat, thanks to her healing spells, but notes players don’t have to build her out that way. She also leans into electrical damage, and “damage type really matters a lot when we get into the strategy and tactics,” Busche says.
“You can spec her out in a way where she’s unleashing this devastating vortex that pulls in all enemies into an electrical storm. Maybe then we unleash our own [area of effect attack] with all the enemies clumped together,” Busche adds. “She can debuff all the enemies with the shocked affliction, where they’re taking passive damage. I mentioned she can slow time, she can heal. She is one of the characters that you can build out [to have her] healing spells heal you autonomously, so if you’re the kind of player that likes to be on the frontlines […] Bellara might just be the perfect companion for you.”
Bellara’s Place In The World
Epler, who writes Bellara, tells me about her place in Thedas as an elf and the connection elves have to the magic of the world. He says if you’ve paid attention to the franchise, you likely already know that elves are historically an oppressed people in the games. Now, with two of their gods on the loose in Veilguard, magic has poured back into the world in a big way.
“She represents the Veil Jumpers,” Epler explains. “Now, the Veil Jumpers are a faction that’s appeared in the comics before, but otherwise, this is the first time it’s appeared in the games, and they are the ones journeying through Arlathan, where the ancient elven empire used to exist and left a lot of artifacts when it disappeared. When the elves fell from immortality thousands of years ago, they still left a lot of their artifacts and a lot of their, for lack of a better term, magical technology behind, and Bellara represents this yearning to find the truth of who the elves were because not only did they lose their magic and their immortality, they lost a lot of their history.
“A lot of what they know of their past is based on myth, it’s based on rumor. Bellara is a knowledge seeker. She wants to find out what’s true, what’s not; she wants to find the pieces of who the elves used to be and really understand what their story was, where they came from, as well as figure out where they’re going next, and find a future for the elves. And within the context of The Veilguard, she joins the team, first of all, to help stop the gods because Bellara feels at least partially responsible since they are elven gods, but also to maybe find a little bit more of who they used to be. Because again, you’re dealing with these elves that were around millennia ago that have now reemerged into the world, and who better to teach her who the elves used to be than them.”
A Quick Detour: Magic
For one of my last questions to Epler, I was curious about the contrast between Bellara, an elven mage who is optimistic and bubbly, and Solas, a determined and tragic character. He indicated there might be more to Bellara than meets the eye.
“Solas sees himself as the tragic hero,” Epler says. “He’s not capable of really being happy, he can’t let himself be happy, partially because he carries the guilt of what he did bringing the Veil, doing what he did to the world. Whereas Bellara is somebody who has seen tragedy, and as you get into her character arc and get into her backstory, you realize this is a character who has seen a lot of tragedy. But that tragedy, instead of wallowing in it, she’s forced herself to push past it. She looks at her regrets, and she tells herself, ‘I don’t want to feel regret.’
“Whereas again, Solas tends to wallow in his to a large degree. And it allows us to create a very big differentiation. Part of it is also because Solas is an ancient elf, whereas Bellara is a Dalish elf, but she just sees a problem and wants to solve it. She feels a tremendous amount of responsibility to her people […] to the Dalish, and to the Veil Jumpers, and that drives her forward. That said, she does have her moments where she has doubt, she has moments where she has a more grim outlook, and there are moments where you realize that some of her sunny, optimistic outlook is kind of a mask that she puts on to hide the fact that she’s hurting, she’s in pain. But in general, she doesn’t see any benefit to wallowing in those regrets.”
We learned today that Bellara will be voiced by Jee Young Han, known for her roles in Perry Mason,Unprisoned, and as Sentinel Dax in a previous Bioware game, Anthem. To see the rest of the cast, along with Rook’s four voice options, click here.
For more about the game, including exclusive details, interviews, video features, and more, click the Dragon Age: The Veilguard hub button below.
We’ve spent the past several weeks covering Bioware’s upcoming RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard as part of our cover story, and part of that content has focused on the game’s colorful cast of characters. Today, Bioware has revealed the actors voicing this lineup of characters, including the different options for the protagonist Rook’s voices. Here they are, alongside roles you might recognize them from:
Rook will be played by Alex Jordan (Cyberpunk 2077, The Amazing World of Gumball), Bryony Corrigan (Baldur’s Gate 3, Good Omens), Erika Ishii (Apex Legends, Destiny 2), and Jeff Berg (Battlefield 1, NCIS)
Harding will be played byAli Hillis (Mass Effect 3, Naruto)
Davrin will be played by Ike Amadi (Mass Effect 3, Halo 5: Guardians, Marvel’s Spider-Man)
Bellara will be played by Jee Young Han (Perry Mason, Unprisoned)
Neve will be played by Jessica Clark (True Blood, Pocket Listing)
Taash will be played by Jin Maley (Star Trek: Picard, Silicon Valley)
Emmrich will be played by Nick Boraine (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Black Sails)
Manfred will be played by Matthew Mercer (Critical Role, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth)
Lucanis will be played by Zach Mendez (Horizon Forbidden West, Married Alive)
Finally, Solas and Varric’s voice actors, Gareth David-Lloyd and Brian Bloom, respectively, will reprise their roles from Dragon Age Inquisition.
On an almost weekly basis, Fortnite announces new crossover events, adding characters to its Battle Royale, Lego, and Festival modes. Whether it’s a fictional character like Jack Sparrow or a real person like Ariana Grande, it’s hard to find a corner of pop culture the game hasn’t touched. These crossovers, however, are almost always exclusive to characters, but Fortnite players don’t always have to traverse the Battle Royale map on foot – there are vehicles as well. Today’s crossover comes in the form of a particularly polygonal vehicle: Tesla’s Cybertruck.
For the unfamiliar, the Cybertruck is one of Tesla’s latest electric vehicles, a futuristic-looking pickup truck with a distinct shape and stainless steel exterior. It’s a vehicle that, quite frankly, always looked like it belonged in a video game, both because of its angular aesthetic and the word “cyber” in its name.
It’s unclear exactly how the truck will be present in Fortnite, as the trailer doesn’t include any actual gameplay, but it’s likely a vehicle skin that can be purchased from the in-game store. With car skins attached, whenever a player enters a vehicle, it will morph into the selected skin of their choice, and it’s available in Battle Royale and Rocket Racing alike. This is purely speculation, however – it’s equally possible the vehicle is introduced in some other limited-time event.
The Cybertruck will be added to Fortnite tomorrow. If you drive one, just pray your opposing players aren’t wielding a steel ball.
how do you feel about the Cybertruck being added to Fortnite? what other vehicles would you like to see in the game? Let us know in the comments!
After The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time reinvented the series in 3D and became its new gold standard, Nintendo followed up with a surreal sequel in Majora’s Mask. Set two months after the events of Ocarina, Link finds himself transported to an alternate version of Hyrule called Termina and must prevent a very angry moon from crashing into the Earth over the course of three constantly repeating days. Majora’s Mask’s unique structure and bizarre tone have earned it legions of passionate defenders and detractors, and one long-time Zelda fan is going to experience it for the first time to see where he lands on that spectrum.
Join Marcus Stewart and Kyle Hilliard today and each Friday on Twitch at 1:00 p.m. CT as they gradually work their way through the entire game until Termina is saved. Archived episodes will be uploaded each Saturday on our second YouTube channel Game Informer Shows, which you can watch both above and by clicking the links below.
If you enjoy our livestreams but haven’t subscribed to our Twitch channel, know that doing so not only gives you notifications and access to special emotes. You’ll also be granted entry to the official Game Informer Discord channel, where our welcoming community members, moderators, and staff gather to talk games, entertainment, food, and organize hangouts! Be sure to also follow our second YouTube channel, Game Informer Shows, to watch other Replay episodes as well as Twitch archives of GI Live and more.
Last week, Xbox announced it was introducing new Game Pass tiers and raising its subscription prices for existing members on September 12. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took issue with these changes in a filing yesterday to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In case you missed it, Microsoft revealed a new tier called Xbox Game Pass Standard, a $15 monthly subscription for new members that excludes day-one releases, EA Play, PC Game Pass, and cloud gaming. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which includes those perks, will have its monthly price raised from $17 to $20. Xbox Game Pass Core, which only offers online play and a smaller library, is raising its yearly sub from $60 to $75 (the $10 monthly fee remains unchanged). PC Game Pass is increasing from $10 per month to $12.
Additionally, the $10.99 Game Pass for Console is no longer be available to new subscribers as of July 10. If existing subscribers fail to renew their membership, they will be permanently locked out of this tier and must subscribe to another, more expensive membership.
In the filing, the FTC blasts Microsoft’s discontinuation of Game Pass for Console, stating that users must pay a substantial price increase (81%) to switch to Game Pass Ultimate. Those unwilling to do so must settle for Game Pass Standard, which the FTC describes as a “degraded product” since it excludes day-one releases.
“[Game Pass Standard] costs 36% more than Console Game Pass, and withholds day-one releases. Product degradation—removing the most valuable games from Microsoft’s new service—combined with price increases for existing users, is exactly the sort of consumer harm from the merger the FTC has alleged.”
The FTC was the primary opposition against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard and sees this move as proof of its concerns over the purchase.
“Microsoft’s price increases and product degradation—combined with Microsoft’s reduced investments in output and product quality via employee layoffs[…]—are the hallmarks of a firm exercising market power post-merger.”
The FTC goes on to call the price increases “inconsistent” with the case Microsoft made during the Xbox FTC trial last year. It states, “Microsoft promised that ‘the acquisition would benefit consumers by making [CoD] available on Microsoft’s Game Pass on the day it is released on console (with no price increase for the service based on the acquisition).’ Microsoft’s post-merger actions thus vindicate the congressional design of preliminarily halting mergers to fully evaluate their likely competitive effects, and judicial skepticism of promises inconsistent with a firm’s economic incentives.”
That last portion references Call of Duty: Black Ops 6‘s (the first new entry to release post-acquisition) October 25 launch on Game Pass Ultimate, roughly a month after the subscription tier’s price increase.
