Month: April 2022

Aquaman and Dune actor Jason Momoa will reportedly star in Warner Bros. upcoming Minecraft movie, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed Monday. Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) has signed on as the new director.

A Minecraft movie has been in the works since 2014; some version of the movie was originally slated to premiere this year. Hess has been attached to the project at least four times. Peter Sollett (The Path), Rob McElhenney (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), and Shawn Levy (Free Guy) were previously named in that role.

The Hollywood Reporter said Mary Parent (Dune) and Roy Lee (Death Note) will produce, “with Jill Messick receiving a posthumous producing credit for developing the film before her death in 2018.”

In 2019, Minecraft developer Mojang said the movie will center on a teenage girl “and her unlikely group of adventurers. After the malevolent Ender Dragon sets out on a path of destruction, they must save their beautiful, blocky Overworld.”

Steve Carell was reportedly tapped to star in 2016, too. Otherwise, the Minecraft movie remains a mystery. The popular block-based sandbox game was released in 2011 and has been wildly popular: In October, the game reportedly had more than 141 million monthly active players. Minecraft itself is simple, and lets players build out their own stories, games, and worlds all the while taking on enemies that only come out at night. Polygon named it among the most influential games of the decade.

With Rare’s new update structure, Sea of Thieves players can log on and experience limited-time Adventures out in the world. This small update offers players a few bits of story content to look at, such as a fog that surrounds the Golden Sands Outpost or an adventurous raid to rescue its residents from stone forts from the sea. When one Adventure leaves, another one comes to take its place in the world. The next Adventure has players summon the legendary Shrouded Ghost megalodon in search of a powerful artifact.

Rare has released a cinematic teaser about the Shrouded deep. In it, Merrick, longtime star and character of the first expansion, mutters incessantly about artifacts and other worlds. He also mentions the ghost shark, which is encased in a shrouded blanket. Merrick’s conversation is disrupted when Belle, our ghost friend from past Adventures, appears on board a recently restored ship, the Killer Whale. The Killer Whale is a landmark underwater that Merrick used to sail as a shipwreck Sea of Thieves player.

The Adventure will be available from April 21 through May 12. The Adventures can be accessed from April 2022 through May 1. The Adventures feature a narrative structure, so players can easily follow the storyline while they play. We’ve already seen ghosts from Spain and our spectral pirate pals, which makes it exciting to imagine what the next adventure might be.

Elden Ring players can leave each other gifts in the game’s multiplayer component. It could be a beautiful piece of equipment, or even a strong sword. Other times, however, it’s a pair of underwear that will get you banned.

The underpants are Deathbed Smalls, the notoriously hacked drawers. You should not leave fancy undies lying on the ground if you see them. Players that have tempted fate and picked them up are reporting that they’ve been “soft-banned” from Elden Ring. There are numerous warnings on the Elden Ring sub-Reddit, as spotted by Vice.

“After 220 hours, I pick up some underwear and it’s all over,” one player wrote.

Image: FromSoftware via Fighter PL on YouTube

Elden Ring, like FromSoftware’s other games, follows a general rule for wearables: If you see it on someone else, you can probably wear it, too, which leads to a massive fashion scene for fans. Players found out that Fia, a woman you can hug in Elden Ring , is wearing fancy lingerie underneath her dress in Elden Ring HTML3. FromSoftware, however, appeared to have cut the undies from the final version of Elden Ring, opting only to get Fia’s Deathbed Dress and robe.

But that doesn’t mean the underpants are inaccessible. They can also be hack into the game by horny players. Players have been trading and begging each other to drop the panties all over the Elden Ring sub-Reddit. Sometimes, it appears to be an accident: A player picks up random stuff dropped by outsiders, unknowingly grabbing them.

Now, some players are getting a warning: Delete the panties or get soft-banned. A soft-ban means a player can still use multiplayer, but are instead tossed into a “quarantine” queue with other soft-banned players. In messages to soft-banned players posted to Reddit, FromSoft said players must remove the item, sometimes deleting an entire save file, to prevent themselves from being suspended.

Fia’s underpants aren’t the only illegal item in Elden Ring, according to players. Bans have also reportedly been meted out for the “fetal position” gesture. Polygon has reached out to publisher Bandai Namco for added clarification.

Paizo is making a huge leap into the future with the Starfinder science fantasy setting. It combines high-tech and swords and sorcery. A new event called the Drift Crisis will drastically change the landscape of its entire universe. This product range includes a sourcebook, two elaborate Adventure Path campaigns and an additional storyline that progresses through Starfinder Society’s organized-play program. Polygon is privy to a preview of this yearlong event from its creators.

Science fiction is littered with many different interpretations of faster-than-light travel. True faster-than light technology exists in the Starfinder universe. However, it is extremely rare and costly to maintain. The universe instead relies on interdimensional travel that is inexpensive.

Ships slip first into an alternate dimension called the Drift, before being translated back into the material plane. The Drift allows them to cover enormous distances without having to achieve high speeds. It sounds a bit like how space travel works in Warhammer 40,000, but there’s a catch. The Drift was discovered by a powerful AI known as Triune. Triune shared the secrets of Drift-based travel and the Starfinder universe sentient races with Triune. It is Triune that protects and polices space for travellers to safely navigate across the stars.

Image: Laslo Ludrovan/Paizo

The Drift Crisis starts when Triune suddenly stops talking. So, too, do the Drift-based communications systems used to send messages across galaxies. In that instant, every spacecraft traveling through the Drift is violently ejected back into the material plane. Whole fleets are lost in the Drift, without hope for rescue or return. Some ships vanish completely, leaving behind their passengers and crews. Even worse is the fact that those who attempt to get into the Drift again find it no longer tranquil and esoteric, but a dangerous maw, from which there is no escape.

“I’d say that on a scale of functionality where one is absolutely not [functional] and 10 is it’s working completely as intended, Drift Crisis brings it to about a four,” said senior developer John Compton. We do indeed have planes capable of flying, however it is extremely turbulent during Drift Crisis. One of the four engines you have no longer functions. So you can probably get to where you need to go, but it has a much bigger question mark on it and a lot more people are doubting whether or not to even try.”

The uncertainty caused by drift travel creates incredible disruption across the Starfinder universe. A sourcebook, called Starfinder Drift Crisis, will include 20 different detailed story seeds that game masters (GMs) will be able to choose from to use in their homebrew campaigns. Millions of Starfinder Galaxy refugees start to arrive at Absalom station, which is a pan-galactic meltingpot and largest city. GMs could choose to have their players clear out its ancient Ghost Levels, making them safe havens for the unhoused masses. The reptilian Vesk continue to work on an alternative means of transport, so players might be required to risk the Drift and bring their top scientists back to the table in order to finish the project.

These aren’t finalized arcs with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, they are detailed scenarios, starting points for open-ended, player-led adventures. The story is up to the players at the table, so Paizo will not be making any decisions for them.

“A lot of the Drift Crisis storylines really thrive on at least a hint of that moral ambiguity, because a lot of this has no right answer at the time,” Compton said. It’s fine to not write every aspect of these adventures. Either one’s fine.”

In addition to the Starfinder Drift Crisis, which will be available as a hardcover book or a PDF, Paizo will also publish two Adventure Paths — fully formed campaign arcs that will be released episodically. The first, titled Drift Crashers, kicks off in June and will take characters from first all the way up to seventh level. Across three 64-page modules, players will explore the Drift Crisis from the inside, traveling not only through the chaotic and dangerous dimension, but also time itself.

Image: Paizo

“It’s one part Lost in Space, one part Quantum Leap, one part Sliders,” Compton said.

Later, in October, the Drift Hackers Adventure Path will provide the canonical conclusion to the Drift Crisis, taking characters from level seven through level 13. At the same time, the Starfinder Society organized-play program will also be running its own parallel adventures that will touch on similar events and themes.

The most interesting thing about the Paizo Drift Crisis is that it is narratively compatible with the Starfinder catalog. Starfinder Drift Crisis will include ways to include its dramatic events for every single previously released set of adventures in the Starfinder catalog.

“This allows us to demonstrate that the setting we have created isn’t static. It is constantly changing and we are capable of making meaningful changes that don’t invalidate any previous work.” said Compton. “People playing through this can have this comic-book-event-style situation where they all get to participate in a big thing and feel like they are part of the plotline.”

The Drift Crisis is big enough, Paizo says, that it should leave plenty of room for everyone in the Starfinder community to feel like their characters have had an impact.

” This is an important part of me,” Compton stated. “Being able to have big things happen, and have it reflected in our ongoing setting, as opposed to saying ‘Somebody saved the world over in this corner! Nobody ever talk about it again.’ I don’t like that sort of thing, and the Drift Crisis is really a different approach to that. It’s exciting .”

The event kicks off on May 25 with the release of Starfinder Drift Crisis. Expect the first adventure path, Drift Crashers, to begin rolling out in June.

Exploding Kittens is coming to Netflix — as both a TV show and a game.

The upcoming television will be an adult animated comedy, where God and the Devil are sent to Earth in the form of chonky house cats. The show will hit Netflix in 2023 and features the voice talents of Tom Ellis (Lucifer), Abraham Lim (The Boys), Lucy Liu (Elementary), Ally Maki (Toy Story 4), Mark Proksch (What We Do In The Shadows) and Sasheer Zamata (Woke).

Meanwhile, the upcoming Exploding Kittens mobile game will launch on the Netflix Games app in May. It’ll basically be a mobile version of the card game, with two new cards exclusive to the Netflix version: Radar, which reveals the location of the Exploding Kitten closest to the top of the deck, and Flip Flop, which reverses the order of the deck. The game will incorporate elements from the animated series.

The Netflix Games mobile app is not to be confused with the streaming service’s on-platform interactive specials. The app is free to play for all Netflix subscribers, and includes games like Stranger Things: 1984 and Shooting Hoops.

Exploding Kittens is currently available as a physical card game, as well as a mobile game on iOS and Android and a game on Nintendo Switch.

Old Gods of Appalachia, a horror anthology podcast, launched in 2019 as a passion project for two Wise, Virginia natives. Cam Collins and Steve Shell wanted a way to honor their roots, but add a dark twist to the mix. The show gained multiple awards and popularity in less than three years. The show is currently number 2 in Apple’s podcast’s fiction category and 5 in science fiction. Now, they want to bring the horror from the holler straight to the tabletop.

Collins and Shell launched a Kickstarter for the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game on April 12, then promptly obliterated their funding goal in less than a day. The game promises to take you on an adventure that’ll stretch the limits of your imagination and sanity, all while giving fans an opportunity to dive deeper into the weird, evocative world of the show.

“Our fans have been asking for a TTRPG based in our world for the past two years — essentially since the end of season one,” Cam Collins, co-founder and producer for Old Gods, told Polygon in an email. “It was a frequent enough request that we thought, ‘Why not?'” She added that players can expect a gaming experience that “will draw them into the creepy and beautiful world we strive to create in Old Gods of Appalachia.”

” The place where we grew-up is complex. “It’s an odd amalgamation of cultures which over centuries has been land stolen, settlement and appropriation have become this monolithic of poor, white and uneducated America,” Steve Shell (co-founder) told Polygon. “We know it’s a lot more than that. “We know it can be like that at times and in certain places, but it is also a rich and varied world of folklore. We believe that the episode was an opportunity to create something immersive.

While the team initially set a fundraising goal of $50,000, it cleared that goal within an hour of launching. At press time, the campaign has earned more than $1. 1 million. Shell stated that he had never imagined it would happen.

” “Seeing that number attached to something we made for our house is pretty mindblowing,” he said.

The Cypher System-fueled RPG is being developed by Monte Cook Games — the same developers behind break-out hit Numenera — and will transport players to an alternate Appalachia set in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s a land of ancient mountains, dark woods, and quiet hollers containing “immeasurable malice and incomprehensible madness,” according to a press release from Monte Cook. Collins said that the team was really impressed with the “simplicity and flexibility of the system, how quick we could create characters and start playing, and its focus on storytelling and roleplaying.”

The core rulebook contains all the information you will need, including rules and mechanics as well as character creation instructions. It also provides a deeper dive into Old Gods lore. The book also includes a monster bestiary, magic, equipment, and starter adventures to get your table started exploring the dark and ancient mountains of Appalachia.

Pledge levels start at $25, which includes PDF of the core rulebook and stretches all the way to the premium $265 “Delver in the Dark” level, which includes a limited-edition physical rulebook autographed by the podcast’s producers, early playtest access, a GM campaign journal, GM screen, a dice set, a rolling tray, and more.

You can learn more by visiting the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game page on Kickstarter.