There’s a lot to admire about Layers of Fear, Polish studio Bloober Team’s new reimagining of its (relatively) excellent surrealist, psychological adventure horror series.

Developed alongside Anshar Studios, which previously helped Bloober expand its sci-fi horror watcher in 2020, this new version of Layers of Fear composes the original 2016 game, its DLC, Layers of Fear 2, a new DLC and a new story intended to fill in the gaps in a beautifully complex decaying rose. But while the series has never looked better, Layers of Fear was made with Unreal Engine 5– its narrative is contrived, sometimes choking on its own ambitious complexities.

My disappointment is poetic. Most of the characters the game lets you choose from – The Painter, his wife The Musician, The Actor, and The Writer, who is introduced to the series for the first time in this game – suffer from the same ailment: getting run over by unattainable aspirations. Through the divided chapters of Layers of Fear, I play each of them in first person and piece together their harrowing pasts through notes and their own commentary.

Letters with names crossed out, sentimental found objects like a cracked conch shell, and a barrage of cryptic voiceovers tell me the cast of Layers of Fear have already achieved success in the art, and so they’re determined to keep going. striving, however unreasonable their goals, begin to be felt in the game’s transforming houses. Only dull things can hold them back, earthly things, like the brown liquor The Artist depends on, or damaged skin painfully stretched over the burnt fingers of the Musician.

But these are temporary setbacks – the splendor of their artistry and genius cannot be contained by something as small and imperfect as a body, the characters suggest. So they turn to the rat queenthe series villain officially introduced in 2019’s Layers of Fear 2, with her long teeth and black marble eyes, and she forces them on her supernatural path to greatness.

Layers of Fear is my favorite walking simulator

With the emphasis on discovery and room-by-room exploration, there isn’t much typical “gameplay” in Layers of Fear, so I spend the majority of my time digesting this information. The series has often been called, somewhat mockingly, a “scary walking simulator,” and that’s what I spend over 10 hours doing – walking and, at times, screaming at sudden sounds, like dissonant, resonant piano chords.

There are no options to do much more. In addition to walking, I can run – or, more accurately, walk with more DualSense feedback – and pick up objects by pressing the right trigger. I can zoom in on the secret codes and puzzle solutions since they’ve all been changed from their original iterations, and in the Layers of Fear 2 section I can crouch in the vents.

Screenshot: Bloober Team / Kotaku

The most significant gameplay adjustment between this Layers of Fear and previous titles is the introduction of a portable light source. It’s not particularly shocking, but it does break the show’s tradition of passivity, as the lights aren’t just practical, they’re violent. Pressing both triggers causes my beam to become incendiary and I use it to create a new type of puzzle – it appears as a blur and obscures exits and key elements – as well as approaching enemies. For The Artist, who shunned electricity in his lavish 1920s home, that means pointing a glowing gas lantern at visions of my dead wife, who may or may not have deserved it, but other characters can use flashlights to illuminate the rot around them.

Anyway, I don’t mind walking. The game’s level and puzzle designs are completely unpredictable. They move when I’m not looking, and I get a nervous thrill of not knowing what will happen if I turn around. Will I find a filmed photo? A cut finger? Am I about to find myself trapped in a looping hallway, or a locked closet, or a bedroom with no windows, no keys, and no air to breathe?

That’s what makes Layers of Fear scary, and therefore entertaining. With its rebuilt graphics, the game morphs as convincingly as a terrified chameleon. If I look behind this empty picture frame, a door will appear. If I start playing this roll of film, a big white moon will descend and delight me. It’s frightening to tread purposefully into uncertainty, and Layers of Fear taps into that, sending an ocean wave of unease through me.

But, oh, my God, the story.

Layers of convoluted traditions

That’s what makes the game both annoying and appealing: if Layers of Fear were a person, they’d be living their whole life upside down. He wants, somewhere in his moving staircases and endless basements, to discover the psychology behind great art.

Since this is a horror game we’re talking about, his take on this psychology is unbearable. I quickly realize that the environments I find myself in are physical manifestations of the artists’ looping thoughts and cobwebbing instincts, tied together with metal chains and wet candle wax. A creative mind is an uncomfortable and unfulfilling place, the game tells me, and really relies on metaphor.

Layers of Fear regularly references legendary creative works like The Picture of Dorian Gray, Faust, The Shining, etc., and I’m struck by how important the art is; “Great art comes at a high cost,” says one note, “To create is to achieve chaos,” reads a voiceover. “Chaos is darkness. Hot. Soft. Tingling. He figured it out in the end. Are you going?”

Uh, not really, TBH.

Drawing on his influences, the demon of Layers of Fear is the Rat Queen, who features more prominently in the added content from the writer and musician. But unlike Dorian Gray or Faust, in which men knowingly give up their souls in exchange for sex and knowledge, the characters in Layers of Fear are traumatized people whom the Rat Queen forces to pursue unattainable perfection. Accordingly, Layers of Fear is not a cautionary tale about selfishness.

I don’t really know what it is. He points out the things he wants me to feel without letting me feel them. The most egregious instance of this happening is in The Musician’s DLC, where found journal entries describe his home as a “jail.” Finally, I put a dead songbird back in its cage. Yeah I understand.

While something like Faust satirizes the tortured artist, conveying that creative people aren’t necessarily special people, that they can be as bad as anyone else, Layers of Fear seems to say that art is uncontrollable. It’s a magical, hungry force, and if a woman, sister, or daughter is caught and bloodied in its insatiable mouth, then, well. So be it.

I find that difficult to accept. I also think it’s detrimental to contextualize art as something dangerous and wild, even though Layers of Fear frames it reverently. Art is not the boogeyman. That’s not the problem – people usually are. Blaming a monster, like the Rat Queen, seems too easy to me. This is a narrative issue I’ve had with Layers of Fear since the beginning, and new stories from writers and musicians have unfortunately snowballed.

Still, I’m impressed with Bloober’s transformation of his series into a compact nightmare with white rats. The game is a show of force, despite fan reservations for the studio next remake of Silent Hill 2, and I admire a game that cares about art as deeply as its characters. I only wish it wasn’t so boring about it.

I was on board with 2K Lego player by the time I heard we were getting an open-world Lego racing game, with the ability to build your own vehicles. And after playing almost 12 hours so far, I’m still having a lot of fun with the game. But it’s impossible to ignore the nagging feeling that he really wants me to spend money on his in-game store .

Announced in March, Lego 2K Drive is the first game resulting from an agreement between 2K and Lego back in 2022. The two companies apparently decided to glue their names together and add “drive” to the end to create what might be the most boring video game title of 2023. Luckily, the video game itself is much, much more fun than its lackluster title, which feels less like a wacky open-world racer filled with cool bonuses and more like a bad sports game featuring a sport I’ve never heard of but is popular nonetheless.

Bland name, but fun Lego racing

Get past the bland name and Lego 2K Drive comes out of the gate firing on all cylinders with thrilling CG cutscenes and a fairly short but fun tutorial. It makes a good first impression. And the moment the game gave me full control, I was impressed with what I saw. Lego 2K Drive takes place in a brick-built world filled with side missions, mini-games, collectibles and so on, so many Lego vehicles. It is very colorful and beautiful. And massive! 2K Drive’s open world is divided into a few different biomes, each with their own theme, characters, missions, and vehicles. Playing this game is like playing in the basement of the rich kid you knew in elementary school who owned all the Lego sets. Lucky bastard. But now I, Zack, have all the cool bricks and sets to play with!

The basic setup behind the main story mode is that an evil racer hates you – for reasons the game doesn’t jokingly state – and you have to earn the big trophy to prove you’re the best driver. To stand a chance of that big win, you’ll need to earn a bunch of flags by beating your rivals, leveling up to unlock new races, rank up, and eventually advance to the big final tournament. There’s not much to the actual story, but the writing is similar to recent Lego movies, sometimes making me smile and rarely boring. And I think kids will enjoy the wackiest moments.

But to win the big trophy and prove yourself to your evil rival, you’ll have to do more than drive Lego-built cars on different tracks, as piloting boats and mastering off-road vehicles are also on your agenda. And like cars, all are built of bricks. However, you are not actively choosing between each type of vehicle. Instead, when you race, the game automatically switches between your car, boat, or off-road ride of your choice. This streamlines what could have been a boring part of 2K Drive, and also means you can explore the entire Lego-filled world of Bricklandia at your leisure.

Driving really fast and hitting a river? Keep driving and you’ll turn into a boat! Take a sharp turn on a paved road and over dunes? Don’t worry, the game will swap your car for a jeep in no time. It takes the open-world driving of Forza Horizon and makes it even more arcade and exciting because you can literally go anywhere at any time.

All the bricks and cool stuff in the world can’t save a racing game with bad driving physics or poor controls, and thankfully Lego 2K Drive avoids those pitfalls and is a joy to play. Once I mastered the drift and jump controls, I was masterfully dipping, swinging, and soaring around the world like a Lego pro. And on Xbox Series X, performance was smooth as butter, making it easy to enjoy all the high-speed action.

Lego 2K Drive’s disappointing microtransactions

The moment the bricks start to fall from this creation is when you start digging into the menus, where you’ll come across a full store with a season pass. While the game features an amazing, in-depth, and easy-to-use vehicle builder, allowing you to create almost anything you can imagine, it also has some disappointing microtransactions.

Technically, you can just drive, have fun, unlock cars, build your own creations, and never really interact with the in-game store. But, if you don’t want (or can’t) build something like an ambulance or a giant hamburger car, the store has official Lego builds that you can buy and use in the game. However, all of these cars cost $10,000 Lego Bux. And after playing for 12 hours, I only reached around $8,000.

This is the part where 2K Games, while twirling its mustache, would probably say: don’t worry, you can buy Bux if you want. That’s true, of course, but it’s so out of place in this otherwise colorful game of creativity and madness.

And the way the economy is balanced, it really does feel like you’ll have to shell out the cash if you want to buy more than one of these premade cars without grinding for hours. It’s also unfortunate that the in-game store has packs of Lego pieces for sale. These are cheaper than cars (luckily) and the game builder offers lots of free coins (and you earn more by completing missions), but the fact that some bricks and items are locked behind a paywall, even the one you can bypass via grinding is frustrating.

Screenshot: 2K Games / Lego / Kotaku

The other big part of Lego 2K Drive is the multiplayer, which I barely pushed as there weren’t many other players online while I was playing the game before it was released. Online racing is similar to single-player racing, but with the added drawback that your opponents may have spent hours figuring out how to build the ideal, perfect racing car. Or a giant cock. Or maybe they just spent real money and bought a car using Bux. Until the game is released in the wild, it’ll be hard to say how multiplayer will shake out, but I have a few concerns.

It’s such a shame that such an enjoyable and fun open-world sandbox is tied to things like a season pass, premium currencies, and expensive in-game purchases. Maybe 2K will tweak some levers to make it easier earning and unlocking new cars – which would be nice – but until then the specter of greed will still be there, nagging me as I build, smash and race.

In the early years of Disney’s Star Wars ownership, it felt like the company had no interest in any era of the franchise beyond the original trilogy. Much of the material he extracted for his own projects came from these films, leaving vast swathes of Star Wars history by the wayside. But more recently, Disney and Lucasfilm have seemingly realized there’s more to Star Wars than just these classic movies. And Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a great example of how to bring together all the different eras of one of the most popular sci-fi franchises of all time.

Minor spoilers below related to how Survivor connects to other Star Wars properties.

Released at the end of last month, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is the fantastic sequel to Respawn and EA’s 2019 hit action-adventure game, Jedi: Fallen Order. In this bigger and better sequel, players return to the role of Cal Kestis, a young Jedi who survived the Order 66 purge as a child. Now he and his ragtag group of friends work together to overthrow the Empire while outmaneuvering anyone who tries to catch them, which includes not only the Empire itself, but also bounty hunters and criminal syndicates. . And this time around, Cal’s grand space adventure connects to virtually every major Star Wars era we’ve seen in movies and TV.

So right away it’s easy to see the references to the original trilogy, aka the old Star Wars movies with Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher that came out in the late 70s and early 80s. imperials dressed in white armor, as they appear in old movies. We also see TIE fighters and AT-STs, popular Imperial vehicles from those classic movies. But beyond those obvious references, Survivor also has ties to the Rogue One spin-off movie and the Obi-Wan Kenobi show. Both of these events take place around the same time as A New Hope, the first film in the original trilogy.

How Respawn’s New Star Wars Game References Spin-Offs and The Clone Wars

Throughout the game, you will encounter KX security droids that first appeared in Rogue One. The beloved droid character K-2SO was a reprogrammed KX security bot. In the meantime, you will also hear about The hidden path or the path, something first introduced on the Disney+ show Obi-Wan Kenobi. Interestingly, the idea for The Path – an Underground Railroad-like network of people trying to help surviving Jedi and Force-sensitive refugees escape the Empire’s grip – was originally pitched as a possible storyline for Fallen Order. It didn’t happen, but it seems the idea survived and ended up in the Obi-Wan show, which is just another way to connect the series and Fallen Order.

However, Survivor doesn’t just reference the OG movies and connected spin-offs, and actually includes a ton of direct connections to the Prequel movies and the Clone Wars series.

The most obvious are all the different battle droids that you encounter in the game, including the well-known B1 and B2 droids first seen in Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones respectively. However, Cal also encounters Magnaguard droids who were often seen guarding General Grievous during the Clone Wars and first appeared in Revenge of the Sith. There is also BX Commando Droids which never appeared in the live-action movies, but was instead created for the CG animated series as a faster, deadlier variant of battle droids that could actually give the Clones and Jedi a run for their money. their money.

Elsewhere in the game, you’ll also come across remnants of AAT tanks, Vulture Droid ships, and ruined bases from the Clone Wars. Perhaps the most interesting and easily missed Clone Wars connection is the villainous Rayvis. He’s a Gen’Dai, a rarely seen alien species that is damn hard to kill and has a very long lifespan because its body is made up of thousands of regenerative tentacles, allowing it to regenerate after taking damage. The first Gen’Dai ever seen in Star Wars was the Durge Bounty Hunter. He was created by Lucasfilm for the original Clone Wars 2D shorts and comics in 2003. (Durge has since appeared in canon via the new Star Wars comics.)

How Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Connects to the Sequel Movies and More

But wait, there’s more! Survivor also has references to both the High Republic and the Sequel Trilogy. I won’t say too much about the High Republic connections as they play a big part in the overall narrative of the game, but it’s cool to see this relatively new part of Star Wars—which currently only exists in books and comics— to be prominently featured in such an important new Lucasfilm project.

As for the Sequel movie references, they’re a little less cool than the Clone Wars connections already mentioned, but still nice to see. A connection is the inclusion of a Trodatom, a species of slug-like alien first seen in The Rise of Skywalker. Another minor issue is that quite early in the game you can unlock a crossguard lightsaber, something that was first seen in the force awakens.

Screenshot: Respawn/EA/Lucasfilm

To be clear: just including references doesn’t make Survivor a great game. However, the way Respawn has carefully and thoughtfully weaved all of Star Wars throughout the game is impressive. None of it interferes with the main story that the game tells and none of it feels forced or pushed because “Well, we have to include that too!” Instead, it all merges into one giant, delicious Star Wars meal.

Best of all, Respawn doesn’t rely solely on nostalgia or pre-established characters or items. Jedi: Survivor is packed with new aliens, planets, Force abilities, characters, ships, and more. Respawn is clearly confident in its ability to create new Star Wars content. So these past references and connections aren’t used to support the game or make people care, but are just a bit of extra seasoning mixed in to make everything a little more Star Wars-y.

And that’s how it should be done moving forward with future Star Wars projects. Remember what came before, but don’t be afraid to create something new and different.

John Wick star Keanu Reeves is universally considered a pretty cool guy. Maybe it’s his contagious laughterher flowing locksor its management a litter of golden retriever puppies. His roles as a stoic hitman in John Wick, a stoic supernatural detective in Constantine, or a lovable asshole in Cyberpunk 2077 don’t do justice to the man’s likability in the real world. And we keep getting more and more evidence that Reeves is just as much a delight behind the scenes as he is on screen, as the Canadian-born actor seems to have gifted the John Wick: Chapter 4 the stunt team a bunch of awesome memories.

Learn more: The director of John Wick 4 in this scene that seems straight out of Hotline Miami

vanity lounge

I was killed by John Wick and all I got was a lot of cool/expensive stuff, actually

According to New York Times, Reeves outfitted his stunt team with t-shirts revealing the number of times they “died” while filming John Wick: Chapter 4 fight scenes. The stunt coordinator told the NYT that some members of the 35-person stunt team were missed alive by Wick several times during the nearly three-hour action movie. Rogers estimated that one stuntman in particular died a total of five or six times during Wick’s Myth of the Sisyphean stair fight scene. Along with gifting his stunt team shirts with their deaths, Reeves also appears to have given his stunt team $10,000 Rolexes with ‘The John Wick Five’ engraved on them.

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Reeves’ show of appreciation for his cast and crew went beyond gift-giving. Behind-the-scenes John Wick 4 footage on TikTok shows the action movie star helping his production team take boxes of equipment up the stairs of the Sacred Heart.

This stair fall was 50% movie magic, 50% real life bumps

For those curious if Reeves actually made that painful stair bump, it was actually his stunt double, Vincent Bouillon, who took the plunge. While some of the steps had hidden padding that was digitally removed using visual effects, Bouillon and the rest of the stuntmen still had to bear the brunt of the impact without soft landings. Falling down the 300 steps of the Sacred Heart is a small price to pay for a Rolex and a Bouillon gifted by Keanu Reeves more than deserved.

“Apart from a few bumps and bruises,” Rogers told the NYT he was proud that no member of the stunt team suffered a concussion while filming that pivotal fight scene. there was “no concussion” among the stunt team. The film ended up using Bouillon’s second take when he fell down the stairs because he got stuck on a railing on his first attempt, according to director Chad Stahelski. To maintain continuity, Stahelski told the NYT he “still has to throw Mr. Reeves down some stairs.”

“That look that John Wick gives when he looks at his watch and looks up the stairs, I think that’s maybe 50% John Wick and 50% Keanu Reeves saying, ‘Ugh, Stahelski me the did it again,'” Stahelski said. “You gotta hurt. That’s the fun thing about John Wick. He hurts and he keeps going.

Learn more: Keanu Reeves continues to have the best tech grips

I think I speak for everyone when I say I knock on wood everyday praying the only skeletons in Reeves’ closet are just a bunch of props he stole from a film set. As for Reeves’ upcoming projects, the “stunning” actor is set to star in Constantine 2the John Wick spin-off Ballerinaand reprises his role as swaggering rockstar Johnny Silverhand in the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Expansion.

While the haunting emotional beats and turbulent moral themes of The Last of Us can sometimes be the source of a more optimistic and restorative outlook, that’s not always the case. The Last of Us is heavy as hell, but luckily if the HBO series finale left you in a bad mood, the outtakes and bloopers are starting to roll in, giving us all a chance to have a little laugh – you know, before the fear consumes us once again.

Learn more: The Last of Us Season 2: Everything We Know

If you haven’t seen The Last of Us finale, fair warning: some of them involve spoilers. But we’ll leave out the main story beats for Part II, in case you’re waiting for season two.

Human suffering and violence are at the heart of The Last of Us. With the exception of limited moments in the show and games, the characters rarely smile, almost never laugh, and are constantly in a state of stress, pain, and / or perpetual post-traumatic rage. So having the opportunity to peek at some funny behind-the-scenes moments is quite an unexpected sight when we’re used to watching these actors portray characters in brutal storylines. And honestly, I bet they need mental breaks to shoot this shit anyway.

That last lie… interrupted by an infectious laugh

Initially posted by Pedro Pascal himself on his Instagram pageperhaps the most cathartic blooper in the last episode of the series Pascal failed to stick together as he portrays Joel lying to Ellie about what happened in Salt Lake City, bursting into laughter and giving us all a break in this difficult and difficult moment of cloudy morality .

The Instagram post also has some cute out-of-character shots of Pascal and Bella Ramsey during this difficult scene. How can you not love this?

Laura Bailey Wins ‘Funniest Script Ever’ (And What It Was About)

Other out-of-character moments making the rounds on the internet include what’s definitely not a deleted scene (although that would be funny) and an image that should now replace our use of the Grant Gustin meme. Shared by series co-creator Neil Druckmann, who described it as the “the funniest text ever“, actress Laura Bailey, who voiced the characters in the first and second games, strikes a humorous pose about this poor dead doctor who was moments away from vivisectioning Ellie.

Laura Bailey’s presence in the final episode also sparked speculation as to whether or not she was secretly playing the character she voices in the game’s sequel. According to Neil Druckmann on a recent episode of Kinda Funnywhere he also fulfilled fans’ desires for a third gameBailey’s presence was not a character reveal, but rather “to honor what she did in the first game”.

As Druckmann discussed in the episode, Bailey originally voiced one of the nurses in the first version of the game in 2013 (this role was recast in later remasters and the recent remake as she would continue to voice a more substantial character in the following). Given that Joel and Ellie’s original voice actors, Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, have made memorable appearances on the show, Druckmann also added that, for the second season, the show “will honor the great job it has done. in the second game, I think, in another way.” So be sure to keep your eyes peeled for Bailey in a future season of the show.

Up close with the bloater and does anyone know the brand of this sweater?

A few other interesting and humorous out-of-context images also made the rounds. One includes some shots with Marlene’s play and show actor Merle Dandridge and a costumed bloater (Kotaku recently interviewed Dandridge on his interpretation of Marlene). Since the bloating appears briefly during a pretty hectic and dark action sequence in episode fiveit’s a beautiful clear and bright photo of intense costume work.

Show: Merle Dandridge from The Last of Us explains how she looks like Marlene

Another fun image is a seemingly innocuous shot of Ellie while filming the show’s snowy segments. A fan just wanted wondering if anyone knew the brand of sweater Ellie was wearing?

Of course, Bella Ramsey has blood on her face after cutting up David, which kind of makes this image fun to watch and has since inspired some fun photoshop.

The Last of Us makes it difficult to watch and play. If you had a hard time weighing in on the intense twists and turns of the story, I hope these moments of smiles and laughter will brighten the mood a bit.

Episode five of HBO’s The Last of Us marks the midpoint of our nine-episode journey. That’s right, we’re halfway there, and Ellie and Joel are definitely living on a prayer. Look, I’m sorry for the bad Bon Jovi reference but man, this episode is The Last of Us at its most relentlessly bleak. I needed to do something to lighten the mood for myself, and unlike Ellie, I don’t have a book of awful jokes handy. At least this episode also features what I consider the most effective subtle nod to the game in the entire season. We’ll get to that in a bit.

At the end of episode four, Joel and Ellie were being held at gunpoint by two characters who players of the game likely immediately recognized as Henry and Sam. (If you need to catch up, you can find my recap of that episode here.) As episode five begins, we flash back a little while to meet these new characters and learn about what’s driven them into such desperate circumstances.

The Fall of Kansas City FEDRA

At first glance, this episode’s beginning seems like one of pure jubilation. Chants of “freedom!” are heard rising from a crowd that’s celebrating in the streets. But almost immediately, we’re shown the grim side of this happy occasion, with FEDRA officers being executed at point-blank or publicly hoisted into the air by the neck as they twitch with their final struggles for life. An armored vehicle the people have reclaimed roams the streets blasting the message, “Collaborators, surrender now and you will receive a fair trial.” Hmm, yes, somehow I don’t believe you. Maybe it’s the fact that you’re dragging a body behind you that’s stuffed with so many blades it looks like a pincushion, I’m not sure.

As the armored vehicle passes, we see Henry and Sam lurking in the shadows. Henry (Lamar Johnson, The Hate U Give) uses ASL to communicate with his brother, cluing us in to a significant change from the game: Here, Sam is deaf. (Sam is wonderfully played here by young actor Keivonn Woodard, who is also deaf.) In this brief exchange, you can already sense Henry trying to put on a brave face for his much younger brother. The two sneak away unseen by the patrolling resistance which, as we learned in last week’s episode, is hell-bent on finding them.

Screenshot: HBO / Kotaku

In fact, even as the celebration rages on, Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), the resistance’s leader, is working, interrogating a group of “collaborators”—civilians who worked with FEDRA before it fell—about Henry’s whereabouts. Lynskey remains chilling in the role, coating her comments in a tone that, on the surface, sounds reasonable and kind, but is so transparently cold and ruthless underneath. “Lucky for you, I’m not FEDRA,” she tells them, saying that if they cooperate, they’ll be put on trial, be found guilty of course, and then have to do some time, “easy.” She’s got her commando assistant Perry (Jeffrey Pierce, who voices Joel’s brother Tommy in the games) by her side, his silent presence lending her words an added threat of danger. Finally someone cracks and tells her that Henry and Sam are with Edelstein, the doctor we saw Kathleen interrogate in last week’s episode.

A moment later, she orders her men to go door-to-door until her prey is found. When Perry shows some hesitation and advises against this plan, we see that she can turn her condescending ruthlessness on him, too. “He’s not my seventh priority, Perry,” she says. “Is that what he is to you?” I’m starting to feel like the way she prioritizes finding Henry above all other concerns may backfire on her in some way. Remember last week, when Perry showed her the ominous, quivering sinkhole in the building, and rather than dealing with it in any real way, she told him to just seal the building off and remain focused on finding Henry? Yeah, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

Perry asks if they’re really putting the arrested collaborators on trial. Of course they’re not. “When you’re done, burn the bodies. It’s faster,” she says, the way you might ask someone to pick up some milk from the grocery store on the way home.

Henry and Sam stay with Edelstein

Henry and Sam meet up with Edelstein, who takes them into the same cramped attic space we saw Kathleen investigate in last week’s episode. Here, it’s not yet covered with Sam’s drawings, as Henry and the doctor discuss their very limited food supply and total lack of ammunition for their guns. Everything that transpires here has an undercurrent of dread for us, since we already know that Edelstein soon gets captured and executed by Kathleen.

Sam, who can’t hear what they’re saying, sits in the corner, drawing on his little magnetic sketch pad. Edelstein seems like a kind and thoughtful man, showing genuine concern for Sam’s well-being. “He’s scared because you’re scared,” he advises Henry.

Screenshot: HBO / Kotaku

Henry goes to comfort his little brother, who has drawn a masked superhero on his pad. “Super Sam,” Henry signs. Sam is understandably afraid, and Henry tries to reassure him that they’re safe here. “There is one problem, though,” he says. “This place? Is ugly.” He then breaks out the big bag of art supplies that Sam uses to decorate the space. It’s an endearing moment, with Henry creating for his younger brother an alternate reality in which the only real problem facing them is the drabness of their surroundings, and not the army hunting them right outside.

The birth of Super Sam

We skip ahead ten days, to find the attic filled with images of Super Sam blasting evil FEDRA officers and flying protectively over the city. But now, a real problem is bearing down on them: they’re almost out of food, and Sam is hungry. Edelstein’s been gone a whole day, and their hopes rest on him returning with some. We already know he’s not coming back. And yet right out the window, Henry can see resistance officers scouring the city, making leaving a dangerous proposition. They’re in a tight spot.

Finally, Henry has to face the fact that Edelstein isn’t returning. He tells Sam that he’s studied the patterns of the resistance patrols and can guide them to safety. When Sam asks if they killed Edelstein, Henry is honest and says they probably did. Sam clings to Henry for a long time after that. He’s a child growing up in a world in which nothing is ever safe or assured. He must be terrified.

Screenshot: HBO / Kotaku

As he holds his brother and looks at the art decorating the walls, Henry has a flash of inspiration. He tells Sam to close his eyes, and paints a red mask on his face, just like the one Sam’s alter ego sports in all the drawings. Seeing it reflected in his brother’s knife, Sam nods with satisfaction. He’s ready to face the world.

They don’t get far, though. Just as they’re about to leave the building, a gunfight breaks out outside. It’s Joel and Ellie’s unceremonious arrival in Kansas City, and Henry observes as Joel kills the hunters attacking him. We see the wheels in his head turning. “New plan,” he tells his brother.

Meeting Joel and Ellie

Now we come back to the moment that concluded episode four, when the paths of these two duos intersect. Henry’s obviously been keeping an eye on Joel since earlier in the day, and he’s tracked him and Ellie to the apartment building where they’ve crashed for the night.

Joel isn’t exactly thrilled about waking up to the reality of being held at gunpoint, but soon they agree to a tentative truce, and Henry introduces himself as “the most wanted man in Kansas City.”

Over a quiet meal, Ellie asks Sam how old he is, and with Henry acting as an interpreter between them, he responds that he’s eight. (In the game, Sam is closer to Ellie’s age of 14, but him being younger here makes me even more sympathetic to how overwhelming and terrifying his experience of the world must be.) Joel, being Joel, says dryly that they successfully ate together and didn’t kill each other, so they should call it a win and move on. But Henry has a card up his sleeve. “I’m betting that y’all came up here to get a view of the city and plan a way out,” he says. “And when the sun’s up, I’ll show you one.”

“Welcome to Killa City”

The next morning, Henry provides Joel (and us) with some additional context for what went down in Kansas City. Looking out at the city, Joel is struck by the lack of FEDRA, especially since he’d always heard that KC FEDRA ruled with an iron fist. Henry confirms the rumors. “Raped and tortured and murdered people for 20 years,” he says. So if Henry wasn’t part of this monstrous FEDRA, Joel wonders, what, then, was he? When Henry replies that he was something even worse, “a collaborator,” Joel protests and says he doesn’t work with rats. Henry insists that today, he doesn’t have much choice, “‘cause I live here and you don’t.” They need each other, Henry argues. Only he knows where to go, and only Joel has the capacity for violence to get them out alive.

This is all quite different from the game, in which Henry and Sam weren’t native to Pittsburgh (where the game’s version of this storyline takes place), but had just come there from Hartford, Connecticut in search of supplies. They had no connection to the resistance that had risen up in Pittsburgh, but just happened to be people who could help Joel and Ellie get out of the city. In both stories, though, Sam lets us see new sides of Ellie by giving her a fellow kid to geek out with and play with, and having another duo traveling with them for a while illuminates Joel’s growing attachment to Ellie and his sense of himself as her protector, no longer just out of obligation but increasingly out of genuine care and concern.

As the two talk, the sound of kids laughing can be heard nearby. Ellie is showing Sam her tattered book of jokes, and a genuine smile stretches across Henry’s face. “Haven’t heard that in a long time,” he says, mirroring a moment from the game in which Ellie and Sam playfully eat blueberries together and Henry says it’s been a long time since he saw Sam crack a smile.

Perhaps counterintuitively, I find these moments of fleeting happiness among the most devastating in both the game and the show, because I know how things end for Henry and Sam. Their fate is so awful, so bleak, that it makes me think back to Ellie’s question to Joel in episode four: “If you don’t think there’s hope for the world, why bother going on?” I’m once again glad that the TV series at least offered us the reprieve of Bill and Frank, giving us one vision of lives lived well and with meaning, to temper how relentlessly hopeless it all gets for a while.

Henry’s plan

Henry sketches a map of the area showing how Kathleen’s forces have the area on lock. Still, there is a way out, he insists. Sam sits nearby sketching, but Henry doesn’t want him left out of the conversation. “How do we get across?” he signs at his brother. Sam writes intently on his pad for a moment, then holds it up. “TUNNELS.” It’s a great plan, but there’s a huge catch. Kansas City may seem strangely lacking in Infected, but there’s a reason for that. “FEDRA drove them underground 15 years ago,” Henry says. He insists, though, that FEDRA cleaned out the tunnels three years ago. Just what that means or how exactly they did that remains ominously unspoken, almost as if the show’s writers want to plant a seed in our minds about it. Nah, I’m sure it won’t come up again. Henry admits that the plan is “dicey-as-fuck,” but it’s also the only plan they’ve got.

This drawing also appears in the game, where it’s linked to an entire little narrative arc of its own.Screenshot: HBO / Kotaku

As they head down into the tunnels, Joel tells Ellie to get her gun out, and it looks like Ellie has to suppress a smile as he’s finally fully shifted from relentlessly denying her a gun to asking her to be ready to use one. However, the tunnels do indeed appear empty, vastly, surprisingly empty, stretching hollowly before them as far as the eye can see. Joel stays on guard but nothing is stirring in these subterranean passageways, and at last they come to a place that looks quite different, where the walls are decorated with the kinds of colorful drawings you might see at a preschool. Passing through a door, they find an abandoned place where people—adults and children—clearly once lived. Amidst all the details—the toys, the posted signs laying out rules, all the other signs of life—one thing stands out: a child’s drawing of two smiling men in body armor, with rifles, labeled “our protectors,” Danny and Ish. And here’s where we come to the episode’s great little nod to the game.

Who is Ish?

First, a little background. In the game, Joel and Ellie’s journey with Henry and Sam briefly takes them along a beach where you can enter a battered old boat and find a note. (Considering that this is near Pittsburgh, that probably makes about as much sense as the beginning of episode two being set “10 miles west of Boston.”) The note is signed by someone named Ish (perhaps a reference to Moby Dick’s sea-faring narrator Ishmael) and details how, after spending some time at sea to hide from the outbreak, he eventually found himself running low on supplies and his boat in disrepair, and returned to shore to take his chances with humanity again.

Ish’s boat on the beach near Pittsburgh, which, yeah, probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. Screenshot: Naughty Dog / Kotaku

From there, you head into nearby sewers, where you can find a small area where Ish lived alone for some time after coming ashore. A note of his you can find there mentions that he met some people who had kids with them and who did not want to shoot him on sight. “Shocking I know,” he comments. The encounter puts the idea in his head that maybe it’s better for him to try trusting other people than it is to continue living alone. “What’s the point of surviving if you don’t have someone to laugh at your corny jokes?” his note reads, a question that cuts to the heart of The Last of Us’ themes. “Tomorrow, I’m going in search of them.”

Soon, you come to a place that’s very much like the one the party finds in the TV series, where Ish lived with other adults and children. In fact, the very same drawing of Ish and another adult named Danny that we see in the show is seen here in the game. Unfortunately, environmental clues also tell us that at some point, infected did get into the settlement, and the results were tragic, with another adult named Kyle and a few children getting trapped in a room by infected, and Kyle killing the children himself to spare them an even worse fate. Another note that you can find in the suburbs upon leaving the sewers reveals that he and a woman named Susan got out, but it’s excruciating to read. “She lost her children,” it says, “and I have no clue what to say to her.”

It concludes with Ish writing that every part of his being wants to give up, but he just can’t. “I’ve seen that we’re still capable of good. We can make it. I have to stay strong… for her.” What happened to him after that remains unknown.

Very often, I feel that Easter eggs are kind of exclusionary. They wink and nod to those people who are in the know, letting those viewers perhaps feel smug about picking up on cool details that fly over the rest of the audience’s heads. This drawing on the wall, though, works either way, I think. If you haven’t played the game, it offers some insight into what life was like here in this underground settlement at one time, and if you do know it from the game, it opens up a whole other narrative to you. A tragedy nested within a tragedy. Right about now, The Last of Us just feels like tragedies all the way down.

Savage Starlight

Sam finds a copy of a Savage Starlight comic, which in the game serves as a collectible Joel can find throughout and give to Ellie. Ellie is immediately stoked at Sam’s find, and the two of them bond over their shared enthusiasm for the series, trading details about which issues they each have. One particularly sweet moment sees Ellie quoting the hero’s catchphrase of “Endure and survive” and Sam teaching it to her in ASL. God, I want these kids to make it. (Around this same stretch of the game, Ellie will occasionally say “Endure and survive” after Joel has finished taking out a group of enemies and it seems like the two are safe for the time being.)

Ellie and Sam play soccer in the game in a moment referenced in the show.Screenshot: Naughty Dog / Kotaku

Other moments here are direct nods to the game, like one when Ellie and Sam play soccer using a makeshift goal painted on the wall. However, a conversation between Joel and Henry that sheds further light on his connection to Kathleen is totally new. Joel apologizes for having called Henry a rat before, saying that if Henry did what he did for Sam’s sake, he understands. Henry finally tells Joel exactly what it is he did do, and why. He paints a picture of a great man, one who “was never afraid, never selfish, and he was always forgiving.” He’s clearly talking about Kathleen’s brother, who he wanted to follow, and would have followed, if only.

“But Sam, he got sick. Leukemia.” And wouldn’t you know it, FEDRA had control of the very limited supply of the only drug that could treat him. So he made a deal, and gave FEDRA what they wanted. He’s still wracked with guilt about it, but the world presented him with an impossible choice that he never should have had to make in the first place. Rather than offer any words of comfort or understanding, though, Joel just says “We’ve waited long enough.” It’s time to move on.

Kathleen and Michael

We find Kathleen standing in her childhood bedroom, in a clearly abandoned house. And as she tells Perry about her brother—who we learn here was named Michael—and how he’d always comfort her during thunderstorms when they were kids, all I could think was, “Oh my god, shut up.” She’s the type of person who’s so convinced that her pain and suffering matter so much more than everyone else’s, that hunting down Henry is good and righteous because he took her brother from her, even though he only did it because it was the only way to save his own brother. Of course her pain and grief are real, but the extremes she’s going to in her pursuit of Henry make me lose all sympathy for her. She’s an egomaniac.

In fact, even her own brother’s wishes don’t matter to her, much as she might pretend to be honoring his life or his memory in this act. “He was so beautiful,” she says about Michael. “I’m not. I never was.” She knows Michael would want her to forgive Henry. He outright told her that when FEDRA had him locked up right before they killed him. But her pain is just too important to her for her to do that. And Perry is happy to validate her worst impulses. “Your brother was a great man. We all loved him,” he says. “But he didn’t change anything. You did. We’re with you.” Thanks, Perry. Big help. I’m sure that won’t encourage Kathleen to do something even more selfish and reckless than all the things she’s already done.

Sniper on the street

Joel and the gang emerge outside of Kathleen’s territory in a suburban neighborhood that seems safe at first glance, and the mood is relatively light as Ellie begins does her best Joel impression and encourages Henry and Sam to come with them to Wyoming. (In the game, Henry and Sam are already planning to track down the Fireflies, but here, they just want to get out of Kansas City for starters.) The calm is broken, however, when a sniper bullet strikes the ground near them and they dash behind a wrecked car for cover, plunging us into a sequence that owes a lot to the game.

The Pittsburgh suburbs section leading up to the sniper encounter is perhaps the game at its most ruinously beautiful.Screenshot: Naughty Dog / Kotaku

Sniper bullets continue to rain down on them, and just as in the game, Joel opts to sneak around and try to come at the sniper from behind. In the game, though, what you find in the sniper’s perch is a young man with a knife, prompting a grisly button-mashing sequence in which you ultimately turn the blade on the man and stab him with it repeatedly. Here, Joel finds an older man, one of Kathleen’s faithful, who refuses Joel’s plea to just drop the gun, instead cementing his own death by turning the gun on Joel. Just then, Kathleen’s voice crackles over a radio. “Hold them where they are,” she says. “We’re almost there.”

“It ends the way it ends”

In the game, the one repurposed Humvee the Pittsburgh resistance claimed from FEDRA soon arrives, but here, Kathleen’s forces are much more well-equipped, and a number of vehicles are soon barreling down on Ellie, Henry, and Sam. Just as in the game, Joel provides cover with the sniper rifle, and here he takes out the driver of the truck leading the charge, sending it careening into a nearby house where it promptly explodes.

Read More: HBO’s The Last Of Us Just Nailed One Of The Game’s Best Moments

Still, Kathleen’s forces close in. Perry sends men after Joel, and Kathleen begins to address Henry, revealing that her hypocrisy and self-importance know no bounds. “I know why you did what you did,” she says, “but did you ever stop to think that maybe [Sam] was supposed to die?” When Henry protests that Sam is just a kid, she replies that kids die “all the time.” That may be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that by her moral calculus, Sam’s life should have been totally disregarded, while Michael’s life should have been prioritized above all. In one truly staggering moment of cognitive dissonance, she says “You think the whole world revolves around him?” as if she isn’t acting like the whole world revolves around her quest for vengeance.

Finally, Henry emerges. “It ends the way it ends,” Kathleen says as she raises her gun to kill him. This calls for a deus ex machina, baby!

Something wicked this way bloats

Just then, the truck nearby teeters and falls as the earth beneath it yawns open, and an absolute tidal wave of speedy infected rise up out of it, a kind of cosmic retribution for Kathleen’s hubris. (A mob of infected also bear down on the group during this sequence in the game, but it’s nothing like this.) Huh, I guess FEDRA didn’t really deal with the infected problem after all, they just tried to brush it aside. Showrunner Craig Mazin knows a thing or two about writing stories where institutions do that, I guess, having worked on Chernobyl as well.

Screenshot: HBO / Kotaku

Suddenly Kathleen’s considerable show of force feels quite impotent, as the assault rifles have little effect in stemming the tide of death. Joel does the best he can to cover his allies amidst the chaos, but Ellie gets separated from Henry and Sam and climbs into an old SUV. Just then, a guttural growl unlike any sound we’ve heard an infected make thus far is heard, and a very different beast emerges from the sinkhole, a formidable, fungus-encrusted chonker of an infected called a bloater, a boss-type enemy from the game. Kathleen’s forces don’t have any of the molotov cocktails or nail bombs I usually use to take these bad boys down, so I think they’re pretty much fucked.

Read More: What Was That Giant Infected In Episode 5 Of The Last Of Us?

Perry peppers the thing with bullets but they clearly have little effect aside from making it mad. As it bears down on him, he urges Kathleen to get to cover, then turns to face his fate, which is having his head ripped clean off in a death consistent with one of the game’s most horrifying death animations.

Meanwhile, Ellie has a guest in her little SUV sanctuary: a creepy infected who was also a teenage girl before getting turned. Ellie heads out onto the street where she sees Henry and Sam pinned down by infected under a nearby car. With Joel’s help and a few stabs of her trusty switchblade—her signature weapon in the game—she gets them out and they make a run for it. Kathleen stops them yet again, but her success is short-lived, as a young infected—who I think but I’m not certain is the same one that chased Ellie out of the vehicle a moment before—leaps on her and absolutely shreds her to bits. It ends the way it ends.

As Joel leads them away from the chaos, we see the mob of infected, including the bloater, lurching its way back toward Kansas City. Nice going, Kathleen. Great job.

“I’m scared of ending up alone”

Joel and the gang have found shelter in an old motel for the night. In the game, there’s a nice moment here where Henry presses Joel for details about the time Joel and his brother Tommy rode Harley-Davidsons on a cross-country trip. That detail’s been omitted from the show, but the general arc of how things play out here is pretty similar.

“You think they’ll be okay?” Henry asks about the kids as they read Savage Starlight together in the next room, and Joel, in his own taciturn way, offers a kind of comfort to Henry, as a fellow protector of a young charge. It’s easier when you’re a kid, he says. “You don’t have anybody else relying on you. That’s the hard part.” Then comes a bit of playful meta-dialogue as Joel says, “What’s that comic book say? ‘Endure and survive’?” “Endure and survive,” Henry says. Then, after a moment: “That shit’s redundant.” “Yeah, it’s not great,” Joel agrees.

And now, as Ellie jokingly predicted earlier, Joel does indeed invite Henry and Sam to join them on the trip to Wyoming. It’s another one of those seemingly pleasant, hopeful moments that I find all the more painful because we’ll never get to see what might have come to pass if only the world they lived in were a little less dangerous and cruel. “Yeah, I think it’d be nice for Sam to have a friend,” Henry says. “New day, new start.” Okay, writers. Now you’re deliberately twisting the knife, jeeze.

Screenshot: HBO / Kotaku

Though Henry urges Sam to get some sleep, he and Ellie stay up for a bit, Ellie doing different voices as she reads Savage Starlight aloud. But Sam is preoccupied. “Are you ever scared?” he writes on his pad, a question he effectively asks her aloud in the game. (“How is it that you’re never scared?”) Just like in the game, Ellie first jokes that she’s afraid of scorpions, before admitting that what really scares her is the possibility of ending up alone.

In the game, when Ellie asks Sam what he’s scared of, he brings up infected. “What if the people are still inside?” he asks, and it’s the first time that the game directly engages with a terrifying idea that the show brings up early on: whether the person an infected once was remains somehow present and aware, even as they lose all control over their body. The game’s Ellie dismisses the idea, saying “that person is not in there anymore.” Her counterpart in the show, however, seems a bit more troubled by the idea.

The game’s Sam keeps his bite a secret, but in the show, after asking Ellie, “If you turn into a monster, is it still you inside?” he lifts the leg of his jeans to show her the nasty wound. Ellie here does something strange and sweet and hopeless: she cuts her own hand to draw blood and press it into the bite, telling Sam, “My blood is medicine.” If only it were that simple.

What happens the next morning is so awful, I don’t even want to bring myself to write it. If you’re reading this recap, you probably know, and if you don’t, I think you can guess.

Screenshot: HBO

As they bury the bodies near the motel, Ellie sets Sam’s sketchpad atop his grave. On it, she’s written the words “I’m sorry.” She’s withdrawn and just wants to leave. You have to wonder if she isn’t starting to give up on the world herself. Meanwhile, as he looks at the message she’s written, Joel seems, if anything, more committed to Ellie than ever. Something in his face suggests that he wants to spare her an existence made up of this kind of relentless suffering. He collects his gear, picks up the sniper rifle (new weapon unlocked!), and they head west.

As I said above, I find this week’s episode excruciating, so miserable in its outcome that in retrospect, even the few bright spots make it more agonizing. I don’t know about you but good lord, after all this, I sure hope these two catch a bit of a break soon.

I don’t know if I’ve ever actually discussed this on Fine Art before, it’s just something we have to work with in the background and I haven’t wanted to bore you with the details, but you should know that video game artists are rarely, if ever, allowed to just share their work whenever and however they want.

Working on a video game, whether you’re a studio employee or freelancing or employed by an outsourcing company, means in most cases signing away your artistic life. The stuff you make for the game usually belongs to the people making the game, and even when it’s done, sometimes you’re not allowed to share everything you did, or if you are you need to wait for a certain amount of time to pass.

It’s dumb, but then, no more so than any other aspect of video game development that’s steeped in legal bullshit. Anyway! Hopefully that answers any questions you may have had over the last decade and change as to why these features run weeks, months and sometimes even years after a big game is released; the answer is usually because it took that long for artists to be allowed to share their stuff publicly!

Which is a very long-winded way of saying welcome to this gallery showcasing the incredible work that went into the creation of God of War Ragnarök, a blockbuster that was a lot of people’s game of the year for 2022. As usual for a feature of this size—we ran one earlier this week!—it’s not everyone who worked in every area of the game’s development, but it’s a nice cross-section. Indeed this feature is so big, and showcases so much stuff from so many talented people, that I only really had the bandwidth to feature illustration work (you can see a lot more stuff at this art blast).

As usual, you can check out more of each artist’s stuff in the hyperlinks found in their names below.

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While TV show The Last of Us remained very faithful to the PlayStation, it is sometimes deviated significantly. Episode three, which aired last night, featured the biggest change from the source material yet, and co-creators Neil Druckman and Craig Mazin did their best to explain why in a new interview with IGN.

Spoiler Warning: The following post details the main plot points of the game and the series. If you haven’t played or seen either yet, now is your chance to brake and turn around.

Entitled “Long, Long Time”, episode 3 of TV show The Last of Us finally introduces Bill, a belligerent but no-bullshit survivalist played by Nick Offerman (Parks And Recreation, Devs). The play alludes to Bill having a romantic relationship with a man named Frank, but never goes into specifics. Last night’s episode not only delved into the relationship in detail via flashbacks, it also changed the way it ended.

“When we got to this part of the season, Craig brought up a really interesting point which is…there are a lot of examples of things not going well for people, and a lot of times it’s musings and stories. uplifting for Joel of ‘here what you stand to lose,’” Druckmann told IGN. “It was, what if we showed them what you could bear to win?”

In the game, Bill helps Joel and Ellie find a truck they can use to head west. Bitter and rude, he is the only person left in a town called Lincoln, surrounded by infected and his homemade traps. He explains to the couple that caring about others is a surefire way to get themselves killed, mentioning a close partner he’s tried to take care of in the past. This partner is later revealed to have hanged himself after being infected, writing in a note that it was ultimately even better than staying with Bill.

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In the show, Bill is already gone by the time Joel and Ellie arrive in Lincoln. And viewers get to see how Frank, played by Murray Bartlett (Looking, The White Lotus), first meets Bill, as well as bits and pieces of the 20-year relationship that followed. Frank eventually becomes debilitated by a terminal illness and Bill helps them both take their own lives together. When Joel and Ellie arrive, they find a letter from Bill talking about how protecting Frank after the outbreak was precisely what had made his life worth living, a complete reversal from what happens in the game. The change was apparently Mazin’s idea, though Druckman warmed up to it when they did the math on how it would help support the rest of the story.

“I think it is a happy ending,” Mazin told IGN. “I think we tend to view death as failure, particularly when you’re talking about playing a video game. It is literally failure. And for our show so far, there’s been some brutal moments where Joel has failed or at least perceives that he’s failed: he failed his daughter, he’s failed Tess, and he’s certainly feeling that weight at both the beginning and end of this episode.”

It’s this sort of compassion and hope that The Last Of Us was arguably missing, and Druckman said the changed plot point also served as a warning sign for Joel; that, without someone to take care of, surviving just to survive is pointless. It’s also the sort of deviation Druckman would have said “fuck no” to in the past, he told IGN. “Are we better in this version of the story, in this other medium, or are we worse?” he said. “If we’re better, we should embrace it fully. And this was such a beautiful story. It was very easy for me to say, ‘Let’s do it. Sounds amazing.’”

A former employee sued Justin Roiland’s Squanch Games, creator of recent Xbox Game Pass hit High On Life, in 2018 for alleged sexual harassment, discrimination and wrongful termination. According to court documents, the studio denied the claims but later settled, and the lawsuit, while long-running, raises questions about the work culture at Squanch Games, especially after co-founder Roiland s was recently revealed to be facing domestic violence charges from 2020.

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in August 2018 on behalf of former Squanch Games designer Sarah Doukakos and alleges she was sexually harassed and belittled by then-technical director Jeff Dixon. He further alleges that despite numerous complaints to his managers, including co-founder and then chief executive, Tanya Watson, the behavior was never addressed. Instead, the lawsuit claims Doukakos was fired for poor performance and then pressured by Watson to sign a liability waiver as part of her severance package.

Doukakos and Watson did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Dixon referred Kotaku to Squanch Games for comment.

“Squanch Games is committed to creating an inclusive and supportive work environment for our team,” a Squanch Games spokesperson told Kotaku in an emailed statement. “We do not publicly disclose personnel matters, and we maintain the decision we made in 2017, not to disclose confidential information related to this matter.”

According to the lawsuit, Dixon allegedly forced Doukakos to give unwanted hugs, questioned her intelligence and competence, and once told her that a t-shirt she wore saying ‘The future is female’ made him sad. . The lawsuit also says Doukakos informed his managers of the issues, even going so far as to ask one of them, Erich Meyr, currently Squanch Games’ design director, to pitch his game development ideas to Dixon. instead so that they are taken seriously.

The lawsuit also alleges another manager, Anthony Bosco, told Watson about the issues but she just “sighed” in response. Things would not have improved when Doukakos spoke directly to Watson. The lawsuit reads as follows:

On August 11, 2017, the plaintiff spoke to Watson and expressed her issues with Mr. Dixon, including the unwanted touching and how Dixon would treat the plaintiff differently because she was a woman. In response, Watson told the claimant, “that’s how this generation of guys are” and asked the claimant to sit quietly, take notes, and smile whenever the men, including Dixon, were talking. The plaintiff explicitly told Watson that the plaintiff should not have to act any differently as a woman to be heard.

Meyr and Bosco did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

2019’s Trover Saves the Universe was Squanch Games’ third release and featured Justin Roiland’s voice acting. Picture: Squanch Games

The lawsuit goes on to allege that, despite receiving positive performance feedback from her managers (including Watson) in August, she was put on a performance improvement plan the following month. During an ensuing “crisis” period, the lawsuit says she worked 12-hour days while pushing back on some made-for-game content that allegedly included rape-like scenes and woman-disparaging remarks. While the lawsuit doesn’t specify what the project was, a former employee told Kotaku that the project in question was Squanch Games’ 2019 action platformer Trover Saves the Universe.

Doukakos was eventually fired on November 1 for performance issues, but the lawsuit alleges it was actually retaliation for her complaints. He even claims that Watson pressured Doukakos to sign a release of all claims against the studio in order to receive his final paycheck and severance package. While Squanch Games’ court documents in the case deny all allegations against him, the two sides eventually settled in September 2019. It’s unclear what the terms of that settlement were. Dixon left the studio shortly after Doukakos was fired and Watson left in February 2021.

Although Roiland is not mentioned at all in the lawsuit, he has been CEO of Squanch Games since he co-founded the studio with Watson in 2016. Yesterday, as first reported by NBC News, it was revealed that Roiland was facing two felony domestic violence charges as of January 2020, one for domestic battery and another for forcible confinement. He has pleaded not guilty to both, but there is currently no trial date.

Meanwhile, High on Life, Squanch Games’ latest release, would have been Xbox Game Pass’s biggest launch of 2022. Like the hit animated show Roiland co-created, Rick and Morty, the game split its crude humor and extended antics, which some loved but others found. incredibly creaky.

Picture: Riot Games/Netflix

Have you ever turned off your PC, or your PS5, or whatever, after hours of rainbow lights and eyebrow sweat and thinking, “Ugh, I really wish I could do this some more , except a little differently and on the streaming service of my choice”? You do? As it is a coincidence. I’ve put together a list of all the great video game adaptations – the good ones, the bad ones, and the only OK ones – currently streaming for free.

I wish this list had been weighted toward “good,” but the state of video game adaptations is a sad and sick puppy. Newer, shrewder, and emotive shows like Castlevania and Arcane (both of which make the “best” part of this list) seem to be slowly adding games to the prestige-adjacent mixing bowl, but the vintage duds and flaccid presence of Tom Holland cannot be ignored. Here is a bit of everything. Popcorn not included.

The best of the best

Castlevania

In a nutshell: Netflix’s adaptation of Konami’s gothic action-adventure series Castlevania brought Count Vlad Dracula Țepeș to pain in the Romanian region of Wallachia after he wronged his wife. Square-jawed hero Trevor Belmont has a problem with that.

What it scored: 94% on Rotten Tomatoes

Release date: July 7, 2017

Streaming on: Netflix

Dota: Dragon’s Blood

In a nutshell: Another anime adaptation from Netflix, this time of Valve’s multiplayer online battle arena Dota 2. War-worn Dragon Knight Davion shares soul and power with the slightly evil dragon Slyrak. whom he found dying. It may be to his detriment.

What he scored: 75% on Rotten Tomatoes

Release date: March 25, 2021

Streaming on: Netflix

Esoteric

In a nutshell: Riot Games’ collaboration with French animation studio Fortiche (of which it also has a non-majority stake) is inspired by its MOBA League of Legends. Violet protects her trigger-loving sister Powder as much as she can while navigating a class conflict between the seedy town of Zaun and the glittering Piltover. It is also distributed by Netflix. This post is not sponsored by Netflix.

What he scored: 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

Release date: November 6, 2021

Streaming on: Netflix

Halo

In a nutshell: this live-action television series based on Halo, Bungie’s first-person shooter franchise, is produced by Steven Spielberg and made for Paramount+. Commitment, a devoted alien alliance, wants to end humanity. Wrapped in green armor and born to fight back, super soldier Master Chief won’t let him.

What he scored: 70% on Rotten Tomatoes

Release date: March 24, 2022

Broadcast on: Paramount+

The Cuphead Show!

In a nutshell: The aptly titled The Cuphead Show! is Netflix’s animated version of the run-and-gun game Cuphead. Cuphead and Mugman – their heads are a cup and mug respectively – have fun in Inkwell Isles while the devil tries and fails to take Cuphead’s soul. There are musical numbers.

What he scored: 69% on Rotten Tomatoes

Release date: February 18, 2022

Streaming on: Netflix

Nier: Automata Ver1.1a

In a nutshell: PlatinumGames’ upcoming Nier: Automata action role-playing anime will feature android battle 2b fight the invading aliens on behalf of humanity.

What he scored: 4.8 out of 5 on Crunchyroll.

Release date: January 7, 2023

Aired on: Crunchyroll

The last of us

In a nutshell: The soon-to-be-released HBO drama brought to you by Naughty Dog’s zombie-infested survival horror franchise, The Last of Us, has already caused quite the buzz. Joel, played by Pedro Pascal, smuggles 14-year-old Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey, through the destroyed United States.

What he scored: TBD

Release date: January 15, 2023

Broadcast on: HBO Max

success or failure

Mega Man: Fully Charged

In a nutshell: This brightly colored take on Capcom’s Mega Man sci-fi franchise is an adaptation aimed at kids. Robot boy Aki Light defends Silicon City from evil robots. He also has a robot sidekick named Mega Mini and a robot dog. And it’s a robot.

What it scored: 3.5 out of 5 on Google Reviews

Release date: August 5, 2018

Streaming on: Amazon Prime

Legends of Mortal Kombat: Revenge of the Scorpion

In a word: Warner Bros.’ The animated film based on the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise is perhaps a straight-to-DVD sleeper hit. Ninja Hanzo Hasashi, or Scorpion, kills a group of people in the intergalactic Mortal Kombat tournament, hoping to avenge his family.

What it scored: 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, 3.4 out of 5 on Letterboxd

Release date: April 14, 2020

Broadcast on: HBO Max

The Legend of Zelda

In a nutshell: An early entry, the 1989 animated series follows Link and Princess Zelda, the cherubic protagonists of the fantastic The Legend of Zelda franchise. They must protect Hyrule from Ganon, a warthog-like wizard who wears a pretty purple cap.

What it scored: six out of ten on IMDB

Release date: September 8, 1989

Streaming on: Amazon Freevee, The Roku Channel, Tubi

Unexplored

In a nutshell: Naughty Dog’s action-adventure game gets the Tom Holland treatment in this Sony blockbuster. Nathan Drake (Holland), with the help of Sully (Mark Wahlberg,) finds his missing brother and the supposed treasure of Ferdinand Magellan.

What it scored: 41% on Rotten Tomatoes, 2.8 out of 5 on Letterboxd

Release date: February 18, 2022

Streaming on: Netflix

For more background noise, check out Sonic Prime (Netflix), Injustice (HBO Max, Amazon Prime), or Rabbids Invasion (Netflix).

…and the worst

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

In a nutshell: Angelina Jolie plays Lara Croft, the tank top, mud-splattered archaeologist who defines (initially) Square Enix’s Tomb Raider franchise. Croft must stop the Illuminati from using an ancient artifact to ruin the world. There are time travel and puzzles.

What it scored: 20% on Rotten Tomatoes, 2.6 out of 5 on Letterboxd

Release date: June 11, 2001

Broadcast on: HBO Max

resident Evil

In a nutshell: Director Paul WS Anderson, who is also behind the lukewarm adaptations Mortal Kombat (1995) and Monster Hunter (2020), is taking over the survival horror franchise Resident Evil. Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up with amnesia. She must take down the Umbrella Corporation while her nefarious biological experiments turn people into zombies.

What it scored: 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, 2.9 out of 5 on Letterboxd

Release date: March 12, 2002

Streaming on: Netflix

Hitman: Agent 47

In a nutshell: Genetically altered (he’s still bald, though), Agent 47 (Rupert Friend) is an uncompromising assassin. He helps Katia van Dees (Hannah Ware) find her father, who coincidentally made him a super killer.

What it scored: 8% on Rotten Tomatoes, 2.1 out of 5 on Letterboxd

Release date: August 21, 2015

Streaming on: Hulu

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

In a nutshell: a Street Fighter spin-off, produced in part by publisher Capcom, features Chun-Li (Kristen Kreuk) as she tries to defeat evil crime boss M. Bison (Neal McDonough) after he kidnapped his father. An ancient Chinese scroll helps him enter Street Fighter mode.

What it scored: 3% on Rotten Tomatoes, 1.4 out of 5 on Letterboxd

Release date: February 27, 2009

Streaming on: HBO Max, Hulu with HBO Max add-on

To encourage your brain to pop out of your ears, also consider watching Warcraft (fuboTV, Hulu with Live TV), Max Payne (HBO Max, Hulu, and Amazon Prime with HBO add-on), Silent Hill (Hulu), or Silent Hill: Revelation (HBO Max)

What’s your favorite video game adaptation? Does the perfect fit exist?