The Verge’s entertainment section collects the latest news from the worlds of pop culture, music, movies, television, and video games. Whether you want to know what to watch on Netflix or how to make the most of your streaming service budget, the entertainment section acts a reliable source. There’s simply too much to read, watch, hear, and play. Let us be your tour guide.
The Weeknd just shared a teaser of his upcoming appearance in Fortnite Festival, the new in-Fortnite music-themed experience developed by Harmonix, and it features a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it look at what it’s like to actually play Festival. You can jump into the new experience starting December 9th.
According to Rockstar’s press release for the just-released Grand Theft Auto VI trailer, the game will launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X / S in 2025 — PC isn’t a listed platform.
Unfortunately, the absence of PC isn’t too surprising, given that the PC version of GTA V was released more than a year and a half after the game first came out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Seems like we might be waiting awhile for GTA VI on PC, too.
In a trailer for the new “No Return” mode (which might get buried by... you know), you can see how you’ll be able to play as different TLOU characters and take on zombies while dealing with “unique gameplay modifiers” (like one that appears to make a zombie invisible).
The mode will be included with The Last of Us Part II Remastered, which is set to release on January 19th.
The influences of Godzilla Minus One go beyond the atom bomb
Director Takashi Yamazaki opens up about taking the king of monsters back to its roots for a modern audience.
Adventures, which remix some of the game’s content, will launch first on PC and Xbox and “later” on Nintendo Switch and mobile, according to Poncle’s trailer for the update. The developer is teasing that one of the Adventures will feature Poe, a garlic-wielding old man.
I thought I had shaken my obsession with this game, but the Adventures might pull me back in.
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon reached theaters first on October 20th, and starting tomorrow, December 5th, the movie will go on sale via the usual digital outlets in over 100 countries in a collaboration with Paramount.
But when will the Apple Studios-produced historical crime drama become available globally on the company’s own subscription streaming service? There’s no release date listed yet.
Very soon, you’ll be able to stream Barbie’s existential crisis and Ken’s shenanigans on Max. You’ll also be able to watch a version of the film interpreted in American Sign Language, according to a Warner Bros. Discovery press release.
It’s not technically off for everyone: the judge ordered Epic and Google to discuss a settlement this week while court is out of session. But the judge, jury, and journalists won’t be back until Monday, December 11th — that’s when we’re coming back for closing arguments (unless, of course, they settle).
Meanwhile, I’m working on an epic recap of everything we’ve learned. Stay tuned for that!
Oh, in case you missed it on Friday:
That’s my best “V-from-Cyberpunk-2077’s-update-2.1-sitting-at-the-bar-(who-is-also-a-fan-of-The-Office)” impression; in the new update, which is out on Tuesday, “it is now possible to sit at various bars in Night City and interact with the vendors,” according to CD Projekt Red’s patch notes.
Based on the patch notes, it looks like the update adds a ton of new features and bug fixes. The update, which CDPR says will launch at about 6AM ET, will also let you ride public transit.
Update 2.1 is planned to be the “last big update” for Cyberpunk 2077, a CDPR spokesperson confirmed to IGN.
Update December 4th, 12:41PM ET: Added that Update 2.1 is the game’s last major update.
[Home of the Cyberpunk 2077 universe — games, anime & more]
Spotify’s stock is currently up about 7 percent following the announcement that the company is laying off 17 percent of its staff. If CEO Daniel Ek is trying to appease investors with a new focus on efficiency, it is working. More than 1,500 of Spotify’s employees will be notified by tomorrow afternoon that they are out of a job.
Comcast CEO Mike Cavanagh revealed the number during the UBS Global Media and Communications on Monday, where he also said the company rakes in about $10 per user every month. Peacock axed its free plan for new subscribers earlier this year and recently raised prices across its two remaining tiers.
We knew the time, and now we know the place. Rockstar Games has published the YouTube link where it will premiere Trailer 1 for the next Grand Theft Auto game on Tuesday, December 5th, at 9AM ET. Wario64 notes that the clip should be 91 seconds long.
Here’s the official trailer for Legendary’s next Monsterverse movie. I don’t know what’s going on in it other than that Godzilla’s atomic fire is pink and King Kong has a Thanos glove for some reason.
Also, there’s a baby Kong, which I assume means King Kong dies at the end like in the Linda Hamilton film King Kong Lives.
The New Empire hits theaters worldwide on April 10th next year.
A better way to YouTube
Plus, in this week’s Installer: Tesla’s Cybertruck, Spotify Wrapped, the apps of the year, Wordle, and more.
YouTuber Charles Cornell recently broke down the unassailable soundtrack of Streets of Rage 2, and his glee mirrors the feelings I’ve had about that song collection for the last cough years.
While you’re watching, check out The Verge’s interview with Yuzo Koshiro, the game’s composer.
Kotaku wrote yesterday that PlayStation owners will lose “previously purchased Discovery content” on December 31st after a change in Sony’s licensing agreements.
There’s almost nothing to mourn in Sony’s list of disappearing shows (apart from 20 seasons of Mythbusters, that is), but it’s an annoying reminder of the woefully ethereal nature of online digital entertainment.
I mean that literally, at least judging from the lighting-challenged clip from Discovery’s fifth and final season, which Paramount Plus shared today at Brazil’s CCXP 2023.
In what looks like almost the dead of night, Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Book (David Ajala) try not to get killed by giant cloaking aliens with lava faces.
Warner Bros Discovery debuted the season 2 trailer for House of the Dragon at CCXP in Brazil today. The season’s eight episodes will start streaming on Max in summer 2024.
The Hollywood Reporter writes that House of the Dragon is bringing in some new actors, as well:
The production also announced additional actors joining the show: Clinton Liberty as Addam of Hull, Jamie Kenna as Ser Alfred Broome, Kieran Bew as Hugh, Tom Bennett as Ulf, Tom Taylor as Lord Cregan Stark and Vincent Regan as Ser Rickard Thorne.
Amazon Prime just released the season 4 teaser trailer for The Boys at CCXP in Brazil. There’s plenty of the show’s familiar satire of the US’ political and societal landscape in it, and Homelander looks like as much of a nightmare as ever.
The season comes next year.
Amazon Prime video is counting down to something to do with the new Fallout show that’s coming next year. A “live report from Galaxy News” on YouTube has a camera pointed at a Valut-Tec vault that almost certainly doesn’t have any dead people and giant roaches in it.
We’ve got a little over 30 minutes until whatever is going to happen happens.
Here’s a fun guessing game for your Saturday morning. Chris Rosales of The Drive took a Lexus LC 500 for a spin over several days to find the locations used in Gran Turismo 7’s Scapes photo mode and recreate the shots himself.
I embedded one of the images here, but be sure to head over to the article to see the rest.
Ahead of The Big Bang event happening at 2PM ET, Epic has released a quick look at the game’s impending Chapter 5. It includes a new island, a train to ride, some revamped movement mechanics, and the ability to heal and move at the same time. Talk about innovation. Oh, and as the leaks suggested, both Peter Griffin and Solid Snake are there. Players now have just a few hours left to enjoy the nostalgia of Fortnite OG.
Leading the way is the biggest monster of all, as Godzilla Minus One hits theaters. Also in theaters: John Woo’s Christmas-themed revenge movie Silent Night.
Elsewhere, season 2 of Netflix’s survival horror series Sweet Home is now streaming, the latest Indiana Jones is on Disney Plus, Baldur’s Gate 3 just got a huge update, and Fortnite OG is about to end with The Big Bang event.
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Or maybe it’s Berkely, CA, or Cambridge, MA, or some other college town. Enough people were confused about Spotify’s latest Wrapped to spur articles in the New York Times and Washington Post, and Spotify is extending 2023’s audio recap season by explaining how they were assigned:
Sound Towns selected for eligible users are made up of two factors: a user’s most-streamed artists of the year, and the way in which those artists are streamed in other cities. It’s objective and driven by a user’s listening history.
If what that has to do with your music listening habits isn’t immediately clear, it also posted the top ten lists for each city. Noah Kahan, Sza, and Lizzy McAlpine took the top three spots in Burlington.
From an interview with Windows Central:
We have a service that is financially viable, meaning it makes money, in Game Pass. We’ve put a lot of money into the market, over a billion dollars a year supporting third-party games coming into Game Pass.
Spencer also says that the company “has no plans to bring Game Pass to PlayStation or Nintendo;” earlier this week, Xbox CFO Tim Stuart said that Microsoft is interested in bringing Game Pass to “every screen that can play games” including “what we would have thought of as competitors in the past like PlayStation and Nintendo,” as reported by GameSpot.
Windows Central’s full interview with Spencer is worth reading, if you have a few minutes.
Showrunner Craig Mazin said in a Variety panel that production begins on February 12th. The date’s not a total surprise, as HBO and Max content chief Casey Bloys recently said that production would start in early 2024, but now we know exactly when it starts.
Now we just need to know who is going to play Abby. Hopefully we’ll find out soon, given that the role has apparently already been cast.