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Travis Knight is no longer directing Sony’s film adaptation of Uncharted

Another One Bites the Dust!
Another One Bites the Dust!
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Another One Bites the Dust!
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Another One Bites the Dust!
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Deadline is reporting that yet another director has been dropped from Sony Pictures’s film adaptation of Uncharted. This time around, Bumblebee‘s Travis Knight has been ousted from the position due to scheduling conflicts caused by star Tom Holland’s participation in the upcoming Spider-Man: Far From Home sequel:

Uncharted extends Holland’s relationship with the studio. It remains a priority project for the studio, which has seen several directors come and go. The actor will next shoot the next Spider-Man installment in the summer.

Even with this setback, Holland is still set to star as Nathan Drake in the Uncharted film, which will serve as a prequel to the video game franchise. Mark Wahlberg is also still under contract to portray Drake’s mentor, Victor “Sully” Sullivan. However, the film’s previously-announced December 2020 release date has been pushed back yet again as Sony renews their search for a director willing to take it on.

Knight is the sixth director to leave the Uncharted adaptation, and it’s very possible I already made that Queen joke up top in a previous update to this story.

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Shovel Knight’s King of Cards and Showdown expansions will be released on December 10

Yacht Club Games has announced that the first chapter of the Shovel Knight saga is finally coming to a close after four expansions and five glorious years (though you’ll need to tack on an additional year if you want to go all the way back to the Kickstarter campaign). Yesterday, the developer confirmed that Shovel Knight: King of Cards and Shovel Knight Showdown will both be released on December 10.

King of Cards is a followup to Plague of Shadows and Specter of Torment, and it’ll be the final side-story starring a member of the villainous Order of No Quarter. Meanwhile, Showdown breaks from tradition and isn’t a platformer at all. Instead, it’s a multiplayer fighting game that features the franchise’s entire cast, along with a huge single-player adventure.

Fans who originally backed the Kickstarter campaign for Shovel Knight, or who own the Treasure Trove bundle, will receive both expansions for free. The King of Cards expansion will be available for the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Vita, Wii U, and Xbox One, while Showdown will be available for the PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Wii U, and Xbox One.

Yacht Club will also release King of Cards and Showdown as standalone downloads for fans who are digging into the franchise for the first for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

Finally, the developer will try to also take over your favorite game store on December 10th with the release of a pair of Amiibo sets (a Treasure Trove 3-Pack and a Gold Edition Shovel Knight), as well as a Physical Edition of Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove (which includes the original game and all four expansions) for the Switch and Xbox One. A PS4 version of the Physical Edition will follow in 2020.

Whew, that’s a lot of Shovel Knight. But don’t forget, Yacht Club is also hard at work on a 16-bit-styled sequel/spin-off known as Shovel Knight Dig.

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NBA 2K20 is the best-selling game from September 2019

It long ago become an annual tradition, but the latest entry in 2K’s NBA 2K franchise absolutely dominated the sales charts in September. According to The NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella (via Twitter), NBA 2K20 was not only the best-selling game from last month, but it also currently sits atop the list as the best-selling game for all of 2019 (dethroning Mortal Kombat 11).

But it’ll face some stiff competition throughout the rest of the year as a big batch of new releases took over the Top 10 including Borderlands 3 (#2), FIFA 20 (#3), The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (#4), Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (#6), Code Vein (#8), and NHL 20 (#9). Microsoft’s Gears 5, which was also available to download through the Xbox Game Pass subscription service, managed to make its way onto the list at #7.

However, the most surprising addition to this month’s list might be EA’s Plants Vs Zombies: Battle For Neighborville, which is currently only available as an Early Access download on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. We can expect it’s profile to rise next month as the game will make its retail debut on store shelves tomorrow.

You can find a full list of best-selling games from last month after the break. (more…)

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Bumblebee’s Travis Knight is the latest director to sign on for the Uncharted movie

Sony Pictures has spun the Wheel of Fortune one more time and come up with another new director for their film adaptation of the Uncharted franchise.

Dan Trachtenberg, who is best known for directing 2016’s 10 Cloverfield Lane, previously occupied the director’s chair for Uncharted: The Movie, but according to a report on Deadline, he has decided to step down. Thankfully for Tom Holland, who will play a younger version of Nathan Drake in the film, Sony Pictures has already recruited a replacement… Travis Knight, the director of 2018’s Bumbleebee and 2016’s Kubo and The Two Strings.

As long as nothing else goes wrong with the Uncharted adaptation, filming is still expected to begin early next year. But the movie’s previously-announced December 18, 2020 release date will most likely have to change.

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Shovel Knight Showdown will brawl its way to release in December

Shovel Knight Showdown began life as “Battle Mode,” a distant Stretch Goal that was added to the very end of Shovel Knight‘s Kickstarter campaign. But with the platformer’s final expansion nearing release, developer Yacht Club Games has finally been able to more fully turn their attention to the four-player brawler.

For starters, Shovel Knight Showdown has moved well beyond its beginnings as a simple “Battle Mode.” The full-fledged game got a new full-fledged trailer today, with glimpses at the game’s single-player Story Mode, as well as the addition of Mona, Plague Knight’s potions expert. Yacht Club talked more about it on their official website:

Shovel Knight Showdown has grown to be a robust and delightful multiplayer and singleplayer adventure. It’s full of new stories and revelations, goofy humor, great multiplayer level design, beautiful character art, varied playstyles, and frenetic battles. We really put our all into crafting this wholly new experience and we can’t wait for you to give it a shot!

Shovel Knight Showdown will be available as a free download this December if you own Shovel Knight on the PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Wii U, or Xbox One. It’ll also be available as a standalone download on the PC, PS4, and Switch, and as part of the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove retail compilation for the PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

Fans who are staking out a spot at this weekend’s PAX West convention in Seattle will also want to swing by Yacht Club’s booth to try out Shovel Knight Showdown before its released.

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Shovel Knight: King of Cards will be released in December

Yacht Club Games delivered Shovel Knight to fans all the way back in 2014, and they’ve spent the rest of the decade fulfilling a Kickstarter campaign promise to produce additional campaigns starring three of the game’s villains. Those expansions did a lot to fill out the world of Shovel Knight and they’ve helped make the main character something of an international superstar.

But now the developers are ready to close the book on Shovel Knight’s first adventure this December with the release of Shovel Knight: King of Cards.

A fittingly jampacked new trailer for King of Cards has been embedded above, as the developer said (on their official website) that the expansion will be the biggest Shovel Knight adventure yet:

King of Cards marks our grandest adventure yet, and we hope the trailer whets your appetite for the banquet of adventure which awaits! It has more levels, mechanics, secrets, and content than any Shovel Knight game to come before it. It’s a spectacle, crammed to the coffers with ideas- it’s the biggest game we’ve ever made, and we can’t wait for everyone to finally, finally play it. We’ve used everything we’ve learned in the past to make this game shine. We hope that you’ll find it both a delightful return and a fitting sendoff to Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove.

Shovel Knight owners will be able to download the King of Cards expansion for free for the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Vita, Wii U, and Xbox One, though it’ll also be released as a standalone game for the PC, PS4, and Switch.

And if you haven’t dug into the Shovel Knight series yet, Yacht Club will package the original game and all four expansions together into a special retail edition, known as the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

In the meantime, fans will be able to test out a demo of Shovel Knight: King of Cards at this weekend’s PAX West convention.

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Yacht Club Games is bringing Shovel Knight, Cyber Shadow, and an all new game to PAX West 2019

The good folks at Yacht Club Games have been very busy over the last two years. The developer is currently hard at work putting the finishing touches on Shovel Knight: King of Cards and Shovel Knight Showdown, and earlier this year, Yacht Club signed on to published Mekaskull’s Cyber Shadow.

All three of these retro-styled titles will be playable at the developer’s booth at this year’s PAX West convention, which will be held next week in Seattle (August 30th through September 2nd). But Yacht Club has also promised that a surprise will be waiting for fans who visit their booth… demo stations for a brand new never-before-seen game.

As of now, all we know about this unannounced game is that it’s currently in development for the Nintendo Switch. But even if you’re not attending PAX West this year, you’ll be able to learn more about it during the first ever Yacht Club Presents livestream on Wednesday, August 28, at 2:00 PM (Eastern Time). The livestream will be broadcast on YouTube and Twitch, and will also include “tons” of new information about Shovel Knight: King of Cards and Shovel Knight Showdown.

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Super Mario Maker 2 builds its way to the top of June 2019’s list of best-selling games

It was only available on store shelves for a handful days during the month, but Nintendo’s Super Mario Maker 2 has been crowned the best-selling game of June 2019 by The NPD Group.

According to the analyst firm’s rankings (as posted by NPD’s Mat Piscatella on Twitter), Super Mario Maker 2 fended off a challenge by fellow new release Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled (which took the #2 spot) to come out on top, as well as surging sales from Mortal Kombat 11 (#3), Grand Theft Auto V (#4), and Minecraft (#5). No other new release managed to break into the Top 20, but more mainstays filled out the rest of the list, including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (#6), Mario Kart 8 (#9), Red Dead Redemption 2 (#12), and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (#13).

However, without a robust new release slate, overall sales for the gaming industry dropped slightly in June 2019 versus a year ago. According to NPD, total sales of hardware, software, and accessories reached $959 million last month, a 13% decline from June 2018.

Unsurprisingly, the Switch was the best-selling hardware platform last month, and that’s unlikely to change throughout the year as the launch of the Switch Lite approaches and as gamers continue to save their pennies for the PS5 and Xbox Scarlett.

You can find a full list of best-selling games from June 2019 after the break. (more…)

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