News for the week of March 5th, 2021.
Tiny Tina has been cast in the Borderlands movie!
Eli Roth’s live-action Borderlands movie has been announcing some interesting names to the project. With Jack Black, Jamie Lee Curtis, Cate Blanchett, and Kevin Hart on board, we seem to only be a short while away before every name added to the project has been attached to some of the series’ biggest characters. Well, another big character has been cast, by someone that many may not even know, but has certainly seen on screen.
This character? well, it’s fan-favorite Tiny Tina, originally portrayed in the games by voice actor, Ashly Burch. Tiny Tina will be making her leap to live-action through actress Ariana Greenblatt, who many likely saw as young Gamora in Avenger’s Infinity War. The young actress can also be found in A Bad Mom’s Christmas, as well as in The One and Only Ivan.
It’s unclear at this time just how exactly “adult” Tiny Tina will be as she spouts a great deal of language and questionable material, certainly not suitable for a child. Roth had this to say on the casting:
“She has already worked with many of my close collaborators and everyone raves about her. She blew us all away in her audition, and I cannot wait to see her bring the wild, insane and unpredictable Tiny Tina to the big screen. She’s going to blow up on screen like one of Tina’s grenades.”
Until we see a trailer, or at the very least, the movie, it will be interesting to see how all this casting comes together, as not a single actor attached to the project is who anyone could even have thought about embodying these roles. Still, Borderlands is certainly about the bizarre, so at least it shares that in common here.
Hogwarts Dev magically leaves studio following massive controversy!
While J.K Rowling certainly hasn’t made anyone’s lives easier when it comes to Harry Potter fandom, as well as new projects that carry the name, Hogwarts Legacy lead designer, Troy Leavitt, has certainly brought his own share of controversy as well. His Youtube channel became something of a talking point when journalist, Liam Robertson pointed out that Leavitt had uploaded several videos in the past that showed a great deal of support for movements around Gamergate, and downplaying several cases of sexual harassment. This, along with the efforts of J.K. Rowling and her anti-trans stance, caused the title to be surrounded by a great deal of hate from several communities, especially those of the LGBTQ+ crowd.
While the game has made strides to distance itself from Rowling, even going as far as adding in some light trans elements with its create a character, having Leavitt still attached to the project clouded a lot of that good faith in question. Thankfully, Leavitt posted on his social media that he has left the studio, saying the split was agreed upon by both him and WB Games, however; that may essentially be PR speak for something else. That said, Leavitt explained that he has “nothing but good things to say about the game, the dev team, and WB Games."
Diablo 2 remaster will be compatible with your original saves.
Despite being some two decades old, Diablo 2’s remaster, which was just announced, will be compatible with the original game’s saves. This is largely because the game is built on the foundation of the original, making it an almost 1:1 recreation of the game with a more modern visual overall over top of the game’s original graphics in pretty much the same way that the Master Chief Collection did for Halo 1 and 2.
Diablo 2: Resurrected producer, Matthew Cederquist, said in an interview with IGN Middle East that Blizzard themselves implemented the feature and he was pleasantly surprised it worked:
"Back when we were working on [the remaster], we wondered if the old save files would work and we kind of shoved it in and it worked! And we were like, ‘okay, that’s the best feature ever,’”
While it’s unlikely that the majority of players who are going to be playing the remaster will still have these files, there are many who do, especially a lot of content creators that still play the original to this day.
The remaster will again lay overtop of the original, featuring updated 3D clothing, new 3D models, remastered cutscenes, and 4K visuals. It will be available for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation family of consoles, and of course, on PC.
Marvel’s Avengers adds the most annoying boss to the game; MORE GRIND!
When Marvel’s Avengers launches on next-gen consoles on March 18th, players who have opted to wait for that version are going to facing considerably more grind than those who have played the game on previous-gen consoles and PC. While the draw of that update is going to be the boosted visuals and performance of the game, thanks to the power of the Series X/S and PS5, not to mention Hawkeye being added that day, players will see this additional grind be part of their daily routine. The patch will also address the randomness of how cosmetic drops work, but adding more grind to the game is the last thing anyone wanted.
Via the latest developer blog, Crystal Dynamics announced that they are reworking the EXP earnings so that new players don’t feel overwhelmed when unlocking new abilities so quickly through its skill tree. To fix this apparent issue, that not a single player has voiced concern for, players will see an increase of required EXP once they hit level 25. This increase will run all the way to when they reach max level at 50. To combat this, Crystal Dynamics actually mentioned to players that those who want to max level their characters quickly should do so before the March 18 patch.
As for the change to how random cosmetics drop, Crystal Dynamics is removing the chance of random cosmetics entirely, opting for them to appear later on in the vendors around the player hub.
As it stands, players are not happy with this change to EXP earning as the best parts of most characters don’t really appear until much later on, especially closer to reaching max level when you have access to their full toolkit. Adding more grind isn’t the fix many players were wanting as the game has been largely lackluster follow its release, blasted in reviews, and many leaving the game entirely after finishing the very decent campaign; missions you are unable to even replay. While there is a certain logic to what Crystal Dynamics is doing for new players, it isn’t a fix that many want to see implemented, instead requesting that the team works on more pressing issues instead, like adding in new environments and enemy variety, something the game lacks in spades.
That’s everything I could fit into this feature, what was your favorite news of the week? Comment below!