Just over a year ago, the performers in SAG-AFTRA went on strike against the major Hollywood studios and streamers over a variety of issues including a lack of AI protections. Now, the actors are on strike again against video game studios whom they claim have refused to offer the same AI protections that SAG-AFTRA secured following last year's strike."We've made deals with the studios and streamers," said SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland during an interview with the Associated Press. "We've made deals without a strike with the major record labels and with countless other employers, which provide for informed consent and fair compensation for our members. And yet, for some reason, the video game companies refuse to do that and that's whats going to be their undoing."SAG-AFTRA members authorized a strike last week after negotiations between the union and the video game publishers dragged on for 18 months without a resolution. Some of the studios that the actors reached deals with last year, including Warner Bros. and Disney, have video game divisions as well. But that hasn't led to any movement on a new protections for the actors who lend their voices and likenesses to video games.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Is it really a Call of Duty game without some zombie options? Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 isn't going to break from that tradition when it launches this fall. Activision Blizzard developer Treyarch already announced that there will be round-based zombie action in Black Ops 6. Now, Treyarch is offering a few ominous teasers about the mayhem ahead.The official Call of Duty account on X has a brief video that directs fans to go to TheTruthDies.com, with only a brief glimpse of zombies. But it only gets weirder from there.Back from the dead #BlackOps6 pic.twitter.com/j7vpvqAEHV Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) August 1, 2024 The website features a TV screen that offers a scrolling program menu and six different channels that be accessed, but only two of the channels currently have anything that can be seen. Each channel is initially innocuous before the music shifts into a scarier key and flashes of a grotesque bunny plushie appear with menacing laughter. The program menu also shifts to display prisoners in cells who don't look like they're infected... at least not yet.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Diablo 4 Season 5, Season of the Infernal Hordes, is coming August 6, and it's bringing with it a new endgame activity, major class changes, increased XP gains, and reworks to nearly every Unique item in the game.The big new addition is the new Infernal Hordes feature, an endgame activity that is being introduced in Season 5 but will be playable on the game's Eternal Realm in addition to its Seasonal Realm. It's a wave-based game mode where players will be able to choose "boons and banes" as they progress through the waves, making for a roguelite experience. Defeating the final boss at the end of the waves of enemies will let players pick between a number of different rewards, including Masterworking materials for upgrading items and even an item with a guaranteed Greater Affix roll.Infernal Hordes, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. A new type of dungeon meant to introduce some of the mechanics of Infernal Hordes, Hellbreach dungeons, will also be added. Completing these will progress a new Reputation track, The Mother's Gift, which has been overhauled compared to previous seasonal Reputations to have better rewards, more ways to earn reputation, and be the main way players will progress the seasonal storyline.Continue Reading at GameSpot

The next Destiny game, codenamed Payback, was reportedly canceled a while ago, and it looks like Sony will be supporting Destiny 2 for the near future.According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Destiny developer Bungie was reportedly working on Payback, which was a spin-off. However, the project was reportedly canceled a while ago and only "very early work" was done on it. Schreier also clarified that a "Destiny 3" was not canceled because it was never in development anyway.Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb said on Game Mess Mornings that reportedly Bungie referred to Payback as "the next Destiny" and not Destiny 3, but it was indefinitely shelved. "Either way, let's be clear, a 'Destiny 3' or 'next Destiny' is just not the thing that they are going to be coming out of this looking toward let alone working on in any real way," he explained.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Diablo 4 Season 5 will finally retool some of the game's bosses on August 6, making it so its massive world bosses aren't giant pushovers while also majorly reducing the damage done by boss enemies in the endgame Pit dungeon.Blizzard detailed all the changes coming as part of Season 5 in a recent livestream, and revealed that world bosses will have a new mechanic that was tested on the game's public test realm but wasn't actually listed among the changes--Resilience. This new system will "normalize" damage against bosses out in Diablo 4's open world, which should make it so players will actually have to engage with the boss and their attacks instead of instantly deleting the world boss the moment it spawns, as was the case in Season 4.As for the floor bosses in The Pit, the multi-level endgame dungeon introduced as part of the game's Season 4 Loot Reborn overhaul, they will have their damage reduced by a massive 66% across the board. In addition, the Shadow Pit bosses that spawn in for one-off attacks at higher Pit difficulties will now be much less likely to one-shot players who get hit. Instead, these phantom enemies will give players a stacking debuff that increases the damage players take, therefore rewarding careful players who are able to avoid being hit.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Mountaintop Studios just revealed Spectre Divide, which is a 3v3 tactical shooter. It plays a lot like Counter-Strike, but with a twist: Players can control two players simultaneously.Like many other tactical shooters, one team will defend while another will attack and try to plant a bomb. As explained by Mountaintop Studios game director Lee Horn, the game's defining feature is called "duality." This will allow them to control a second body that's referred to as a Spectre. Players will be able to switch between the two at any given moment.To help with the game's competitive scene, the studio partnered with Shroud, a YouTuber with a big presence in the competitive community, to be the lead gameplay advisor. Co-founder and CEO Nate Mitchell said that the studio consists of 70 and will be self-publishing.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Atom Tickets has rolled out a new promotion where people born on the 14th day of any month can get a ticket to the Nicolas Cage movie Longlegs for free. Why the 14th? The serial killer in the movie targets people born on the 14th.You can visit the Atom Tickets website and use the code BIRTHDAY14 to get a free ticket. You can claim only one ticket, and the fine print says your ID may be verified. The offer runs through August 4 or while supplies last. Longlegs is a horror-thriller from writer-director Osgood Perkins (Gretel & Hansel). The film follows an FBI agent hunting down a serial killer. The cast includes Maika Monroe, Kiernan Shipka, and Cage.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Microsoft and Obsidian Entertainment's Avowed is reportedly going to be delayed to 2025. While a release date was never officially announced, a leak from Microsoft itself said it would be a November 2024 release.According to The Verge, Microsoft is delaying Avowed due to Xbox Game Pass's "busy schedule" in the fall. While Avowed is reportedly in good shape, Xbox wants to create some breathing room for other games, such as the console exclusive Stalker 2, which is also due out in November, as well as October's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Windows Central has also corroborated the report, saying it received similar information.Another one of Xbox's exclusives, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, doesn't have an official release date, but it's reportedly sometime in December. It's unknown whether Indiana Jones will make it in the 2024 window or be pushed back to 2025 as well.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Gamescom is only a few weeks away, and Xbox has announced that it'll show off more than 50 games, including those from various companies like Bethesda, Blizzard, and third-party studios.As detailed by an Xbox blog post, during Gamescom, players will be able to get their hands on upcoming games such as Age of Mythology: Retold, Ara: History Untold, Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, Fallout 76: Milepost Zero, The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road, and Towerborne. On top of playing those games, those who attend the event can also sit in various presentations for Avowed, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Starfield: Shattered Space.Those who check out the Blizzard Entertainment section can play as the Spiritborn class in Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred. In addition, attendees will be able to get their hands on various third-party games, such as Star Wars Outlaws, Space Marines 2, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, and more. There'll also be a wide selection of indie games, including Squirrel With a Gun and Creatures of Ava.Continue Reading at GameSpot

On August 20, actor and author Anjali Bhimani will be the Game Master for a TTRPG stream called The Puppy Roll that will be raising money for Petco Love, a charity that supports shelters and reuniting animals with their humans. The cast of players is stacked, featuring the likes of Critical Role's Mattew Mercer and Ashley Johnson and Resident Evil Village's Maggie Robertson. And the best part of all: All of the players are role-playing as their dogs."I will be DMing and my dog Charlie will make an appearance obviously as his Dungeons and Dragons character," Bhimani told me. "We also have cast members Matthew Mercer, Aabria Iyengar, Ashley Johnson, Emily Swallow from The Mandalorian, [and] Maggie Robertson from Baldur's Gate and Resident Evil. And as my co-host, we are very, very, very happy to be welcoming Jonathan Graziano, who is known in this beautiful crossover between Pet Talk and Dungeons and Dragons because he is the owner of the late Noodle the Pug and Noodle and the Bone's No Bone's Day was a big thing during the pandemic. He's going to be coming out and co-hosting with me, and we're going to have some surprise guests along the way as well." This is Bhimani's second time in the Game Master seat, having made her debut this past April in Lego Dungeons & Dragons Game Night--a one-shot adventure featuring YouTuber and cosplayer Ginny Di, actor Luis Carazo, The Lego Group design manager Jordan Scott, and Lego Ideas design winner Lucas Bolt--advertising the new $360 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale Lego set.Continue Reading at GameSpot