On the day I started here at Kotaku back in 2022, the very first post I wrote had an image of a character who looked like me right at the top. It was my custom V from Cyberpunk 2077, and he’s appeared more than a few times on this site as I’ve covered the game and its Phantom Liberty expansion. But he’s not the only…
Owners of current-gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles are looking forward to next week's Fallout 4 patch, which introduces new native-version applications and a raft of performance and quality improvements. So what about the PC edition? Don't worry, we're getting a patch too - and here's what you'll find when it arrives April 25.
In the race to acquire Paramount, Skydance Media still has the inside track. But there may be more players pulling up in the rearview. According to The New York Times, an investment firm, Apollo Global Management, is in talks with Sony Pictures for a joint bid to take over Paramount, the storied studio behind Mission: Impossible and several other film and TV franchises.
Officially, neither Sony nor Apollo are currently in negotiations with Paramount itself, which is only talking with Skydance. However, the potential deal with Skydance has not been well-received by many of Paramount's investors. Via Bloomberg, Paramount investor William Riley has formally notified Paramount chairwoman Shari Redstone about his belief that the Spyglass deal is solely for her “personal gains.” Because Redstone has a controlling interest in Paramount's stock, she is currently pushing for a sale to Spyglass without asking the rest of the shareholders to vote on it.
During an earlier stage of negotiations, Apollo extended an offer for Paramount that would have been valued at $26 billion, which included Paramount's debt. Paramount seemingly ignored that offer because it is in the middle of an exclusivity deal for negotiations with Skydance. The New York Post recently reported that Paramount and Skydance may not close a deal before that exclusive period expires on May 3.
Tim Cain, the project lead on the original Fallout, just dropped his review of Amazon’s new show, but you don't need to watch all of it.
In his review, Cain emphasized how the show nails the feeling of the Fallout universe. He said that the show managed to get everything from the visual aesthetics to the dialogue and storyline to fit right into a universe that’s often hard to capture because it's so different from other versions of post-apocalyptic worlds.
"For people who don't want rambling, you can just stop, leave. 'Tim said he liked the show.' There you go," said Cain.
As a creator and a fan, Cain said that he was thrilled by the amount of Fallout lore that gets packed into every episode of the series. “What I especially love about it,” Cain said, “is that there’s no exposition.” The show just drops viewers into the heart of the Fallout universe, which Cain admits might be a little off-putting for viewers who’ve never picked up any of the games.
Cain also addressed his feelings on some of the biggest lore changes that the show introduced to the Fallout canon. When it comes to the big reveal that Vault-Tec planned to drop the first nukes, Cain said that he believes the company never got the chance. He thinks that the moment the bombs fell actually caught Vault-Tec off guard, and as proof he points to the fact that Barbara’s daughter is with Cooper at a birthday party when everything goes down, rather than safely tucked away in a vault.
When it comes to the heated debate that fans have been having about the show’s relationship to the lore of Fallout: New Vegas, Cain said that he’s really not concerned about it. “Let me just remind you that lore drift is inevitable in big IPs,” he said, after spit-balling a number of different ways that the show could explain what happened to Shady Sands and where that event falls on the overarching Fallout timeline. Echoing a sentiment from a video he released two days after the show premiered, Cain asked fans to engage with the series in a fun and friendly way, rather than making personal attacks against the people who may or may not have made adjustments to the timeline.
Overall, Cain seemed joyous that the world he helped create nearly 30 years ago is continuing to thrive and bring he new fans. He said he was hoping for a season two, so he’s probably thrilled that Amazon has just confirmed it.
A man has set himself on fire outside the New York City courthouse where the Donald Trump trial is underway. The incident was covered by CNN in real time. MORE TO COME…