Amazon’s God of War series will tell the story of the 2018 Norse reboot

Earlier this year, Sony announced that God of War would be developed as an Amazon Video series, and since then, the latest installment Ragnarok has become a huge hit on PlayStation. Now, the series is officially a go and we’ve learned more about what will take place, according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

The series will follow the main character Kratos, The God of War, through roughly the events of the 2018 reboot based on Norse mythology. In that, he has quit his violent past and exiled himself to the Norse Midgard realm. 

“When his beloved wife dies,” Amazon’s description reads, “Kratos sets off on a dangerous journey with his estranged son to spread her ashes from the highest peak — his wife’s final wish. [The quest] will test the bonds between father and son, and force Kratos to battle new gods and monsters for the fate of the world.” 

The series will be produced by Sony Pictures Television and Amazon Studios in association with PlayStation Productions. The showrunner will be The Wheel of Time‘s Rafe Judkins, aided by Oscar nominees Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children of Men, Iron Man) who will take on writing and executive producing duties.

The original God of War series revolves around Greek mythology wrapped up in 2013 with God of War: Ascension (PS3). It rebooted with 2018’s Norse mythology-based God of War for PlayStation 4, which led to God of War Ragnarök, released last month to rave reviews.

Amazon is also producing a Fallout series for Prime that started production early this year and should be arriving soon. Other series based on high-profile games either released or coming soon include The Last of Us (HBO), Halo (Paramount) and Horizon Zero Dawn (Netflix). 

Epic is taking over a dozen games offline, including Rock Band and Unreal titles

Epic Games is shutting down “out-of-date online services” and servers for several of its older games, including multiple Rock Band and Unreal titles, starting today. The company notes that most affected games will still be available offline, but others will no longer work. It says the move is part of a shift that will only see it support online functions through Epic Online Services, which offers a unified friends system, voice chat, parental controls and parental verification.

Epic is removing the mobile title DropMix and the Mac and Linux versions of Hatoful Boyfriend and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star from storefronts today. You’ll still be able to play these games if you already own them.

Servers for several games will be shut down on January 24th, but Epic has already started delisting them from digital storefronts and turning off in-game purchases. After that date, you’ll still be able to play the following offline in single or local multiplayer modes:

  • 1000 Tiny Claws

  • Dance Central 1-3

  • Green Day: Rock Band

  • Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess

  • Rock Band 1-3

  • The Beatles: Rock Band

  • Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars

  • Unreal Gold

  • Unreal II: The Awakening

  • Unreal Tournament 2003

  • Unreal Tournament 2004

  • Unreal Tournament 3

  • Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition

Dance Central VR and Rock Band 4 online multiplayer features will remain available. Epic also plans to restore online features to Unreal Tournament 3 down the line. It will integrate Epic Online Services into the game.

Battle Breakers, a hero collector RPG that a small team of Epic developers built inhouse and released in 2019, will shut down on December 30th. Epic will refund all in-game purchases made through its direct payment system in the 180 days before today. As of January 24th, the alpha of the Unreal Tournament reboot, Rock Band Blitz, the Rock Band companion app and SingSpace will no longer be available.

It’s unclear how many people are still playing the Unreal Tournament and Rock Band titles but at their peaks, they were among the biggest franchises around. It’s a shame to see Epic sunsetting these games and all the others on the list. Still, if you happen to have a Rock Band guitar or drum set gathering dust, this may at least be a decent reminder to bust those out and play along to “I Want to Hold Your Hand” or “Basket Case.”

Meanwhile, Rock Band developer Harmonix, which Epic bought last year, recently announced that its most recent game, Fuser, will go offline. The studio will also stop selling the game and in-game purchases on December 19th.

Tidal now lets you DJ for other paid users in real time

Tidal users in the US can now become DJs on the streaming service. The company is testing a feature called DJ, which enables those on the $20 per month HiFi Plus tier to share songs or a playlist they’re listening to with other paying users in real time. Tidal added a proper playlist sharing option just last month. 

You can choose a name for the DJ session and share a link that others can use to access it. Unfortunately, Tidal says that those tuning in won’t be able to listen to whatever the DJ’s playing at high-resolution or lossless quality for the time being. The songs will play in regular AAC quality (160 Kbps) — higher-resolution streams will be available at a later date.

Budding DJs will need to be enrolled in Tidal’s Early Access Program to access the beta. They’ll only be able to start a session on iOS for now, but Android support is coming soon. All paying Tidal users can listen to a DJ session on either iOS or Android.

The feature is different from Tidal for DJs, which enables producers and DJs to plug songs from the streaming service into professional audio software, as The Verge notes. So, this new feature is geared toward amateur tastemakers. However, the fact that listeners also need to be paid Tidal users might prevent folks from sharing their live DJ sessions with friends who typically use Spotify or Apple Music. At least Turntable.fm is still around, while Amazon’s Amp enables people to host their own radio shows with chat and licensed music.

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Spotify is reportedly pulling back on its live audio ambitions

Fans of several Spotify live audio shows will soon have to say goodbye to their favorite programs. According to Bloomberg, the music and audio streaming service is ending the production of shows such as Doughboys: Snack Pack, Deux Me After Dark, which describes itself as the “place for the latest tea on your favorite celebrities,” The Movie Buff with comedian Jon Gabrus, and A Gay in the Life, which provides a safe space for conversations about the LGBTQ+ experience. The aforementioned shows have either already ended or have announced that they’re going off the air soon. 

A company spokesperson has confirmed the cancellations to Bloomberg. The news organization also heard from sources that Spotify ended some of the programs before their creators’ contracts were up but that the service will still pay them the entire amount it promised. 

Several companies, including Spotify, saw live audio programming a new area for growth during the height of the pandemic when Clubhouse blew up in popularity. In Spotify’s case, it gave Locker Room, the audio-based social network for sports fans that it acquired in March 2021, an overhaul and renamed it Greenroom. It launched a dedicated Greenroom app last year before rebranding it again as Spotify Live in April and integrating live audio inside of its main app. While cancelling multiple shows indicate that the company is stepping back from live audio, it’s not killing the format completely. Bloomberg says The Fantasy Footballers and The Ringer MMA Show will continue as usual.

TikTok is testing full screen horizontal videos

TikToksaid last year that it reached one billion monthly active users worldwide, so whatever it’s doing is clearly working. That hasn’t stopped the ByteDance-owned company from testing and introducing new features, though, including those that put it in direct competition with YouTube. Case in point, its latest experiment that gives select users worldwide access to a horizontal full screen mode for videos they watch on their phones. 

The company has confirmed to TechCrunch that users chosen to be part of this test will see a button on square or rectangle videos in their feed. If they tap on that button, the video will expand horizontally to take up the whole screen. TikToks are famous for being short vertical videos, and creators still have to put a “turn your phone” message at the beginning of theirs if they filmed in landscape mode. If the company does launch this feature, they wouldn’t have to do that anymore, and other creators might be more inclined to film landscape videos. Of course, a wide release depends on testers’ response to the feature, among other factors. 

This is but the latest move the company has made in an effort to capture audiences who might like YouTube’s format better. Earlier this year, for instance, TikTok extended its maximum video length from three minutes to ten minutes. That said, it’s not exactly lagging behind the Google-owned video platform: According to a previous TechCrunch report, kids and teens have been spending more time on TikTok than YouTube since the middle of 2020. 

IMDb now lets performers remove their age and personal details

IMDb announced today that entertainment professionals can now choose whether to display their age and other demographic information on their profiles. Screen performers’ union SAG-AFTRA had pushed for the change for years, viewing it as a front in the war on ageism in Hollywood.

The new policy lets anyone with an IMDb page claim their profile and choose whether their age and birth year, birth name, alternate names and other demographic information show on their profiles. Although performers’ ages will remain on places like Wikipedia, the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA believes the policy will discourage age-based discrimination.

In a letter to union members (reported by Variety), SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said she worked closely with IMDb for several months to influence the policy shift. “This means professionals can choose how they want to represent themselves to fans and industry decision-makers,” she wrote. “And it will make it easier for casting directors, producers and others to discover and hire talent from all backgrounds for their project.” In addition, Drescher noted that the new policy covers free and paid IMDb accounts.

IMDb, which Amazon owns, spent years resisting the change. In 2016, California passed a law barring websites from publishing the ages and birthdates of performers. It was a popular law with performers, as over 2,300 people asked IMDb to remove their ages in the three months following the bill’s passage. However, IMDb refused to oblige, filed an injunction based on First Amendment rights and won. (SAG-AFTRA and the state of California appealed, but an appeals court upheld the initial ruling.) Apart from Drescher’s note about working with IMDb, it’s unclear what factors led to Amazon’s about-face.

Although ageism isn’t limited to any single industry, Hollywood is a textbook example — especially towards women. Dame Helen Mirren hasn’t minced words on the subject, describing the practice as “fucking outrageous” in a 2015 interview. “We all watched James Bond as he got more and more geriatric, and his girlfriends got younger and younger. It’s so annoying.”

‘Hogwarts Legacy’ delayed for Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment today delayedHogwarts Legacy yet again, but the most demanding versions of the game are spared. Instead, the postponement pushes the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions back to April 4th, 2023, with the Nintendo Switch variant arriving on July 25th.

Previously, the last-gen versions were scheduled to launch on February 10th alongside the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC iterations. Although today’s delay will disappoint Harry Potter fans with older consoles, you need to look no further than Cyberpunk 2077 for an example of a game that just wasn’t ready for last-gen hardware. This latest reshuffling should give developer Avalanche Software time to polish the Harry Potter-themed game for older systems.

Warner Bros. initially slated the wizarding title for a 2021 launch but later pushed it back to this year and, finally, to 2023. Starting on February 7th, people who buy the Deluxe Edition for PS5, Xbox Series X/S or PC will have 72 hours of early access to start their adventure. However, the delayed versions won’t have an early-access period.

A student practicing magic in a gameplay still from 'Hogwarts Legacy'
Avalanche Software/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Hogwarts Legacy is an open-world action RPG set in the 1800s. You play as a custom-created Hogwarts student in the century before the events in the Harry Potter books and movies. You will craft potions, learn spells and make friends while embarking “on a dangerous journey to uncover a hidden truth of the wizarding world.”

Warner Bros. notes that the game isn’t a new story from author JK Rowling, but it collaborated with her team to ensure it remains true to her original vision. However, the RPG’s character creator may let you make transgender characters, a welcome departure from Rowling’s opinion on that topic.