Ubisoft has released a rather cool trailer forAssassin’s Creed Syndicate‘s upcoming Jack the Ripper DLC. The video, which you can watch below, is described as an “immersive 360° trailer and dive into the mind of notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper.”
Viewers are guided through a scene in which an Assassin brawls with the notorious serial killer, and the 360-degree video gives users control over where they are looking, much like being in a virtual reality scenario.
Ubisoft said the trailer initially began as a VR experiment.
“Nicolas [Bouchet] and I started working on this as a test to see how we could adapt a trailer to offer a true VR experience,” explained Adrian Lacey, director of IP development at Ubisoft Montpelier.
“Originally, we hadn’t planned on releasing it, but the results were so good we had to share it. The Jack the Ripper VR trailer is just a small taste of what virtual reality can bring, both in terms of storytelling and how it can help players go deeper into our worlds.”
Ubisoft has previously expressed interest in making virtual reality games. Earlier in December, the publisherrevealed a VR gamein which the player controls and eagle.
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’s Jack the Ripper DLC will be available from December 15 onPS4andXbox One, and from December 22 onPC.
The downloadable add-on follows Evie Frye as she hunts for one of “history’s most mysterious killers.” The DLC is set some 20 years after the main game.
“The streets of London are filled with fear and Evie Frye is on the trail of one of history’s most mysterious killers,” Ubisoft’s official description reads.
“The new Assassin’s Creed Syndicate Jack the Ripper campaign puts you in the shoes of Evie once more as she returns to London after being absent for 20 years. Armed with some new skills, she must investigate a series of crimes that draw her deep into the dark underworld of Victorian London’s Whitechapel district.”
The Jack the Ripper DLC will be priced at $14.99 or is included in the $29.99 season pass. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate launched on October 23 for Xbox One and PS4 and received agenerally positive critical response, including an9/10 from GameSpot.
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” opens in theaters across America on Dec. 18, 2015. But that’s not the only new “Star Wars” property set to be released by Disney in a couple of weeks. At the height of “Star Wars” fever, Disney Infinity 3.0 will be launching a new playset based on the movie, featuring stories and characters based on Episode VII.
This week, Latin Post spoke with José Villeta, Senior Director of Technology at Disney Interactive, about how he ended up in his career, what “toys to life” gaming is, the upcoming “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” release for Disney Infinity 3.0, and the challenge of producing it while steering clear of Star Wars spoilers.
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Latin Post: You got your undergraduate and master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, particularly focused around testing experimental aircraft. That was also the focus of your first job. What changed after that? How did you end up pivoting to producing video games?
José Villeta: I was always a gamer, from the arcade machines to the Atari days to my first gaming computer, the Commodore64. Early on in my career, I worked for several years at different NASA Research Centers: NASA Langley in Hampton VA and NASA Dryden in Edwards Air Force Base in California.
During my time in California, I spent lots of weekends building video games as a hobby with my colleagues from MIT Media Lab. It was fun to not only play the latest games but also learn how to make them.
LP: What led you from NASA to then co-founding your video game company, Black Ops Entertainment?
JV: Once we got a Nintendo SNES Volleyball prototype working, we went around pitching it to publishers, but Virgin [Games] decided they had bigger plans for us. They wanted for us build a dream team based on our MIT Media Lab colleagues and build our first game around launch of the original PlayStation. We started Black Ops out of our home until we moved to our offices in Santa Monica.
LP: How did your experiences at NASA inform your career making games?
JV: Well, our first game was Agile Warrior, a flying shooter game — taking advantage of my NASA flight simulation experience and the 3D rendering powers of the PlayStation.
More generally, the first part of my career trained and inspired me to build games at larger scale. I programmed a large 360-dome flight simulator using latest Silicon Graphics supercomputer, with the power to recreate a whole 3D world and flight dynamics of latest experimental fighter aircrafts.
My MIT education and work experience at MIT Media Lab also opened my eyes to new technologies, not only around the aeronautical industry, but also on emerging entertainment and interactive game industries. For example, at the MIT Media Lab, I was exposed to new video displays, which eventually become the HDTVs of today. I also got a chance to see how interactive experiences can expand your imagination and curiosity.
LP: Encouraging imagination and creativity is a big part of Disney Infinity, but only one facet. To the uninitiated, the Disney Infinity toy-video game hybrid seems like a complicated system. Could you explain the various components and features for those who haven’t experienced it?
JV: So Disney Infinity 3.0 starts with a starter pack, where you get the software, the base, and you get a playset piece and sample toys with it.
For example, you get the “Twilight of the Republic,” it’s the playset based on the Clone Wars and the prequel movies. So you get the starter pack, it has the base, which is USB-connected to your console or Apple TV, and you can start playing.
The main modes Infinity has is playsets and toybox.
Playsets is the basic video game based on a chosen property — and gameplay that’s pretty common to classic adventure games. So there’s a few playsets available: Inside Out, there’s going to be all the three big “Star Wars” sagas, Episodes 4, 5 and 6 from the original, the prequel sagas in “Twilight of the Republic,” and then there’s “The Force Awakens,” the new playset for the movie.
So that’s one mode of play — you just use the toy and playset for that given property. So for example, I can put the Anakin character into the base with the playset piece and you can start playing. If you want to swap characters, you take them out of the base and put, for example, Obi Wan in and keep playing.
LP: So what’s the toybox mode?
JV: The toybox is probably one of the biggest software innovations we’ve done at Disney. If you know about games like Minecraft or Little Big Planet, where you can make your own creations and share with the community, toybox allows you to create your own map.
And that’s the place where you can mix everything. You can put stuff together like Marvel characters with “Star Wars” characters with Disney Pixar characters.
Anything goes — there are no rules in the toybox mode. You can build your own castle, put in your own vehicles, your own enemies, and build your won adventure. And the toybox gets saved and you can push it to the cloud, so you can share it to the community.
LP: You’re still using the physical toys for characters in the toybox mode?
JV: Yep, and the cool thing with the toys is that you can actually save your abilities — your skill tree and customizations — and that gets saved into the toys. So if I take my Anakin from my house and I go to your home and we play together, my Anakin will be different from your Anakin. Because there’s memory in the toy.
LP: What about the toys themselves? Do they do anything besides unlock characters and store your customizations?
JV: That’s probably the bulk of the emphasis, but there’s a something I learned about our toys. The quality is really good. These aren’t cheap toys — we’ve put a lot of emphasis on the collectable side of things. So there are people who have purchased these toys and collect them purely to put them on your desk. It’s not the most common use case, but we’ve seen some data that shows that.
LP: What gives Disney Infinity the edge over other toy-game hybrids like Lego Dimensions or Skylanders?
JV: We’re number one in the toys-to-life category right now by sales, and I think the reasons why are one, our software evolution has been great. We have a more complex software platform and we’re always thinking about how we can evolve the software.
That’s where the toybox mode, the multiplayer online, the capabilities of matchmaking and sharing with friends or the community — all of this stuff we’ve innovated in that space. Our competition doesn’t have any of that.
And as far as our intellectual property, you know… it’s huge. We have Disney Pixar, we have Marvel, we have Star Wars. There’s something for everybody — it’s a game that’s not aged too young, so you actually can have a 25 year-old or 35 year-old have some fun with a character that he likes. The software is sophisticated enough that you quickly grow out of thinking of it as a kid’s game.
LP: The toybox mode — this open system has super customization and building features, with all of these mini-game modes and tools. How do you balance all of that with keeping it accessible and simple enough for younger kids, or adults, that may face a learning curve?
JV: Thisis somethingwe’ve beeninvolved in since 1.0: If you give somebody all of this power, and you don’t know how to start, it can be overwhelming.
So we have something called the toybox hub, where you can learn the toybox by going through different guides that explain the parts of the game. So you want to learn about combat, farming, platforming, or creations in the community, the toybox hub can be the beginning of your journey.
We also have a thing called toybox games — if you just want to mashup and mix all your stuff together and have quick fun. So like Mario Cart racing, we have speedway racing, with four characters. And that’s a great opportunity to go online, and have friends join you for a quick race.
But if you want to create some great stories and level design, we give you an immense number of tools and toys you can use. We’re a little different than Minecraft and others, because we give you smart options called creativity toys. They allow you to make logic connections, create scoreboards, and you can add logics to open doors or connect interior levels to outside locations. You just have all this power.
And we’ve seen some great stuff, not only great levels created from content from Disney. We allow you to create your own presentation of levels. So you lead the players, and then let the kids be the next designers.
LP: And that’s where the fan-generated community content comes in?
JV: We’ve seen that’s the future of the evolution in our game. We’ve seen a lot of power in the toybox.
And we’ve seen our fans stay with Disney Infinity because once they’re done with their playsets, you can go back to the toybox and have fun there by downloading new content, by building their own stuff, or by playing these toybox games.
LP: What’s your rolein developing Disney Infinity? And what challenges have you run into?
JV: I’ve been working on this game since its inception, so since the beginning when it was nothing. Initially, it was just software, and then we worked out how to work with the hardware and the toys.
It’s definitely been a learning curve. Disney Infinity has been my first experience with the toys-to-life category, but I’ve learned a lot. I’ve been involved in all of the hardware parts of it, like the toys component and all the FCC regulations needed for the toys’ near-field communication (NFC).
I also worked on all the online-related technologies, so all the online services, the website, the community tools — my team does that.
And then, of course, a very important part of my job is actually closing the game. I work a lot with first-parties: manufacturers like Sony, Nintendo, Apple, or Microsoft. They control approval of what goes to the market or not, so we have to make sure we’re compatible with all of their requirements to maintain the highest quality possible.
LP: Speaking of Disney Infinity being a wide multiplatform game: How do you see its future as virtual reality or the HoloLens start emerging?
JV: A good friend of mine once mentioned, “The DVD’s going to go away. The Blu-Ray’s going to go away. Everything is going to be digitally downloadable eventually. But the one thing that’s never going away is toys.” You’re always going to have physical toys you want to play with.
So I think the toys will evolve, and for us, the toys could be used in more ways. Like you mentioned, they could be used in augmented reality like the HoloLens, or different ways as a mechanism for owning a particular character, or to recognize you in different locations. So there’s definitely a lot possibilities on the toy side.
But I don’t think it’s going to go away, it’s going to evolve. People love high-quality toys. The problem would be if we evolved the toys’ capabilities but they become too cheap, people would lose their collectable feeling. Like, “This looks like a cheap toy from a drive thru.” Then I think the nostalgia, and the toys, will go away. So we’ve put a hard line on the quality of the toys, to avoid getting into that.
LP: So about the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” playset — this is being released at the same time as the movie, right?
JV: Correct. Right on Dec. 18, the game will be playable. You can already pre-order and have it available right on that day. So the concept is that you see the movie, have a great time, and immediately you can go home and boot up Infinity and relive those moments.
LP: Since it’s a story mode, were there “Star Wars” spoilers that you were privy to? How tied to the actual movie’s plot is the new playset?
JV: It’s 100 percent tied to the story. We have been faithful to the story elements — and to security, to making sure the secrets are kept as tight as possible.
It’s very hard when you work with interactive, where people have to test the game, they have to be able to validate it.
That’s one of my duties as well, as security officer for my team: to make sure that my team does the best possible to protect the movie and not to spoil it, because no one wants to spoil a good experience at the movies.
LP: So you’re saying you know the details of the movie?
JV: I don’t want to spoil it for you either! Or for the fans. We’ve been exposed to it, but we’re all here trying to learn as little as possible so we don’t spoil it for ourselves, either.
So some people have, of course, seen the whole thing, and read the whole script. But other people have to just have a little glimpse of it while they test the game. All my friends and colleagues here actually want to learn as little as possible so they don’t spoil the movie.
It’s always the little things fans of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” pay attention to, especially with the actors outside of the show.
According to Vanity Fair, the next actor they are worried about getting killed off the show is Lauren Cohan, who plays the character of Maggie on “TWD.”
This worry came about when the actress debuted a new hairstyle in public for the first time, which is a departure from her usual long wavy hair. She now has short and stylish hair, which indicates to fans she may indeed be leaving the show for new ventures in the industry. But does that mean she will be killed off on the show?
Fans were wrapped in the turmoil of Glenn’s devastating drama and triumphant survival in the first half of the season, and when he turned out to be alive, the show might have crossed a barrier for fans.
What the comics have revealed to date is that Glenn does indeed get killed off, but that happens on the receiving of evil character Negan’s bat. So now that he is alive and the big ordeal is over, is it likely that the show will just bring him back long enough to get killed by the upcoming debut of Negan?
It certainly does not seem likely, which means that in order for the show to continue with its powerful elements, someone with an equally beloved standing on the show will have to take his place in death. Someone that will have just as much impact on devoted fans as Glenn’s own death. Someone like, oh say, his wife Maggie.
One thing that fans can count on for the TV series is that even though it takes most of its cues from the comic series, there are some big differences. Not everything that happens in the comic happens on the show — and vice versa.
NEW YORK — As director ofStar Wars: The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams is at the center of potentially the biggest movie of all time, iconic characters known around the world, and a sci-fi saga that looms over pop culture like a fully armed and operational Death Star.
If all this is weighing on him, he doesn’t show it. Instead on this rainy December afternoon, while holiday pop tunes play overhead in a Manhattan hotel bar, he’s less a world-renowned filmmaker and more the 11-year-old kid who first saw George Lucas’ 1977Star Warsin a cinema in Westwood, Calif. He is showing a video on his phone of Oscar-winning composer John Williams conducting a new brass-heavy theme fromThe Force Awakens(in theaters Friday) to a journalist, both of them nerding out mightily.
Wham!’s Last Christmasjust doesn’t measure up.
“He’s 83 and he’s (expletive) incredible,” says Abrams, 49, while sporting a boyish grin. “Dude, it was crazy.”
THEN: ‘Star Wars’ actors Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill first appeared onscreen in 1977.
Since signing on for the beginning of a newStar Warstrilogy in January 2013, very few stages of the process have been free of the frequent freak-out for Abrams. Taking place about 30 years after the ending of 1983’sReturn of the Jedi— which saw the heroic Rebel Alliance seemingly deliver a fatal blow to the evil Empire — The Force Awakensis just the first of a series of new movies taking place in the galaxy far, far away, and one that honors Lucas’ work while also forging its own path.
The two biggest movies of all time, 2009’s Avatarand 1997’sTitanic, opened in the same mid-December release slot asForce Awakens. If the newStar Warsis a good film and hits the right nerve for the fandom, it has a chance to be the first movie to reach $3 billion worldwide, says Rentraksenior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
But financials aside, “this is a monumental event,” he says. “I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, and I’ve never seen this interest and passion in a single movie.”
The Force Awakensalso sets up “the long-term success of this reinvigorated franchise and the whole notion ofStar Warsand the next installments yet to come,” Dergarabedian adds.
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” star John Boyega’s impressions of the cast and crewRobert Deutsch, USA TODAY
Episode VIII, written and directed byRian Johnson(Brick,Looper), will continue the story and begin filming in Europe in January for release on May 26, 2017, andColin Trevorrow(Jurassic World) has been tapped to helmEpisode IX, set for 2019.
There are other stand-alone movies in the works that will be used to flesh out various aspects of the universe, including Rogue One: A Star Wars Story(out Dec. 16, 2016), which centers on a rebel mission to steal plans for the first Death Star, and a young Han Solo project (May 25, 2018), written byForce AwakensscreenwriterLawrence Kasdanand son Jon and directed byThe Lego MoviefilmmakersPhil Lord and Christopher Miller.
The Force Awakensintroduces a new crop of characters such as Rey (Daisy Ridley), a scavenger who was left on the planet Jakku as a child and now waits to find her family; Finn (John Boyega), aStormtrooperfor the villainous First Order who leaves his service and embarks on an adventure when he meets Rey; and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), a lightsaber-wielding masked antagonist who has an unhealthy obsession with fallen Sith lordDarth Vader.
Kasdan, who was a writer on 1980’sEmpire Strikes Backas well asJedi, sees a direct line from the firstStar WarstoThe Force Awakens, and not just because the movie returns such legacy characters asHarrison Ford’s smuggler-turned-hero Han Solo andCarrie Fisher’s General Leia.
“As with all things, there’s deterioration, there are people trying to stay together and be good partners to each other and it not working out,” says Kasdan, 66, who co-wrote theForce Awakensscript with Abrams. “It’s just like real life, just in a different galaxy.”
We ask the cast of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’: Who’s your favorite droid?Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY
As important as the Force, that mysterious energy wielded by Jedi that binds folks together, is the overriding theme of theStar Warssaga for Kasdan: How do people fulfill their potential and figure out who they are and what they’re capable of? The main characters of the original trilogy all dealt with it, from Solo toPrincess LeiatoMark Hamill’sLuke Skywalker, the farm boy who went to space and became aJedi knight. And now the new kids will, too.
Skywalker’s search for meaning is what madeForce AwakensstarLupita Nyong’o, 32, a fan growing up inKenya. “All children feel like this at some point, where you seek and you want belonging and you want a purpose and you want adventure,” says the actress, who plays alien pirate Maz Kanata via motion capture.
Luke’s quest seems to be reflected in Rey. She, too, seeks a bigger destiny and has heard the legends of what has happened in the past.
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“The crux of her story is that she begins alone and she goes on this journey, but she never acts like she’s been alone the whole time,” says Ridley, 23. “She’s so open to everything, and that was what was so glorious about playing it. She’s not emotionally stunted and trapped in this world she’s built of her own.”
Abrams explains thatThe Force Awakenshas aspects “that feel like significant requiredStar Wars-ian necessity” — TIE Fighters, X-wing Starfighters, lightsabers.Star Warsalso has always been generational, so the new film showcases different personalities like Rey and Finn, a man who’s not the chosen one but is instead an aspirational figure for the rest of us.
“The Han Solos and theFinnsof theStar Warsuniverse are representations of human nature,” says Boyega, 23. “If a dude was coming toward you with a crossguard red lightsaber and he was about to swing that at you, you wouldn’t be like, ‘Let me look heroic.’ You’d be scared. That’s Finn. Finn is everybody.”
Creating this large fabric included wondering about the fates of core characters — What didAdmiral Ackbardo after the Battle of Endor? Did Leia and Han live happily ever after? — and then figuring out whom to bring back.
The core original-trilogy trio was a no-brainer for Abrams and Lucasfilm, and Fisher recalls that she and Ford had a powwow when their cinematic return was proposed.
She was all for it. “I have been Princess Leia. I’m the custodian of her. Why not get paid a few dollars to do that anyway?” says Fisher, 59. “She’s me and I’m her, and it’s kind of aMöbius strip.”
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As for Ford, “there is not an automatic yes in Harrison’s body, unless it’s for food or marijuana,” she quips. “And I’m not sure about the food thing either.”
Ask the 73-year-old actor, however, and there wasn’t much to ponder. “What am I doing? I’m sitting here on the porch of theMotion Picture Country Homein my rocker. Hell, yeah, give me some of that,” Ford says with a laugh.
SinceJedi,Solo has had experiences “we reveal that he has gone through in his life, which brings us a character who has aspects that he didn’t have 30 years ago, much like you and I,” Ford says. “We’re not necessarily any smarter, but we know more.
“The history they’ve developed for the character has got some real important emotional realities to it, and they aid in the telling of the story in a way that makes his contribution to the story significant.”
And when fans are reintroduced to Leia, the former face of the Rebel Alliance is in charge of the Resistance, “the company that she founded years ago that is in its own way still running,” Abrams teases. “It’s different in some ways, but it’s definitely of her making.”
She also has seen some serious stuff fighting the Dark Side, Fisher says. Plus, “I would imagine her job would probably get in the way of having relationships.”
As for Luke, well, no one’s really talking about Luke. Hamill is inThe Force Awakens, but he hasn’t talked about his character much in interviews, and Luke has been missing from most of the movie’s huge marketing push. And Abrams is loath to spill anything about Leia’s twin bro.
If he was guilty of being coy about the secrets of his popular TV showLostor villain reveals in hisStar Trek Into Darknessfilm, Abrams has made it an art form in keeping most every plot point close to the vest in the rollout ofThe Force Awakens.
Will it begin, like the others have, with a spaceship? “It’s a different opening,” he allows with a polite curtness. Will there be emotional moments that tap into the history of the six previous episodes? “Sure, yeah,” Abrams says. “Nothing I’ll ruin for you.”
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He’s much more open to talking about the bigger picture ofThe Force Awakens. “Part of the story of this movie is history repeats itself, and part of it is who is going to tell your history and what do people know about what has come before” — or recounting the many times he had to suppress freak-outs so he could make his movie.
Abrams didn’t tear up, but he recalls being surprisingly emotional the first time old droidsC-3POand R2-D2 shared a scene with the new robot on the block, BB-8. Or the first time Ford moseyed back onto theMillennium Falconin Solo garb. “Look, you get used to it. But not really.”
Lucas may have been the innovator, but what’s special about Abrams doing aStar Warsmovie is his “sheer enthusiasm,” Fisher says. “You saw it every minute of the day,” adds co-starOscar Isaac, who plays Resistance X-wing pilot Poe Dameron. “He made it part of his mission to continuously infuse the set with a sense of wonder and excitement and awe.”
Having the keys and joyriding with the franchise is one thing, yet it’s another to balance honoring Star Wars past while also building its future.
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“I wouldn’t believe that Leia would lose her strength of purpose and determination to do the right thing and defeat an enemy she saw growing,” Abrams concludes. “I wouldn’t believe that Han would settle down and become complacent. I don’t believe that Threepio would stop complaining or that light vs. dark would go away as a fundamental tenet of the series.
“There’s no template. It’s gut. When you’re working on the story, you go, ‘Oooooh. That feels so right.’ ”
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS‘Star Wars’ fan brings droids to life | 01:27
R2D2 has always been a favorite among Star Wars fans. One California man takes his love for the droid very seriously: he built a fully functional replica in his garage. Mike Senna is now working on his new project, a robot called ” BB8.”Newslook
It’s been nearly 20 years sinceWill Smith,Bill Pullman,Jeff Goldblumand company saved planet Earth from bully aliens in 1996’s Independence Day, one of the biggest box office hits of all time.
Not so surprisingly, it seems like everyone’s coming back for more as the trailer forRoland Emmerich’s sequel Independence Day: Resurgencedropped Sunday.
Aliens want more delicious Earth. President Thomas J. Whitmore (Pullman) is back with a crazy big beard because he’s having bad alien dreams after defeating them last time. That has likely been a problem for re-election.
GeniusDavid Levinson(Goldblum) is back looking REALLY freaked out again. EvenJudd Hirschis back and having his boat trip disrupted.
Okay, so the biggest movie star of them all in Smith is taking a powder on this Earth invasion. The guy simply cannot be expected to stop every alien when he’s going for Oscars.
But this new one’s gotLiam Hemsworth, and he’s now officially only walking in slow motion as hotshot Jake Morrison for this trailer. AndResurgence has got a moon base which we apparently built after the last time the aliens invaded.
And you can expect the effects to be bigger for the new film opening June 24 since special effects have come a long way (even if the last one won an Oscar for best visual effects).
To further emphasize this, the spacesuit-wearing Levinson says to new BFF Morrison: “This is definitely bigger than the last one.”
