The Bee Gees have clearly been living rent-free in Dave Grohl’s head lately, and now Foo Fighters are taking their admiration of the disco icons to a new level: Foo Fighters announced today that on July 17’s Record Store Day, they are releasing a collection of Bee Gees covers.
The album will actually be credited to the Dee Gees and is titled Hail Satin!. The release will be divided into two parts (as Spin notes). The first half, dubbed The Dee Gees, will feature the band covering five Bee Gees songs: “You Should Be Dancing,” “Night Fever,” “Tragedy,” “Shadow Dancing,” and “More Than A Woman.” (Technically, “Shadow Dancing” isn’t a Bee Gees song, but it’s in the literal Bee Gees family: It was a No. 1 single for Andy Gibb, the Bee Gees co-wrote it, and Barry Gibb sings on the song.) Then, the second half of the release features a handful of live versions of Medicine At Midnight songs.
Grohl previously picked the Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever as an album all kids should listen to, saying, “I like myself a little party every now and then. I do like to dance. I mean, come on, let’s just go with Saturday Night Fever. If you put Saturday Night Fever on, it’s going to feel like Saturday night, but it could be a Monday morning. So, I would have to go with those three albums. It’s a good way to start.”
Check out the Hail Satin! tracklist below.
Side A — The Dee Gees
1. “You Should Be Dancing”
2. “Night Fever”
3. “Tragedy”
4. “Shadow Dancing”
5. “More Than A Woman”
Side B — Live At 606
6. “Making A Fire”
7. “Shame Shame”
8. “Waiting On A War”
9. “No Son Of Mine”
10. “Cloudspotter”
When The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 was announced it was met with immediate praise and excitement from video game fans desperate for a sequel to one of the best Switch games ever made. The majority of people couldn’t wait to go back out there and explore Hyrule again. But a small section of people didn’t share that same level of excitement. Instead, they had questions.
When Breath of the Wild came out it was, for the most part, universally loved thanks to the interesting world Nintendo developers had created. The game was extremely atmospheric and unlike most titles set in a “post-apocalyptic” environment, it was colorful and full of life. Players were rewarded for every action, whether it was exploring, doing story missions, or fulfilling side quests. The joy of Breath of the Wild comes in exploring that world and making your own fun. Nintendo does have paths to guide the player on a journey, but none of it is actually required. If the player wants to, as soon as they escape the tutorial area, they’re free to run straight to Hyrule Castle so they can fight Ganon. It is the most freedom a player has had in a Zelda game since the original came out on the NES back in 1986. It was, to put it simply, very different.
It’s that difference that also rubs many people the wrong way. Breath of the Wild is a game unlike any Zeldas before it. There are few massive dungeons, only four, and their size pales in comparison to the temples of previous games. Most of the items that had become a staple of Link’s arsenal such as the Hookshot and boomerang were replaced with four tablet powers. Puzzles were no longer kept to dungeons but instead spread out all over the world in locations called shrines. Combat, after growing in complexity, simplified and relied heavily on having stronger stats. It’s a very minimalistic style of Zelda game — even with its sprawl — but the real dividing line comes in the equipment. Swords, shields, and bows all have durability and after a significant amount of use will break. Nobody really LOVED this feature, but for some people, it was the thing that set it apart from the rest of the Zelda games. The phrase “It’s a good game but a bad Zelda game” was not uncommon among those who wanted a more traditional adventure for Link. For many others, though, they fell in love with the new style of Breath of the Wild. It’s created a bit of a dividing line among video game fans and also raises a big question as Breath of the Wild 2 approaches in 2022. What direction should Nintendo take the series?
Let’s start off by saying the exploration found in Breath of the Wild is a huge asset to the game. The freedom of movement and choice in the game’s direction was largely loved and a welcome change following the linear path of Skyward Sword. That movement also led to one of the best aspects of Breath of the Wild and its dynamic and varied puzzle solving. Very few puzzles need to be followed traditionally. It’s more of an “accomplish the goal however is necessary” style that led to some extremely creative ways to solve puzzles that still fill YouTube to this day. For example, in one puzzle a ball is rolled into a maze and player need to use motion controls to get it to the end and placed into a cylinder. Sure, the player can meticulously push the ball through the maze or they can just flip the entire maze over so they have a flat surface. Almost every puzzle has multiple solutions like this and there is no such thing as the “wrong way.”
It seems extremely likely that same freedom of movement and puzzle style sticks in Breath of the Wild 2. This is really more a debate about what makes a Zelda game “traditional” and if it’s good to stay in that realm of comfort or continue to push beyond it. For many, the familiarity of what’s made a Zelda game is comfortable. They’re going to go on a quest to rescue Zelda, explore some temples that all have an item in them, then use that item to complete the dungeon’s puzzles and fight a boss. Then they’ll go into the overworld, with some catchy theme music, and run to the next temple to do it all over again. Extra content consists of side quests and collecting all the collectibles like heart pieces to 100 percent the game. It is a formula that has worked for decades.
Breath of the Wild abandoned that formula, which admittedly drew a lot of people to the game. Having puzzles spread out all over the world, which also acted as fast travel points, made exploring that enormous world fun. It was a constant reward for players to go see what was over the next mountain. It also did something that, for some players, kept them going through the game. Some Zelda dungeons have infamously difficult puzzles and these could lead to walls and end playthroughs. In Breath of the Wild, a challenging puzzle could always be saved for later. Yes, the shrines led to some of the major dungeons being much smaller in scale, but the rewards of the shrine felt like a greater prize.
Equipment breaking really is a problem, though. Even the Master Sword can “run out of energy” which feels like an attack against what that item stands for. It also, however, forces the player to try different weapons and makes other items in the game more useful. If weapons, swords, and bows didn’t break then we would just find one we liked and stick with it for the rest of the game. When weapons break it forces us to try new weapons and pick up what we can find. This can also make some of the fights early on hectic in a way that is fun and chaotic. Having at least one item, shield, and bow that never breaks would have been a nice reward near the game’s endpoint.
Neither formula is a bad one, but there is a pretty clear divide among fans about what Breath of the Wild 2 should be like. It’s also something that could change the entire scope of what Zelda is in the future. Many franchises go through major changes at some point to try and freshen themselves up and it’s impressive that Zelda really hasn’t had to do that until recently. When Mario made the jump from 2D to 3D he went from a side-scrolling platformer to a 3D collectathon that defined an entire genre of games. Zelda, on the other hand managed to successfully take the formula that worked so well in 2D, dungeons, items, and bosses into the 3D world with great success. The biggest divergence Zelda has ever made from the formula was Majora’s Mask on the N64, and that game was also controversial among fans because of it putting a larger emphasis on side quests. That discussion point is another indication that a significant portion of the franchise’s fans don’t want Zelda to change. They want that comfort, but is that good for the franchise?
There are few, if any, bad Zelda games, but it’s pretty clear that the last few titles didn’t have quite the same adoration as many of the previous titles. Skyward Sword saw criticism for for its linearity and Twilight Princess for not breaking away from the mold enough (ironic huh?), so it was clear some juice was needed. The juice was largely successful for non-Zelda diehards, but it left the people who love Zelda most at the wayside asking for the formula they know and love. And so Nintendo has a decision to make: who do they appeal to here? Do they try to thread the needle and create a “traditional” experience with the world and mechanics of Breath of the Wild, or do they double down and go further with what they know works. That decision could define the entire franchise moving forward.
If Zelda breaks away from the norm once again then that franchise could be changed forever. The idea of a “traditional” Zelda game will not have the same meaning anymore, and with how popular the previous Breath of the Wild was it’s not like they can’t turn this into a new formula. But are they willing to break away from 35 years of success because of one game’s popularity? We’ll just have to wait until 2022 to know for certain.
What’s the first thing you think of when you think of Australia? It’s probably snakes. Or spiders. Or dingoes. Something that bites and/or stings.
Margot Robbie blames herself for this stereotype.
Robbie was born in Queensland, where there’s “heaps of wildlife around,” as The Suicide Squad star explained on Wednesday’s episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden. “I am the person perpetuating the stereotype when people ask, ‘Are there kangaroos out your window?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, but not usually.’ ‘Is there snakes in the house?’ ‘Tons, but not for everyone.’ It is probably my fault. I’m encouraging this.”
It’s a good thing Robbie and her husband, producer Tom Ackerley, live in Los Angeles. He would not be able to handle all the slithering in Australia. “My husband hates snakes,” she told Corden and co-guest Rose Byrne, another famous Aussie. “He’s English. You guys don’t have them obviously really at all in England, I guess. But I mean, they’re everywhere! I’m living in L.A. and there was a two-meter [six feet] snake just outside the kitchen, just in the garden the other day. Yeah, he almost had a coronary.”
Based on Robbie’s description, there’s not enough dollarydoos in the world that could get me to live in Queensland. Even the birds are deadly. You can watch the clip above.
Not the literal purpose, being the “beautiful union of form and function” that allows mankind to glide atop the ocean surface on a carbon fiber dolphin-shaped chariot like some kind of swashbuckling Jesus. No, everyone — even the God of Mischief — knows the awesome practicality of this aquatic feat of engineering.
We want to talk about the metaphorical purpose of Jet Skis and what they might hint at when it comes to the motivations of the mysterious Time Variance Authority on Marvel’s latest series, Loki.
Still with us? Good. Spoilers for episode two of the show are below.
In Loki’s second installment, Tom Hiddleston’s trickster Variant is recruited to hunt a more dangerous version of himself, one who seems intent on mucking up the sacred timeline and giving everyone at the TVA a mountain of paperwork to slog through. Most of the episode sees Loki and Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson) testing out their theories about this timeline-thwarting Loki’s real endgame and how they might catch him before he does something irreversible with all those reset charges he’s been collecting. They end up having a breakthrough when our Loki Variant realizes the future (or past) version of himself is shielding his movements by camping out in time branches doomed to end by way of an apocalypse, meaning he can do anything he wants to the timeline, and the Time Keepers won’t ever know because that branch was always going to implode.
He’s right, of course, but that means Mobius and Loki must now sift through hundreds of naturally occurring disasters to find where this chaos-causing villain is hiding which leads to a fairly revealing chat between the pair over a cup of coffee. That talk starts with, you guessed it … Jet Skis. Loki recalls a water sports magazine he found on Mobius’ desk, asking him why he finds the vehicle so fascinating, which has led us on one of the more bizarre comic-book-inspired easter egg hunts we’ve ever been on.
First, there’s Mobius’ innocent obsession with Jet Skis. He knows the decade they were invented, claims they’re one of the few things in history that haven’t disappointed him, all before admitting he’s never actually ridden one. Loki uses that opening to question Mobius’ devout belief in the Time Keepers and his mission to protect the sacred timeline, despite not knowing where exactly he came from, who created him, and why. Of course, Mobius deflects by posing that same question and cautioning Loki not to think too hard about those kinds of existential conundrums, but we’re dealing with the God of Mischief here. Loki is an ancient, alien being who’s convinced entire civilizations that he is, in fact, a god. Why wouldn’t he question the motives behind a trio of “magical lizards” doing the same?
Mobius may still have undying faith in his overlords, but it’s this conversation with Loki that poses an interesting question: Are the Time-Keepers the real villains here?
There are a few theories working in favor of that narrative twist. First, early in the episode, we see Loki studying the basic history of the TVA and what it is that they do. Eventually, he’s invited on a mission to an ’80s era Renaissance Fair where a Hunter has been taken hostage. While there, Mobius quizzes Loki on the TVA protocol that dictates how they should handle the disrupted time branch, and Loki, rather bluntly, compares what the reset charges do to, well, murder. The TVA likes to say they “prune the timeline” so that it can “heal itself.” Loki accurately paraphrases that definition, explaining it’s just a nice way of saying they “disintegrate everything” in their vicinity. It’s not the only time that the TVA agents seem to callously disregard people and Variants unlucky enough to be trapped in one of these branches. When Mobius’ team heads to a department store about to be destroyed by a hurricane (which also serves as evil Loki’s basecamp), he becomes visibly upset with how rough the Hunters are with the terrified citizens just seeking shelter from the storm. It’s this apathetic attitude and outright disgust of people they see as expendable anomalies or worse, disruptive mistakes of the timeline, that point to a more sinister endgame when it comes to the Time Keepers.
Next is the idea that every agent working at the TVA was created by the Time Keepers. That’s the origin story presented to us in episode one when we meet an office clerk who’s never heard of fish — which makes Loki’s threat to gut him a little less intimidating — and when Mobius reveals he doesn’t really know how old he is because “time works differently” at the TVA. Now it’s certainly plausible that an agency that uses Infinity Stones as paperweights could just will their workforce into being, but fans on Reddit have a different theory. What if Mobius, and every other person working at the TVA, are really Variants who’ve been “wiped”? Technically, we still don’t know what the term “wiping” entails here. Maybe the TVA just erases Variants from the timeline altogether, effectively killing them — which also works to prove our theory that these people are actually the worst. But that’d be pretty wasteful, considering Variants who end up at the TVA are already removed from the timeline to begin with. Why not just wipe their memories and repurpose them as your own paper pushers?
If we were omnipotent overlords, that’s what we’d do. If Mobius was actually just a Variant who’d been wiped, it explains his love of Jet Skis and vintage ’90s soda brands (shoutout to those Josta energy drink cameos!). Maybe his original era was sometime in the ’80s/early ’90s and that’s why he has an affinity for these things, despite never experiencing them in real life?
Lastly, isn’t it incredibly suspect that a man like Mobius, who seems to be one of the agency’s top people, has never actually met the beings he works for? Other than an introductory video narrated by Miss Minutes, we know next to nothing about the Time Keepers and their ultimate plan, and when Loki tries to find out more information in episode two, he’s told those origin stories are “classified.” Mobius has never interacted with the Time Keepers either, something he seems a bit salty over during a meeting with Renslayer, and his explanation as to why — that they’re just too busy untangling the universe’s epilogue so that we can all live in peace and order — also seems suspect. Renslayer seems to be the only person who’s had an audience with these overlords — though we’ve never seen proof of that fact — and she reacts rather oddly when, in the episodes final minutes, the problem-causing future Loki (who may be Lady Loki or may actually be a character named Enchantress from the comics) blows up the timeline. Some fans are theorizing that Renslayer, who has ties to the villainous Kang in the comics, is actually working for him and that the TVA may actually exist in the Quantum Realm — which would nicely tie into future Ant-Man movies and get us hyped for Jonathan Majors’ turn as Marvel’s next big bad.
But even if all these clues end up being red herrings (a very possible outcome considering we’re talking about Marvel here) the original scene that sparked all of these wild theories still feels like a foreshadower of things to come. After bonding over their mutual appreciation of said Jet Skis, Loki leaves Mobius with some earned wisdom to chew on:
“No one bad is ever truly bad, and no one good is ever truly good.”
And that might be the best summation of the Time Keepers that we’ve heard so far.
The 2021 BET Awards are set to air live on Sunday, June 27 at 8 pm ET/PT live from Los Angeles with a truly impressive lineup of the most performers in the last 21 years. Today, BET announced that those will include performances from Andra Day, City Girls, DaBaby, DJ Khaled, HER, Jazmine Sullivan, Kirk Franklin, Lil Baby and Lil Durk, Migos, Moneybagg Yo, Rapsody, Roddy Ricch, and Tyler The Creator, among others. The show will be hosted by Taraji P. Henson and will honor Queen Latifah with a Lifetime Achievement BET Award.
This year’s show will be the first with an audience since 2019, the lowest-rated show in BET Awards history, but it seems some of the lessons the network took away from last year’s show stuck; namely, the focus on performances over bells and whistles.
Watch the 2021 BET Awards 6/27 on BET.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Be careful. This recipe is gonna mess up your diet. It also might mess up your weekend a little, by leading to long mid-morning naps. But you can’t deny, this breakfast burger is a thing of beauty. Just look at that gaudy mess.
The recipe we’re laying out today is indulgent, filling, a bona fide hangover cure, and one of the best ways to start a Saturday or Sunday morning (or afternoon) brunch. It was inspired by a recent The Burger Show episode in which chef Alvin Cailan faced off with former Bon Appétit host Molly Baz. When I saw it, I knew I had to throw my breakfast burger hat into the ring.
I took a few cues from Baz and Cailan’s burgers — like macerating thinly sliced onions in hot sauce and putting a hash brown patty on my burger. The rest is all me. I have two secret weapons in play here. One, I’m cutting my ground beef with Spam. Yes, you read that right. My breakfast burger patty is two parts ground beef to one part motherf*cking Spam. I’m also topping this burger with a low-and-slow tomato-bacon-onion jam (my editor’s idea) instead of raw tomato or onion or an unwieldy slice of bacon.
This is my homage to Spam and eggs with a side of hash browns. Will it work in burger form? Let’s find out!
Add a large glug of olive oil to a medium-sized pot on medium heat.
Add in one slice of diced bacon while the pot is still cold. Brown and remove the bacon; set it aside.
Add in the onions with a pinch of salt and sweat until translucent, making sure to pull the fond from the bottom of the pot.
Add tomatoes and stir. Add 1/2 cup of raw sugar, a pinch of cinnamon, a small spoon of paprika, and 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar.
Re-add the bacon.
Lower heat and simmer for about an hour until a thick, jammy consistency is achieved.
Store in a jar in the fridge for up to two weeks.
Zach Johnston
For the breakfast burger:
Use a scale to measure one ounce of SPAM and two ounces of ground beef.
Use a fork to break up and slightly mash the SPAM and then mix into the ground beef. Form a ball and set it aside.
Add the mayo and a few dashes of hot sauce to a small bowl and mix until well blended (make this as spicy as you want).
Peel a potato and grate it directly into a bowl of water. Let sit for 15 minutes and then use a kitchen towel to squeeze out all the excess water. (See our full hash browns recipe here.)
Use a mandolin on its thinnest setting to slice a yellow onion. Liberally season the onions with Louisiana hot sauce and set them aside.
In a small and oiled non-stick pan, add a burger patty-sized amount of shredded potatoes. Hit with salt and pepper and let brown on one side before flipping and browning on the other side. Set aside when cooked through and fully browned on both sides.
In the same pan, add a little more olive oil and crack in an egg. Use the corner of the spatula to swirl the yolk around and hit with a pinch of salt and pepper. Once the egg is starting to set, flip and cook for another ten to 15 seconds before setting it aside on a plate.
Heat a cast iron skillet on medium-high heat.
Butter two sides of the English muffin and place in the skillet, butter side down, to toast. Set aside when browned.
Turn the heat on the skillet to high. Place the meatball in the center of the skillet, hit with a big pinch of salt, and then pile high with hot sauce macerated onions. Use a large spatula to smash the ball into a thin patty.
Once the juices start to bubble up on the patty and the onions are browned on the edges, flip the patty.
Place a slice of cheddar over the patty and spoon a large dollop of the tomato-bacon-onion jam on top and place a lid on the skillet. Turn the heat to low.
Ready the burger for assembly: Spicy mayo on the top and bottom bun. The hash brown goes on the bottom. On the top bun, make a small layer of fresh spinach for the egg to rest in.
Once the cheese is nice and melty, transfer the patty to the waiting hash brown patty on your bottom bun. Place the egg and top bun on the burger and wrap in the white paper.
Let rest for a few minutes and serve.
Bottom Line:
Zach Johnston
I want this to be my last meal. Hell, I want to be buried with a big, oily bag of these burgers in the coffin.
This might be one of the best burgers I’ve ever made and very high up there with the best I’ve ever eaten. I liked this so much I’ve done a complete 180 on dismissing the English muffins as a burger bun.
The burger patty was super savory with this mix of beef and porky goodness that felt like spam and eggs for breakfast but in burger form. The hash brown was soft on the inside with a crispy exterior that provided an excellent crunchy counterpoint. The hot sauce mayo and spicy onions let the heat build slowly towards a crescendo by the time you finished the burger.
The cheese was super melty. The edges of the onions were crisp. The bun was full of toasted buttery goodness and really held everything together well (the holes and craters of the muffin suck up some of the extra-sauciness of this burger). The egg was exactly right and still had a soft body to it (overly fried eggs turn to rubber). The spinach added a nice and bright green to the look of the burger but didn’t really add a whole lot to the taste, which was fine by me. The tomato-bacon-onion jam was a sweet, tangy, umami bomb that surprised you with nugs of bacon every now and then.
In the end, it doesn’t even have to be breakfast, I’m going to make this burger, again and again, all times of day and year-round. It’s a hedonist’s dream. A once-a-month type of thing. But definitely a meal you need in your life.
All that being said, this was a messy burger that definitely needs to be wrapped.
Tate’s rise from dance superstar to one of the year’s most prominent new pop voices is well-documented, but it seems like this new single is going to catapult her into the spotlight in an even bigger way. On the track, the two young musicians trade verses about their, well, work ethic. “I am so stoked for this song I did with Khalid,” Tate said in a press release. “I usually release a lot of songs that are pretty emotional but this one is just a straight summer bop. We had such a fun time creating this song — I seriously can’t wait for everyone to hear it.”
Check out the new tune above and get ready to hear Tate and Khalid working it all summer long.
Each year, after E3 has come and gone, a new and contentious question emerges: Who “won” E3? It leads to countless heated podcast debates, YouTube videos, Twitter battles, and ultimately, is pretty futile. The point of these events, when it really comes down to it, is to have something for everyone, not everything for everyone.
While some folks might be thrilled to be getting a new 2D Metroid game and another look at Breath of the Wild 2, others are stoked to finally see Starfield, or finally have that rumored Guardians of the Galaxy game confirmed. It’s impossible to say who won E3 because people are more diverse then the games they play. However, one type of game certainly did shine this year: indies.
Indies are games that are independent of a gigantic team, a AAA publisher (think EA, Naughty Dog, Xbox…), and all the funding that comes with that. Indie games are games made “by the people,” in a sense, and generally have a greater ability to be unusual, quirky, emotional, provocative, and true to a small team’s vision rather than forced to go through a larger process to appeal to certain sensibilities.
Because of this, that whole “something for everyone” thing is incredibly apparent within this category. While ultimately, I’d love for you to walk away from this list with the zeal to go out and find some that speak directly to you, here’s a list of ten I can’t wait for and I think many of you might love, too.
Epic Games
1. Sable Sable is gorgeous open-world, exploration game that follows a young woman named Sable as she begins her “Gliding,” a journey through the desert that serves as a rite of passage for her people. While that description might be enough in itself to pique your interest, what stands out the most about the game is its art direction — the game looks unlike any other I’ve played. The soundtrack was created by indie artist Japanese Breakfast, and is just as beautiful as the game. As of right now, Sable is slated for September 23 release
2. Spirit Swap
Before you dismiss match-3 games as being for an older demographic, let me remind they are fun and those who play them are 100 percent valid gamers. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about Spirit Swap: LoFi Beats to Match-3 To. Described on its Steam page as a game that let’s you “cast spells, be queer, and crash the biggest concert of the year,” Spirit Swap is a narrative-driven puzzle game set in a land of witches and demons, and is filled with, as the name implies, chill beats to listen to while doing match-3 puzzles. The art is vibrant, the characters are diverse, and the story is sure to appeal to everyone, including all our LGBTQ+ folks. The only downside is you will have to wait until 2022 to start playing.
This is the first game on this list you can play right this second, and according to the game’s Steam page, more than 3,000 people recommend that you do. Oh, and one other thing: it’s free. The rhythm adventure game is anime-inspired and is being updated regularly with new songs and stories as the developers add new episodes, which are also free and work to build an overarching story. If you’re not fantastic at or super about rhythm games, UNBEATABLE has an assist mode to help out and make sure everyone can enjoy it.
Steam
4. Button City Button City bills itself as “a colorful low poly narrative adventure game about a fox and his friends banding together to save their local arcade,” and is exactly as cute looking as that description makes it sound. The art is vibrant and 80s-inspired, the characters are Animal Crossing-level adorable, and the whole game is packed with exciting arcade games and quirky quests to complete as you traverse a unique, pastel world. As of right now, the game is scheduled to release this fall.
5. We Are OFK
For all you music lovers out there, We are OFK is a visual novel about four friends who come together to form an indie band in Los Angeles and all the heartache, frustration, and joy that comes with it. According to the game’s Steam page, it features “fully-voiced dialogue from a star-studded cast,” original L.A. locations (including a boba shop), five original music videos with debut tracks from OFK, and “emotional texting, thirst texting, meme texting, and emoji spamming.” Right now, the game is scheduled for release later this year.
6. Garden Story
In Garden Story, you play as a grape who has been newly appointed as “Guardian of the Grove” in their community. With this title comes the responsibility of fighting off the invasive Rot, protecting your hometown, and bringing a community back together. The adventure-RPG looks a whole lot like an old school Zelda game in how it plays, but with a bit more cheer to it. In addition, the game makes it clear that the key to success is not working alone, but rather asking your community for help as you help them. Garden Story is set to come out later this year.
A few years back, a little indie game called Hyper Light Drifter came out and first of all, if you haven’t played that game, I strongly urge you to give it a try — especially if you’re a Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past and similarly hauntingly beautiful games. Hyper Light Drifter went on to become critically acclaimed, as it held up along indie titles like Undertale and Celeste as examples of what small studios can accomplish. Solar Ash is Heart Machine’s second game, is set in the same universe as HLD, and allows players to take control as a woman as she travels through the unescapable “Ultravoid,” slaying monsters and finding solace in the quiet moments before despair. Fingers crossed we’ll see this game hit PlayStation later this year.
8. TOEM
In a nutshell, TOEM is delightful. I played the demo for this one already, and as much as I was already into its look, the demo only deepened my anticipation for the full release. TOEM follows an unnamed character as they leave home to bear witness to a phenomenon known simply as “TOEM” with nothing but their grandmother’s camera in hand. While that sounds pretty straight forward, the way you get to use the camera to progress through the game, solve puzzles, and finish quests is pretty unique. While the game is entirely in black and white, it filled with so many colorful characters and this liveliness that makes the world feel vibrant. As of right now, it’s scheduled to release later this year.
If, like me, you love The Sims but are a bit bummed out by the series’ trajectory, Paralives is here to fix that. This game is essentially The Sims, but with an abundance of quality of life changes. Everything is customizable, there are no grids and guides, and the characters look fantastic. This is the perfect example of a small group of people growing dissatisfied, noticing countless others felt the same, and taking it upon themselves to create the change they wanted to see. As of right now, there is no set release date and honestly, with how big the game is going to be, it might be a bit before we do get one. Here’s hoping Paralives will be well worth that wait.
Last but not least, here’s a game on this list for all you survival horror fans. In Signalis, you play as Elster, a technician Replika who is navigating a dystopian nightmare and fending off horrendous creatures as she searches for her “lost dreams.” While I can be a really baby about horror, this game has an incredibly unique look to it with an aesthetic that feels a bit like Alien-meets-Ghost-in-the-Shell, which makes me really want to get over my fears and give it a try. As of right now, there is no announced release date for Signalis.
Those are the first words spoken in the trailer for Pig, starring Nicolas Cage as a truffle hunter who’s searching for his lost foraging pig. That sounds like a comedic premise, but based on the trailer from Neon (the distributor behind Parasite, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and Palm Springs), Pig is an introspective character study about a recluse who returns to the life he abandoned to find his pet. Think: Wendy and Lucy, but with a pig. (I hope it’s not TOO much like Wendy and Lucy — I have never cried harder watching a movie.)
Here’s more from Neon:
A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregonian wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped.
Cage’s other upcoming projects include The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, in which he plays a fictionalized version of herself, and multiple television shows in development, including one where he portrays Joe Exotic and another where he voices an alcoholic, TV-obsessed dragon. Also something called The Retirement Plan, where he looks like this. I hope Cage a) finds his truffle pig, and b) never stops working.
Billie Eilish has of course become beloved thanks to her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. It wasn’t exactly filled with happy music, though. Now she’s prepared to follow it up with Happier Than Ever next month, and it turns out that on terms of the general emotional tone, the new album won’t exactly be a reversal of its predecessor.
In a new Rolling Stone profile, Eilish noted that despite the happiness-indicating title of the record, “almost none of the songs on this album are joyful.” Further, with “only the slightest tinge of humor,” as the publication put it, Eilish said, “I hope people break up with their boyfriends because of it. And I hope they don’t get taken advantage of.”
Elsewhere in the piece, Eilish spoke about how her perspective on the openness of celebrities changed once she became one, saying, “It’s sad because I can’t give the fans everything they want. The bigger I’ve gotten, the more I understand why [my favorite celebrities] couldn’t do all the things I wanted them to do. It wouldn’t make sense to people who aren’t in this world. If I said what I was thinking right now, [the fans] would feel the same way I did when I was 11. They’d be like, ‘It would be so easy. You could just do it.’ No. It’s crazy the amount of things you don’t think about before it’s right in front of you.”
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