Month: January 2023

NBA players becoming first-time All-Stars during their third full season is nothing new. Ja Morant and Darius Garland did it this past campaign, while Jayson Tatum and Bam Adebayo were both first-time selections back in 2019-20. This year, Tyrese Haliburton appears primed to become the latest up-and-coming star to parlay a huge third season into an All-Star debut.

The former Iowa State Cyclone is leading an upstart 21-18 Indiana Pacers squad that entered the year presumably entrenched in the Victor Wembanyma sweepstakes, yet instead finds itself tied for the East’s No. 6 seed entering Friday. Averaging 20.6 points, an NBA-high 10.2 assists, four rebounds, and 1.8 steals per game, Haliburton and his full-fledged arrival at stardom are the conductors of this Pacers train.

After his move from Sacramento to Indiana last February, Haliburton experienced an uptick in ball-handling duties. Both of those trends have continued into 2022-23. His 29.2 percent usage rate is a career-high — it was 23.7 percent with the Pacers last season. A career-high 69 percent (97th percentile among combo guards, per Cleaning The Glass) of his field goals are unassisted. Per 100 possessions, he’s taking nearly five more shots (21.7 vs. 16.9) than he did in 26 post-trade games a year ago.

Despite a heightened workload, his 61.7 true shooting percentage (.485/.407/.877 split) is a career-high and sits four points above league average. The Pacers entrusted him with significantly grander responsibilities and he’s delivering. Scaling up into a full-time primary creator role and increasing efficiency is a daunting task for anyone, let alone a 22-year-old had to immediately adapt to a new role and situation a mere 2.5 seasons into his career. Haliburton is doing exactly that. His considerable strides every year are a pillar of his basketball journey.

Arguably the most notable growth in Haliburton’s individual scoring arsenal is his downhill persistence and success. As a rookie, his rim frequency was 16 percent (18th percentile). This year, it’s 27 percent (62nd percentile). He extinguishes his dribble deeper in the lane, has become impressively adept working through contact, and even uses his 6’5 frame to play bully-ball occasionally. Not only is he reaching the cup at a career-high rate, he’s finishing there at a career-high rate as well (68 percent, 75th percentile).

Haliburton weaponizes loping strides and elongated gather phases or dribble moves to efficiently cover ground. He leverages his pull-up gravity and playmaking threat into fortuitous driving and finishing angles. In years past, he might curl around a screen, see open space, and fire a jumper or floater. Now, he’s more regularly attacking all the way inside for opportunities.

Previously, his live dribble probing was mostly deployed to operate East-West for space creation or screen manipulation. Now, he’s routinely dancing North-South with that live dribble, too. Some of his paint escapades that once resulted in complex turnarounds, kickouts, or reset passes have been replaced by flexible, slithery buckets near the hoop.

Watching him muscle through dudes for buckets is a mystifying sight, given his pre-Draft struggles in both dishing out and enduring physicality. Three years later, he’s chasing mismatches to either chisel through or dart around them in pursuit of buckets.

His heightened aggression extends to the jumper. His .485 three-point rate is the best of his career, squeaking past the .478 clip of his rookie year. Back then, 79 percent of his triples were assisted. This season, that number is down to 44 percent, as he eschews spot-up volume in favor of off-the-bounce boogying.

An easy way to track the evolution of his on-ball influence is his rate of corner threes. In year one, it was 27 percent. Last year, it was 13.9 percent. This year, it’s 6.9 percent. He’s spending much less time in an ancillary role as a floor-spacer. Similarly, his 26.2 percent catch-and-shoot frequency as a rookie has declined to 12.2 percent, while his pull-up frequency has spiked from 20.7 percent to 36 percent. Only Luka Doncic (259) has launched more pull-up threes than Haliburton (204) this season. He’s mixing frequency with efficiency, too — among 28 players with at least 100 attempts, his 41.2 percent mark ranks fourth behind Stephen Curry (47.6 percent), Donovan Mitchell (44.7 percent), and Tyler Herro (42.5 percent).

He continues to expand his modes of space creation for jumpers. Whether it’s nonchalant sidesteps, firing well beyond the arc when defenders grant him room, wicked quick crossovers, or pole vault-esque stepbacks, he’s still incorporating novel avenues to generate long-range volume off the dribble.

Haliburton’s penchant for exploiting any subtle defensive miscues fuels his All-Star status; he hastily seizes late switches, slow rotations, or communication breakdowns. He also explores and broadens the full depths of his creative shot-making arsenal. His real-time problem-solving is among the best in the league. This delightful lefty push shot exemplifies that.

His incremental development is fascinating. Many young players derive early on-ball reps from their scoring aptitude and build out the passing from there. Devin Booker, Zach LaVine, Joel Embiid, and DeMar DeRozan all come to mind.

Haliburton is the opposite. His pick-and-roll artistry and general facilitating knack first earned him extended touches. In the years since, he’s massively refined and matured his scoring ethos to become a 20-point man. He identifies how defenses guard him, where he must progress and promptly accomplishes it in his own distinct manner.

Few are better at freezing defenders with their eyes, igniting chances in the open floor with fakes, and striking as soon as the opposition commits the wrong direction. When this happens, his flavorful, ingenuitive passing is put on display. The high-flying facilitating still delights (read this from the brilliant Caitlin Cooper). Indiana’s transition potency — third in volume and points per possession — begins with its star point guard, who relentlessly pushes the pace to cause and exploit disorganized, unprepared opponents.

He morphs into a spindly Harlem Globetrotter on the fast-break, functioning with a joyful relaxation that masks his eagle-eyed determination. And then, boom, Buddy Hield’s canned a three. Myles Turner crammed home a dunk. Haliburton’s dialed his own number from long range. A Pacers titlewave is barrelling through the gates left open by an unfocused defensive approach.

These sorts of easy transition looks authored by him are fittingly reminiscent of an All-Star Game. It’s precisely the place he’ll be in six weeks.

Celine Dion fans aren’t taking her absence from Rolling Stone‘s “200 Greatest Singers Of All Time” list lightly. Over the past few days, the magazine has received much backlash on social media for overlooking the “My Heart Will Go On” hitmaker from the list. Today (January 6), a group of protesters stood outside of the Rolling Stone office, slamming the magazine for not including Dion on the list.

According to Variety, who, along with Rolling Stone, is owned by Penske Media Corporation and operates out of the same building, about 15 fans stood outside of the building, playing Dion’s “That’s The Way It Is” from a Bluetooth speaker. The fans were heard chanting “Justice for Celine.”

These protestors came as part of a fan club called The Redheads on Facebook and are based in Canada. They traveled six hours from Montreal to New York City to protest Dion’s omission from the list.

The signs held by protestors contained messages like “How could you forget Celine?” and “The power of Celine,” the lattermost referring to one of her signature songs, “The Power Of Love.”

“The list is completely illegitimate,” said the group’s founder.. “We wanted to support her and make sure that Rolling Stone hears the voice of the fans. The list is ridiculous. No Madonna, no Celine. They’re clearly focused on American singers and we don’t understand.”

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Though many were noticing the similarities between Corn Kid and Pickle Girl (and obviously asking for a future collaboration between the two), there’s one thing that makes her personality stand alone. For you see, even though Pickle Girl “LOVES PICKLES,” she eats everything, from broccoli to corn to squash. No bugs though. Nice try, Julian.

And in case you were wondering, when Pickle Girl eats a pickle, she thinks about when she was a wittle baby—yes, wittle—and how she would cry and cry and cry. If only her parents had known her tears could have been easily avoided with her favorite snack.

Trust me, words aren’t going to do it justice. Watch below:

It’s giving the half-eaten pickle to dad then immediately calling for donut that really does it for me.

Kids can become so passionate over the simplest of things. It’s a skill that we grumpy adults really have to coax out and work to maintain. However, watching how the pros do it is a great way to start, because that joy is truly contagious. Thank you, Pickle Girl for taking something so salty and somehow making it the sweetest thing ever. Bless you.

I’d never heard of ASMR when my kids started talking about how “satisfying” ASMR videos were. They had shared other “satisfying” videos with me, such as machinery making precise movements, Play-Doh being squished through holes, and more. I understood what they found appealing about them and I figured ASMR videos would be similar.

They weren’t.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, which refers to the deep relaxation and tingling sensation some people experience from certain triggers, such as sounds. The sounds we’re talking about, however, are not the soothing music or birds chirping or ocean waves one might normally associate with relaxation. They’re things like hair brushing, scraping fingernails on a plastic water bottle and mouth crackles, all amplified with a powerful microphone.

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Yes, mouth crackles. As in the popping sound people’s saliva makes in the corners of their mouths when they talk. (The mouth sounds usually accompany someone whispering—another ASMR favorite.)

Intentional ASMR videos highlight these sounds and people either love it (because it gives them the tingles) or they don’t (because it’s annoying).

This whispering ASMR video has 24 million views and offers a glimpse of what I’m talking about:

The past decade has seen ASMR videos grow in popularity to the point where Reese’s made an hour-long film featuring five ASMR stars who whisper into microphones while unwrapping Reese’s candy wrappers.

This YouTube video is three hours straight of nonvocal ASMR sounds made primarily with a woman’s fingernails gently scraping across various different textured surfaces, and it has 37 million views:

People who experience ASMR prefer different triggers, and it might take some experimenting to see what works—if it does at all. It seems that people either get ASMR or they don’t. My children do, but I don’t. I actually find these videos vaguely irritating.

Why is that? What makes some people have a positive, soothing reaction to ASMR videos while others get annoyed by them?

One answer may lie in our baseline mental states. A study from 2022 suggests that people who experience ASMR tingles tend to be higher in neuroticism, which means being more likely to experience negative emotional states such as anxiety. Notably, ASMR appeared to reduce anxiety in those people, whereas the people who didn’t get the tingles showed no difference in their anxiety before and after watching the videos.

Joanna Greer, Ph.D., a senior lecturer of psychology at Northumbria University who co-authored the study, told Verywell Health that the study’s findings can encourage further research into how ASMR can help reduce anxiety.

And anecdotally, the people-more-prone-to-anxiety-tend-to-get-ASMR idea is reflected accurately in my and my kids’ case, as my kids are much more anxiety-prone than I am.

Neuroticism isn’t the only personality trait associated with experiencing ASMR. University of Winnipeg professor of psychology Stephen Smith has studied ASMR and personalities. He told CNN that people who get the tingly response tend to score high in the “openness to experience” trait as well as neuroticism, while scoring lower in conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness.

“I think they’re more receptive to specific types of physical, auditory and visual experiences than the rest of us,” Smith said.

ASMR isn’t purely triggered by the videos shown and described here, either. The response is something most of us have experienced at one point or another, whether it’s from someone brushing our hair or making slow movements or simply giving us personal attention. But the videos that have taken over YouTube are designed to tap straight into the phenomenon with specific sounds.

Whether it actually works is an individual question. In people I’ve casually polled, responses to ASMR videos seem to be fairly split—some find them “satisfying,” some find them annoying. But the people who respond to ASMR sounds share that they reduce their anxiety and create a sense of calm in them. In an increasingly anxious world, the more ways we can find to soothe people’s minds, the better. Whatever floats your boat.

Even if it does involve loudly breaking saliva bubbles.

Happy 2023, everyone!

We’re almost a week in. How are we doing so far? Whether you’re crushing your New Year’s resolutions, struggling to make new habits stick or are ditching the goal-setting altogether, we hope you’re making the most of the fresh energy the new year brings.

If adding more joy to your life is on the docket for 2023, you’ve come to the right place. We are experts in uplifting and specialize in smiles, and we love to share the best of humanity with you all.

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One of the best parts of pulling together these weekly roundups of joy is seeing the wide range of things that make us smile. We’ve got old folks and wee ones, dancers and doggos, teachers connecting with students and a whole town changing its plans to protect a wandering walrus. Each thing is delightful in its own way, and there’s a little something here for everyone.

So kick back, relax and enjoy these serotonin-boosting finds:

1. Doggo’s owners have a conversation using all of his favorite words and his joy is palpable.

See on Instagram

The tail wagging and the eyebrow raising say it all. So dang cute.

2. Gramps does the cutest ‘fit check’ with his granddaughter.

@pettitgrace

This is my new favorite video ever.

We love this Grandpa. What a joy. Read the full story here.

3. 73-year-old went to his first music festival and lived his best life.

@ayeejayy42

Age is just a number… #happynewyear #countdownnye2023 #insomniacevents

Good for him for not letting the number of candles on his birthday cake hold him back. Looks like he had the time of his life.

4. A teacher and an eighth grader faced off in a dance challenge between exams.

See on Instagram

Teachers are real-life heroes every day, and Ms. Turner heroically brought it in this dance battle. Love seeing this kind of connection with students. Read the full story here.

5. A British town canceled its New Year’s Eve fireworks to let its unexpected walrus visitor sleep.

Thor showed up on a boat ramp in the U.K. town of Scarborough and appeared to need some rest. Residents rallied to protect him until he moved on, including canceling their traditional fireworks display. Read the full story of Thor’s visit to Scarborough here.

6. Mom tries to get her toddler to unlock the door after being locked out, and perfect toddler chaos ensued.

@gesikaaaaaa

Thank god for tiny humans #bne #lockedout #tinyhuman #mamashelper #breakingin #DoTheSmartThings #toddlercomedy #kidtok

Tiny humans are predictably unpredictable and always good for some entertainment. Read the full story here.

7. Whale watcher in California got an unexpected, once-in-a-lifetime, front row seat to a whale giving birth.

Whale-watching passengers and crew off the coast of Dana Point, California, spotted blood in the water around a gray whale and thought they were witnessing a tragedy. As it turned out, she was birthing a calf, which she then proceeded to show off. Amazing.

8. Ukrainian ‘light’ dancers wowed the judges and audience in ‘America’s Got Talent’ all-stars performance.

Their story is moving and their moves are impressive. How on Earth did they create those effects? Read the full story here.

9. When one of you wants to snuggle and the other just wants some alone time…

u201cLeave me alone.. ud83dude02u201d

— Buitengebieden (@Buitengebieden)
1672780305

The struggle is real … and adorably hilarious.

10. Let’s all enjoy the small wonders of life like this snowflake-catching raccoon.

See on Instagram

It’s the simple things that bring the most genuine joy, every time.

Hope that brought a smile or 10 to your face! Join us every Friday for these smile-worthy roundups, and if you’d like them delivered right to your inbox, sign up for our free newsletter, The Upworthiest, here.

Over the holidays, a new 4K disc of Planes, Trains and Automobiles was released. The disc got mixed reviews on the basis of picture quality – the biggest complaint seems to be too much digital noise reduction, which takes away the grainy, film-like look a lot of people like; also, strangely, the audio track has the two rear speakers switched – but the real draw to this disc is the discovery of around 70 minutes of deleted scenes that were thought lost.

There have long been rumors of a longer version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. There just had to be based on the fact that, clocking in at 92 minutes, it’s a very short movie. That’s in the length of, “hey, what went wrong here?” Yet there was really no evidence of this longer version other than some peculiar character traits we’ll get into in a bit that kind of, sort of don’t make total sense. Having now watched the deleted scenes, it’s kind of a revelation on how much these change the story of Planes Trains and Automobiles. It becomes not just a story about Neil (Steve Martin) trying to get home to his family, who got stuck with an often annoying companion, Del (John Candy) … but it changes the whole dynamic into a movie about Neil’s wife assuming Del is a woman and her plotting to leave him for having an affair. The ending of Planes, Trains and Automobiles is one of the most beloved endings of any holiday movie, but with the deleted scenes it becomes something else entirely.

But before we get to that, most of the deleted scenes are just extended scenes of John Candy riffing, seemingly just trying to make Steve Martin break character, though he never does in any of the stuff we see. These don’t really change the dynamic of the movie much except make Del a little bit more annoying. My favorite of these, which I wish were in the final movie, is Neil and Del on the plane as Del tells Neil all about the shower curtain business. The best exchange is when Del is telling Neil about the time he landed the U.S. Navy contract and asks Neil to guess how many shower curtain rings Del sold to the Navy. Neil wants no part of this but, finally broken, guesses, “a thousand?” Del fires back, “Try 83 million.” Which is such a ridiculous number you can physically see Steve Martin using all his willpower not to laugh. (What are there, 10 shower curtain rings on each shower curtain? The thought of the U.S. Navy having 8.3 million showers that need curtains is really funny.)

Also of note, there’s a cut scene in the Wichita motel of Del stiffing the pizza delivery guy on a tip (using Neil’s money), who winds up being the thief who comes back and steals their money in the middle of the night. So this wasn’t initially intended to be a random crime, this was supposed to be revenge for Del being cheap. I say “of note” because it’s certainly interesting, but doesn’t change the entire movie except for painting Del in a bit of a bad light.

But there is an excised plot point that does change the whole movie. And that’s Neil’s wife, Susan (Laila Robins), believing Neil is having an affair with a woman named Del. In fact, there’s an entire cut scene between Susan and her mother where she lays all of this out and goes as far to say she’s leaving Neil. She is not buying Neil’s story that Del is just some “random annoying guy” he’s spending all his time with. Though it’s not clear if Neil realizes how serious the situation is with his wife. This is why Neil doesn’t simply put Del on the phone to clear all of this up. Like a good Midwesterner (I speak from experience), Susan Page just passive-aggressively makes a couple offhand comments to Neil about the situation, then bottles up all her anger inside so it can finally come out in one grand overreaction.

So here is how all this drastically changes the ending of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. And I find this truly fascinating. When Neil is on the L and it starts to hit him that Del doesn’t have anywhere to go, Neil doesn’t realize there’s an ambush waiting for him at home. Susan has literally told her mother she’s leaving Neil. So if Neil shows up at home by himself, all he has is his stories about Del, but no physical proof. But Neil doesn’t know this ambush is waiting for him. So when Neil goes back and invites Del to Thanksgiving dinner, a true act of unselfish kindness, Neil is, unknowingly, also saving his own marriage. So that’s why the end scene plays out a little fraught. And that’s why Susan introducing herself to Del is played so dramatically. In that instance she realizes Neil has been telling the truth about Del and Del isn’t a woman Neil has been having an affair with.

So the way it plays out in the actual film, Neil displays an act of kindness and Del benefits. In the original imagining, Neil’s act of kindness winds up saving his marriage. Neil and Del didn’t even exchange numbers when they parted ways. If Neil didn’t go back, Neil has no way of finding Del to vouch for his story. If Neil isn’t kind to Del at the end, Susan is going to either file for divorce or, at the very least, be skeptical of Neil for the rest of their lives. And look, the way the movie wound up coming out is the better ending. It’s nice that Neil just does a kind thing for no benefit. And again, in the cut version Neil thinks he’s doing a kind thing for no benefit, but the reality is he is befitting and that would take away a little bit from how nice that ending scene winds up being. But, again, it’s fascinating to now know for sure that that ending at one point did exist.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

It’s a new year, and that means there is a whole new roster of movies to look forward to over the next 12 months, though we all know which movie everyone is most excited about: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.

But the Dune sequel comes in at a close second! Maybe you thought that the upcoming sequel had finished adding everyone under the sun to the cast, but you would be wrong. Despite the fact that the movie was allegedly done filming, one player entered the project way late in the game. They save the best for last though!

Tim Blake Nelson has joined the already stacked cast of Dune: Part Two which is set to be released in theaters on November 3rd, 2023. Nelson will be joining the rest of the star-studded cast in the sci-fi epic, including Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem.

Last year, it was revealed that newcomers Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Léa Seydoux, and Christopher Walken would also be added to the growing franchise, which is based on Frank Herbert’s legendary novel of the same name which follows a young man named Paul (Chalamet) who is fighting to protect his people while dodging giant sand worms.

Nelson recently finished up a series of collaborations with director Guillermo del Torro which included an episode Cabinet of Curiosities, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, and Nightmare Alley. Maybe he will be Denis Villeneuve’s next muse?

(Via Deadline)

On Thursday, Matt Gaetz proudly nominated Donald Trump for Speaker of the House — an announcement that was met with the pathetic sound of one person clapping (Lauren Boebert, who didn’t even vote with Gaetz). He stuck with the 45th president as his choice in the next voting go-around, despite the fact that Trump himself has publicly stated that he supports Kevin McCarthy. Then he moved on to nominating Ted Bundy or something.

But just hours later, while speaking with Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host questioned the seeming disconnect between why Gaetz would nominate Trump when the former president is urging his fellow Republicans to vote McCarthy in and get it over with already.

“I love President Trump,” the longtime sycophant responded. “I defended him a great deal in Congress, but HR wasn’t always his strong suit.” Which sounds like just the kind of guy you’d want heading up the House of Representatives.

As Gaetz continued, he claimed that Trump is just plain wrong for urging people to support McCarthy’s bid for SOTH:

Donald Trump got us folks like Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr and Jim Mattis and Mark Esper — people who didn’t always advance America First policies. So while I think Trump has the vision… I think President Trump is wrong to the extent that he supports Kevin McCarthy.

I’m going to support President Trump if he, or when he, uhh, runs for re-election in 2024. But I’m not going to back him on this play.

So far, Trump’s only response to Gaetz was a poorly Photoshopped image of what he might look like as Speaker, which he posted to TRUTH Social. The former POTUS will no doubt have a response to that knock on his HR skills.

You can watch Gaetz’s full interview with Ingraham below:

Abraham Mateo is stepping into the new year with new music. Yesterday (January 5), the Spanish pop star released the heart-wrenching music video for his single “La Idea.”

Mateo wrote and co-produced “La Idea” with David Cuello. He also had a hand in the sound engineering, vocals production, keyboards, and programming behind the song. Mateo seemingly takes cues from The Weeknd and Ed Sheeran with the breakup banger’s synth-pop edge. In the dazzling track, he sings about his feelings that linger for an ex-lover and the difficulty of moving on. Mateo continues to position himself as one of Spain’s rising artists to watching out for with this rollicking emotional rollercoaster.

“The concept behind ‘La Idea’ is to continue experimenting with this new ’80s sound, with a lot of feeling as I always put in my songs,” Abraham said in a statement. “Every single beat of this song is tattooed in my own flesh, and that’s why I connect with it so much. I hope you like it because that’s the idea.”

The “La Idea” video was directed by Nacho López and Eduardo Montes. In the nostalgic video, Mateo does his best to win back the one that got away. Over the past few years, he has collaborated with global acts like Jennifer Lopez, CNCO, 50 Cent, and Austin Mahone. Watch the video above.

Welcome to 2023 in gaming! After two years of delays, largely due to the world-changing year 2020, we will finally see hundreds of hours of work from developers come to fruition. 2023 is going to be, in a lot of ways, a fresh start for many within the gaming industry. Everyone is a little tired of the phrase “a return to normalcy” but it’s going to feel that way. Whatever normal is in this always-changing landscape is of course.

So, this year is going to be awesome. There is going to be a ridiculous amount of games that come out this year, too many for the average person to play, and that’s great for everyone. The sheer amount of options and genres out there means nobody is going to be left unfulfilled, and we don’t even know what surprise game is going to come out yet and blow our minds away. Here are the exciting titles we do know about, broken out by their (current) anticipated release months with a few epic trailers thrown in for good measure.

January

Fire Emblem Engage – Nintendo Switch

January is starting off strong with a new Fire Emblem title. This tactical RPG has gained popularity in the West over the last decade and has gone from a niche franchise to a major staple of Nintendo’s release calendar. Its latest title, Engage, appears to be doing something a little different though as it pulls from the long history of the franchise to bring back fan favorites like Marth. There isn’t really a true gateway game into the franchise, but if you’ve never played a Fire Emblem before then maybe this is the one that you can finally try.

Dead Space – PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Horror fans have been asking for a return to the Dead Space franchise for quite some time now. So long that many other games began emulating the mechanics that made Dead Space so unique such as attacking specific limbs, and a few games like Callisto Protocol ended up copying its premise entirely. In 2023, though, we’re finally going to get the chance to experience Dead Space all over again. It’s a remake, so it’s still the same game that we played all those years ago, but now we get to experience it on modern hardware with modern graphics.

There isn’t much to say here about Dead Space that hasn’t been said already, but maybe if this iteration does well enough we will get the chance to experience a new game. Dead Space 3 left a sour taste in a lot of people’s mouths, and while there may be no recovery from that, who says you can’t continue to make similar games in this same universe? There’s a lot of potential to do something creative with this universe and its mechanics, but how much EA wants to with Dead Space will likely depend on how the remake does.

March

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Ever since watching the credits of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order there has been an overwhelming desire to see what’s next. It’s not that the Fallen Order wasn’t good, but it was very clearly the first game of a series with room to grow. Finally, with the announcement of Star Wars Jed: Survivor in March we will get to see the next step in the series.

What the first game did really well is find a good mix of souls-like inspired combat with explorative aspects taken from, what felt like, Uncharted. The plot itself was also a fun look at what happens in the space between the prequel trilogy and the original trinity, and at the time that was still pretty novel before many of the Star Wars TV shows started doing the same. Hopefully, this game can take the next step that many fans want it to while continuing to expand on the plot elements laid out in the first.

Resident Evil 4 Remake – PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Another beloved horror remake! When the first few Resident Evil games got remakes it made a lot of sense because all of those games had become dated over time, but the reason they had become dated was because of the revolutionary changes to the franchise that were made in Resident Evil 4. When it was announced that Resident Evil 4 was also receiving a remake the decision felt a little odd. Reports that the remake is supposed to be even scarier and include some originally cut content, however, have caused anticipation to mount.

Resident Evil 4 is among the best horror games ever made. Everything about it at the time was revolutionary for a genre it had already revolutionized once before. While this remake probably isn’t going to change video games forever, it is going to very likely become the definitive version of an all-time classic.

May

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Nintendo Switch

How does Nintendo plan to follow up on one of the best-made and most beloved Zelda games ever? That’s the main question with Tears of the Kingdom. What made Breath of the Wild so great was how revolutionary it was to the Zelda formula. Its openness, freedom, and exploration made it a breath of fresh air in a franchise that for some had grown a little tired of the formula established by Ocarina of Time all those years ago. For others, it was a jarring and unwelcome change from what had always been enjoyable.

The game is being advertised as a direct follow-up to Breath of the Wild so we can expect more of the same, for better or for worse depending on what your preferred Zelda is. But while hopes of a return to the traditional formula don’t seem likely there are definitely ways the game can improve.

June

Street Fighter 6 – PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Summer is no longer the dead period for games. June is packed with titles, including Street Fighter 6. The latest game in Capcom’s fighting game franchise is taking on a new look and direction in a way that shows promise. Players have already gotten their hands on it through an open beta and it sure seems like this is going to capture people in a way that Street Fighter V never seemed able to. At this point, everyone knows they’re going to like it, they’re just waiting for permission to play it.

Diablo IV – PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC

When Diablo IV comes out it will have been 11 years since Diablo III was released in 2012. That lengthy wait has caused fans to eagerly anticipate a new entry into the franchise that, for many, defines what a dungeon crawler is supposed to be. It will be interesting to see how the developers of Diablo IV have planned to modernize it amidst the flurry of other dungeon crawlers, many of them rogue-likes, that have come out over the years. None of them did it quite the same as Diablo does, but that need to stay relevant in the always-changing gaming landscape is vital to making this game feel fresh and new.

Final Fantasy XVI – PlayStation 5, PC

It has been a long time since Final Fantasy fully embraced the fantasy aspect of its origins. It’s never been a stranger to embracing sci-fi, but over the last couple of titles, it has been more focused than ever before on its sci-fi inspirations. So when trailers started dropping for Final Fantasy XVI showing castles and knights’ armor it started to feel like this was going to be something of a return to form for the long-running franchise. However, while the franchise embraces fantasy it’s still keeping its new action combat in favor of the turn-based RPG combat it became known for. An interesting choice and one we’ll need to keep an eye on as we get closer to the release date.

No Date Set

Assassin’s Creed Mirage PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Speaking of returning to form, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is making the surprising decision to move away from the Action RPG formula that served the franchise so well over the last few games, choosing to reset the series instead. While not going entirely back to its roots, this new game is going to focus on stealth and linear story progression like previous games. Will that surprising bit of familiarity feel like a win, or like the series is regressing? We’ll have to see how this pans out once the game receives a release date.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – PlayStation 5

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has the potential to be amazing. Not only is it following up two of the best-told and most detailed superhero video games ever made, but with the introduction of Miles Morales there is a chance to do some extremely creative storytelling between both Peter Parker and Miles in the game’s main plot. It would be really fun if we could swap between both, or have two different campaigns – the possibilities really are endless.

There are also going to be some plot threads in this game that carry over from the first game. Those of us who really dug into the entirety of Insomniac’s Manhattan found secrets that we want answers to. Hopefully, this story delivers on those.

Pikmin 4 – Nintendo Switch

The people who play Pikmin always come away loving it. Something of a cross between RTS and puzzle games, there’s a good mix of cute and stressful that each game employs masterfully. It’s great to know there’s another one of these coming out this year and that Pikmin is growing into a consistent name for Nintendo.

Starfield – Xbox Series X/S, PC

Easily the biggest name to get delayed in 2023, Starfield is the next game from Bethesda and has been in the works for what feels like an eternity. This is going to be a new direction for the Elder Scrolls and Fallout developers because it’s fresh IP on a new engine.

Starfield on its own feels interesting, but a lot of Bethesda’s reputation as a blockbuster developer is all tied up in the performance of this title. Fans are tired of the glitches, and with how long Starfield has been getting worked on there has been plenty of time to make this near-perfect. Expectations like this can be scary for any developer. We’ll just have to see how it shakes out whenever it finally launches sometime in 2023.