Tag: departure
Longtime Halo Developer Frank O’Connor’s Departure Confirmed by Microsoft
How ‘The Mandalorian’ Addresses Cara Dune’s Departure – CNET
SNP chaos in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon’s departure is good for the union, poll shows
Mortal Kombat 12, State of Play and Mikami’s departure | Kaser Focus
‘The Last of Us’s Indonesia sequence marks a huge departure from the games
The Last of Us is establishing a pattern of opening its episodes with flashbacks. The entire show opens with a guest on a 1968 talk show detailing the horrific potential for a Cordyceps outbreak — potential which becomes reality in 2003. The show’s second episode, “Infected,” opens with a vignette showing the reaction to the very start of the Cordyceps outbreak in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The sequence harkens back to the scene in the very first episode where Joel (Pedro Pascal), Sarah (Nico Parker), and Tommy (Gabriel Luna) hear about unrest in Jakarta over the radio. Now, we know the true source of the unrest: The Cordyceps outbreak started in Jakarta because of mutated fungus in a flour and grain factory.
Not only does the Indonesia opening establish a concrete point of origin for the outbreak that isn’t in the game — it also marks the first time The Last of Us franchise explores how Cordyceps affects a country outside the United States. On HBO’s The Last of Us podcast, the show’s co-creator and Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann explains that the game version of The Last of Us is a love letter to Americana. Because of this, “we made the conscious choice to never leave the United States,” he says.
However, the show took a different direction. Co-creator Craig Mazin elaborates on this in the podcast. “We knew we wanted to give a little bit more of an origin story [to the Cordyceps outbreak]. We wanted to see what it would really be like at the very, very beginning,” he says. “We wanted to show also that it was global, that this wasn’t just happening in America. This was the world.”
Originally, Mazin and Druckmann planned for a montage showing how Cordyceps was ravaging several different places across the world. However, the budget wouldn’t allow for it, so they went for something much more contained: a sequence between an Indonesian mycologist (Christine Hakim) and military officer (Yayu A.W. Unru) who realize the scope of the threat before them.
These scenes may not boast the zombie-like horror of the Clickers, or the frightening prospect of a darkened museum, but they are full of a chilling sense of dread. From the moment the mycologist first picks Cordyceps tendrils out of a corpse’s mouth, we know that the apocalypse is near. And so does she.
In a tense one-take shot that gradually zooms in on the mycologist, she reveals that the only solution to this crisis is to bomb any impacted areas. As Mazin says in the podcast, “there’s nothing you can do at that point that is going to make this better other than the unthinkable.”
It’s a heartbreaking moment, especially when the mycologist requests that she be brought back home to be with her family as the world comes to an end. Like the talk show in episode one, where John Hannah’s mycologist drives home the lack of pharmaceutical solutions for fungal infections of this kind, the Indonesia sequence also reminds us of the incredible threat Cordyceps presents — only now, instead of a hypothetical, it’s a reality. And the only defense against it is destruction.
The Last of Us is now streaming on HBO Max with new episodes airing weekly on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
Bob Shennan announces BBC departure
We Happy Few is another Game Pass departure this month
Microsoft have finally confirmed the games coming to Game Pass this January – and hey, it’s just the (stellar) games we already knew about from announcements last year. But there is a new game among those leaving the service: We Happy Few, the creepy, sneaky survival horror from Compulsion Games – who are now a Microsoft first-party studio.
Apple Restructuring Services Division Due to Executive Departure
Stern has worked for Apple for over six years, reporting to services chief Eddy Cue, and prior to that, he was the executive vice president and chief strategy officer for Time Warner Cable.
Alongside Cue, Stern has recently been involved in pursuing sports content for Apple TV+ as well handling Apple’s other key services. With Stern’s departure, Apple will be restructuring its services business, splitting the services unit and Stern’s responsibilities into three divisions.
Stern told colleagues that he is leaving in order to spend more time on the East Coast, and he is set to depart at the end of the month. According to Business Insider, he was seen as someone who could be a possible successor to Eddy Cue in the future, taking over Apple’s services division.
Apple’s services category is of increasing importance to the company as it supplements device sales. In fiscal 2022, Apple’s services division earned $78 billion, up $10 billion from 2021. Apple recently increased the price of both Apple TV+ and Apple Music, the former because of a growing content catalog and the latter because of increased licensing costs.
This article, “Apple Restructuring Services Division Due to Executive Departure” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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Henry Cavill Will Not Return As Geralt Of Rivia, Despite Superman Departure
Although Henry Cavill will no longer return as Superman, he will still not play Geralt in season 4 of The Witcher, so says a new report. With Cavill’s schedule freed up, in theory, fans speculated that Cavill might be able to return to monster hunting, but alas, this is not the case.
According to a report from Variety, Cavill will not return to play Geralt of Rivia in future seasons of The Witcher. Cavill will appear as the character in the upcoming third season, but afterwards Liam Hemsworth will take over the role. Upon the original announcement of Cavill’s departure, the fan response was immense and largely negative. A change.org petition asking for Cavill’s return garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures.
In October, Cavill appeared in a secret Black Adam cameo and announced that he would return as the Man of Steel in an upcoming film. Shortly after, James Gunn and Peter Safran took over as leads of DC’s film, TV, and animation projects. Gunn since announced that he is penning a Superman film, focusing on a younger version of the character, and that DC would not longer be going forward with a Henry Cavill-led project. Gunn did claim that he met with Cavill and the two discussed potential future projects that the star could be involved in.