Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 91

THE LAST OF US Introduced Cordyceps Spores with One Surprising Problem

One of the biggest changes HBO’s The Last of Us made in season one was to forego the presence of spores. In the video games characters have to wear gas masks when they travel because cordyceps is literally in the air. Survivors always have to worry about the terrible possibility of inhaling floating spores. While terrifying, those airborne nightmares didn’t make sense for a TV show where you prefer to see world-class actors emote. But season two’s fifth episode found a way to finally introduce spores to the series in a truly horrifying way that doesn’t mean every performer suddenly has to cover up their face.

The only problem was the characters on The Last of Us inexplicably aren’t worried about their existence nearly as much as they should be.

HBO

Season two’s fifth episode began with high-ranking WLF leader Hanrahan, the woman who welcomed Jeffrey Wright’s Isaac into the group when he defected from FEDRA. She was meeting with Sergeant Elise Park. Elise’s unit had been charged with securing a hospital for the organization. Hanrahan was there on Isaacs’s orders while he dealt with the broken Seraphite treaty. Elise’s loyal soldiers feared Hanrahan would execute their leader for “killing her own soldiers,” a group that included someone named Leon.

Elise’s story absolved her of any wrongdoing in the most unimaginable, horrible way. She told Hanrahan about how they’d been clearing floors. The few infected they expected to encounter didn’t worry them. The bigger problem was the basement, which they could only reach via a single stairwell. It was also where the group’s older members said “they brought the first cordyceps patients in ’03.”

The day before earlier Elise sent a squad down to the basement to clear section B1. They found nothing there, “not even rats.” So earlier that morning she sent a second squad to check out the next section. What they discovered was maybe the scariest development mankind has known since Infection Day. Elise’s report was beyond chilling.

So today, B2, hoping to find more of the same, I sent a second squad down and I put Leon in charge ’cause he’s my best. Few minutes in he radios back there’s cordyceps on the wall, the floors. Chances are they’ll find infected next, but that’s what they were down there for so I told him to proceed. Five minutes later he radios again, but this time he….he was struggling to breath. He could hardly talk. I thought maybe he had been bit. I said, “Leon, were you bit?” He said….he said, “It’s in the air.” He said, “It’s in the air. Seal us in.” And I knew it wasn’t in the vents or we all would have been infected weeks ago. So I scrambled my other team, and we locked the only door to B2, and we locked the only door to B1. And we did what Leon said. We sealed them in.

HBO

Hanrahan confirmed nothing else had gotten out of that basement and no one else had been infected before leaving. As she walked out, she revealed why this sad development was especially tragic for Elise, who had acted with true bravery when she sealed her own soldiers’ fate. Leon is her son.

Later in the episode Ellie arrived at that same Seattle hospital looking for Nora, one of the people who helped Abby kill Joel. In a sequence adapted from The Last of Us Part II, Nora fled. But she ended up trapped in a barricaded hallway. With no way out she jumped into a slightly ajar(!) elevator shaft. The elevator cable then snapped, bringing her down to B2. Ellie chased after her, but the terrified WLF guards did not. Ellie soon learned why they stopped chasing her.

She found people, including Leon, alive and integrated into the cordyceps lined walls. B2 was a fungal nightmare of horror. With each breath, those lost soldiers emitted the very same spores that had doomed them. Those floating fungi were everywhere. And while Ellie’s immunity kept her safe, Nora instantly succumbed to the infection. Within a couple of minutes a coughing Nora could barely breathe or move. Her words and thoughts became sluggish. While we didn’t see it, by the time Ellie was done torturing her, Nora could barely talk. Her mind and fortitude had also faltered. She had initially refused to give. upher friend Abby. By the end she gave Ellie two words for Ellie to locate her nemesis.

HBO

Both Elise’s story and Ellie’s trip through B2 made the wait for spores on HBO’s series worth it. Hearing about Leon’s ill-fated mission was terrifying enough on its own. Seeing him entrenched into that wall, and seeing Nora meet the same end, was even more horrific than Elise or Hanrahan could have imagined.

But knowing what’s down there is bad enough that they should have been far more worried about the presence of spores! Hanrahan’s line about how the hospital is “a resource we can’t afford to lose” tried to explain why WLF didn’t immediately abandon the building before burning it down, but it wasn’t a good explanation. That attitude makes more sense in the game where mankind had already been living with the presence of spores for many years. People there have masks on them and know what spores can and can’t do. In the world of HBO’s The Last of Us, finding out cordyceps was in the air should have resulted in a far more urgent, far more appropriate response.

Sure, those floating fungi hadn’t made their way up the vents yet. That also helps logically explain why every character won’t suddenly need to wear a mask on the show, an obviously smart creative choice. But considering no one even knew spores existed that morning how could they assume they wouldn’t eventually make their way up to higher floors? Or to the outside? Why would any smart, capable leader—of which WLF clearly has many—treat them as anything other than an existential crisis?

HBO

Even if they truly believe the hospital is important enough it must operate while a fate worse than death dances in the air beneath their feet (a truly absurd decision), shouldn’t they have at least closed those elevator shafts for good? Nora got into one because it was still open. They all just assumed an old elevator hanging on a rusted cable was going to keep them safe forever? Or, again, floating spores wouldn’t maybe float up? What if a hole in a wall of a broken down building created an updraft?

One of the best things about The Last of Us season two is the matter-of-fact way people talk about death and violence. They talk about infected and violence the way we might talk about the weather. It makes the world they inhabit feel authentic and lived in. Cordyceps and raiders are the reality they know. They’ve adjusted to both. But that’s not true of floating spores. They are a totally different kind of nightmare than anything else they’ve ever encountered. Forgetting guns and zombie bites. Breathing itself can now kill them.

W.L.F. is run by people who know what they’re doing. Having them under react to a horrific discovery was not only illogical, it under cut the otherwise superb introduction of spores to HBO’s The Last of Us. The characters should find them as scary as we do.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He wonders what the spores smell and taste like. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

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THE LAST OF US Reveals MAJOR Season 2 Cameo in Episode 5

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The Last of Us season two finally brought us to the moment we’ve been waiting for since episode two. Yes, in The Last of Us season two, episode five, we received a major “cameo” moment—Pedro Pascal returned to our screens as Joel for the first time since his death early in the season. This additional moment of Pedro Pascal was fleeting in The Last of Us season two, episode five… But just seeing Joel again healed something in our hearts. Let’s break down what exactly happened.

Pedro Pascal’s Joel Returns in The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 5HBO

When we say that Pedro Pascal has a BRIEF cameo in The Last of Us season two, episode five. We mean brief! We counted the literal seconds, and there are about five of them. Still, SEEING Joel return to our screens and share a scene with Ellie feels so poignant that the moment seems longer. There’s just something so right and reassuring about Pedro Pascal’s presence as Joel in The Last of Us. We’ve missed him, sure, but we hadn’t realized how big a hole his gruff but solid character left behind in the chaotic world.

What Happens in Joel’s The Last of Us Cameo?HBO

Not too much happens in Pedro Pascal’s The Last of Us season two cameo, except for the collective wave of our hearts breaking. Joel’s return scene begins with Ellie asleep in her bed, ostensibly in the home they shared in Jackson. The door opens, and Ellie stirs. And who is it standing there? Why it’s Joel. Pedro Pascal only delivers one line in this scene and it’s “Hey Kiddo.” Ellie then grins at him as she wakes, happier than we’ve seen her in a long time. And credits.

But under what circumstances does Pedro Pascal’s Joel appear? The truth is, we don’t know. Joel’s cameo return could mean one of two things. Firstly, and most likely, we’re looking at a flashback. More moments with Joel and Ellie could be obtained by going back in time. And as we saw with Bill and Frank’s episode of The Last of Us season one, the show isn’t afraid to turn back the clock. Alternatively, Joel’s moment could be a hallucination or a dream. Ellie is inhaling a lot of Cordyceps fungus and going through an intense emotional moment when we cut to the Joel cameo. Her brain may just be at its breaking point.

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The Story of Bill and Frank in THE LAST OF US Is So Much Bigger Than ThemWill We See More of Joel in the Final Episodes of The Last of Us Season 2?HBO

The big question is whether this quick cameo will lead to more of Pedro Pascal and Joel in the final two episodes of The Last of Us season two. Trailers and teasers for the show point in a certain direction. But hey, there are no guarantees in the world of The Last of Us. We’re just glad to see Joel again after his death, if only for a moment.

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THE LAST OF US Season 2, Episode 5 Recap: New Revelations and Questions

We’re in the thick of The Last of Us season two now. The second season of the video game-inspired show only has seven episodes after all. And The Last of Us season two, episode five certainly moves us a big step forward, not to mention it features a very shocking cameo. The episode also introduces an important feature of The Last of Us video games that fans have been itching (or is that gasping) to see. But what exactly happened in this episode of the series? Here’s our full recap of The Last of Us season two, episode five.

New Revelations From The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 5The Video Games’ Spores Have Finally Arrived in the Live-action The Last of Us SeriesMax

Gulp. Spores are the name of the game in this episode. And it makes sense that they get to take center stage. In The Last of Us and The Last of Us—Part II video games, spores are one of the chief ways through which the Cordyceps fungus spreads. In fact, characters often don gas masks in the game so as not to inhale the treacherous airborne buggers.

In The Last of Us series, initially, spores were not included. Instead, in season one of the show, we saw Cordyceps spread through vine-like tendrils that sprouted from Infected and connected all of their minds together into one. (In addition to the traditional biting/saliva passing infection method.) This vine-like mechanism for spreading Cordyceps was chosen for the show to help enhance the drama of being infected, and also to prevent Joel and Ellie from needing gas masks all the time.

But now, the danger of the infected has ratcheted up another notch. We hear about Cordyceps spores from minute one here. WLF agents report that one of their best went down into a seemingly empty level of their Seattle hospital. Within minutes, he was struggling to breathe and could hardly talk. “It’s in the air.” The WLF soldier reported. And thus spores were born on The Last of Us season two.

We See Spores in Action

Of course, just telling us spores exist in The Last of Us world is not enough for the series. Here, we actually see spores in action. And boy, they look good. Ellie ends up chasing Nora, one of Abby’s Firefly friends, onto the sealed-off floor where spores have filled the air. We see the air literally start to thicken with them and get a brilliant shot of a mostly-turned Infected soldier from the WLF exhaling more of them into the air. It’s truly eerie. Although Ellie remains unaffected, we can see how the spores thickly settle into Nora’s throat.

Dina Admits She Loves EllieHBO

Okay, but we got more than just spores. For one thing, Dina and Ellie took a big step forward in their relationship. Dina told Ellie she loved her. Of course, it was while telling Ellie she was crazy, but it counts. Dina said, “You’re a little crazy, it’s exciting, it’s one of the reasons I love you.” while making Ellie promise not to fire her gun willy-nilly. Ellie was flustered by this sentiment and questioned Dina on whether she was serious. Dina clearly is. Ellie doesn’t say she loves Dina back, Ellie isn’t that great with emotions, but it seems she DOES want to convey the sentiment.

Are Dina and Ellie moving a little fast on The Last of Us season two? Maybe, but the burn was slow up till here, so we really can’t blame them. Plus, they’re in the honeymoon phase.

Jesse and Tommy Sneak out of Jackson and Come to Seattle to Save Ellie and Dina

Unfortunately, things aren’t going so great for Ellie and Dina in Seattle. Between infected, the WLF, and the Seraphites, the situation in Seattle is incredibly complicated. It’s looking like bad news for the pair as infected corner them on their way to find Abby’s friend Nora, but Jesse arrives to save the day. He shares that Jesse and Tommy snuck out of Jackson after Dina and Ellie ran away to keep them from dying. It’s noble, but also, we bet everyone is going to be in A LOT of trouble when Maria hears about this.

We don’t see Tommy in The Last of Us season two, episode five, and Dina, Ellie, and Jesse’s reunion is also short-lived. They get caught up in a Seraphite attack and Dina is injured, Jesse and Dina make a run for it and Ellie sneaks away on her own mission.

Ellie Shows No Mercy to Abby’s Friend Nora and Goes Way Dark Side on her Quest for RevengeHBO

The cycle of revenge continues on The Last of Us. Driven by Joel’s death, Ellie hunts down Nora, Abby’s Firefly friend. She chases Nora through the hospital she works at down into a floor full of spores. Ellie is immune, but Nora immediately becomes Infected in what appears to be one of the most viscerally harrowing ways one can be. But Ellie can’t see Nora’s pain. She’s determined to find Abby. Ellie demands that Nora tell her where Abby is, even as spores are begin to choke the other girl. When Nora doesn’t, Ellie picks up her pipe and starts to engage in some torture of her own. In this scene, Ellie and her pipe hitting Nora paints a mirror image to Abby and her golf club hitting Joel.

Ellie Knows What Joel Did to the Fireflies in Salt Lake City

As she becomes infected, Nora spits out a litany of everything that Joel did to the Fireflies in Salt Lake City. She tells Ellie that he went on a murderous rampage and butchered Abby’s dad, the only person who could have made a cure out of Ellie’s body. But Ellie isn’t moved by the proclamations. She simply says, “I know.” Although it previously seemed Joel and Ellie never discussed what happened in Salt Lake City, this episode makes it seem like Ellie knows exactly what Joel did in the season one finale.

Ellie Is Also Immune to Spores in The Last of Us Series

Fans of The Last of Us games will know that Ellie is also immune to spores. And we suppose if she somehow weren’t immune to the spores in The Last of Us series, that might cause something of a problem. Still, Ellie had no idea that she would be immune to this form of infection herself. So, she made a pretty bold assumption as she was chasing Nora. But we guess she was right.

Pedro Pascal Returns for a Joel CameoHBO

He’s back! We are SO glad to see Pedro Pascal’s face in The Last of Us season two, episode five—we’ve missed Joel. Pedro Pascal’s Joel isn’t doing much in the episode; he just appears at the very end and says, “Hey Kiddo” to Ellie. Both Joel and Ellie look whole, happy, and on good terms, so it’s either a flashback or a hallucination. We guess we’ll have to wait to find out which.

QuestionsWhy Are People Not More Worried About Spores on The Last of Us Season 2?

We know we’re a bit obsessed with spores in this The Last of Us season two, episode five recap. But we really have to ask this question. The WLF officers seem to think that quarantining the floor with the spores has solved the problem. But that seems crazy! Firstly, if there were spores in one place, wouldn’t be people be concerned there could be spores in other places? Discovering a new method in which the infection is spreading should be a major cause of alarm. But most folks on The Last of Us season two seem to prefer not to think about it very much. But why?!

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THE LAST OF US Infected Zombie Types Explained: Clickers, Stalkers, and MoreWill Spores Return in The Last of Us Season 2?

This is the last we’ll say on spores! But a natural question that arises after The Last of Us season two, episode five is… will we see spores again? Surely, that can’t be it for spores on The Last of Us. We guess we’ll have to wait and see if this new method of infection plagues our main characters.

Does Ellie Learn Where Abby Is?HBO

We see Ellie give herself over to her vengeful side as she begins to torture Nora for information about Abby’s whereabouts. But does all her rage get her anywhere? Did Ellie manage to get Abby’s location from Nora? We don’t yet know.

Just How Much Does Ellie Know About What Joel Did in Salt Lake City?

When Nora tells Ellie about all of Joel’s since in Salt Lake City, Ellie remains unmoved. She claims she knows all about what happened. But does she really? We have never seen Ellie and Joel talk about Salt Lake City before. Does Ellie mean she literally knows or just that she assumes that’s what happened, but doesn’t care? It feels like we will soon find out.

Will Pedro Pascal Return as Joel in the Final Two Episodes of The Last of Us Season 2?Max

We get to see Pedro Pascal’s Joel again for literally five seconds in The Last of Us season two, episode five. That can’t be all! It’s not nearly enough. But will Joel return again on The Last of Us season two? The show makes no promises yet.

The Last of Us airs Sundays at 9pm on Max and HBO.

Previous recaps: Episode One, Episode Two, Episode Three, Episode Four

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DOCTOR WHO Brings Back a Former Doctor for a Powerful Scene

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The Doctor once said, “We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?” And when it comes to a life full of stories to tell, this character has more than any living being in the Whoniverse. The concept of storytelling and its power take on a new meaning in Doctor Who’s “The Story & The Engine,” which takes us through a little previous incarnation trip through the Doctor’s past. We see many of his previous faces onscreen, but we get a surprise cameo from Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor. 

In this episode, the Doctor and Belinda arrive in Lagos to fuel up the Vindicator. Before the Doctor goes off into the streets, he opens up to Belinda about his reality. He talks about what it is like to be an otherworldly being in a Black body. Fifteen admits that there are many places in the world where he’s not accepted. However, he feels at home in a small barbershop where he can engage with other men and tell stories.

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It’s a reflection of many Black men’s lives, who often find community in the safe space of a barbershop. The Doctor specifically says it is his first time having THIS Black body and not A Black body because, well, that would be false. We know that the Fugitive Doctor presents as a Black woman with locs and the Doctor does remember meeting that incarnation. 

The barbershop where the Doctor found peace turns out to be something much stranger. The Doctor’s friends are trapped there, thanks to a man they call the Barber. He owns the shop and forces them to tell stories while he cuts their hair. Their tales fuel his vessel, which looks like a giant spider and travels along the Nexus, which he formed as the real World Wide Web to weave together stories.

Thanks to a time space compressor, the barbershop is both in Lagos and traveling at the same time and will only let two people in and out. Besides the Barber, the other person is a woman, whom the Doctor knows from somewhere. She’s rather abrasive towards him and he doesn’t connect the dots. The Barber tries to like and say he is several gods from several cultures, including Anansi the spider man. But the Doctor and Belinda quickly call out (and laugh about) his lie.

James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf

The Doctor says he met all of the gods, noting that Anansi made him lose a bet to marry one of his daughters. Well, that daughter is the woman in the shop, whose real name is Abena. She’s upset that the Doctor left her behind and the frame moves, showing Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor in place of the Fifteenth Doctor. She explains that she was a fugitive and busy with a different story that might be finished one day. That checks out considering the Doctor’s work with the Division, with most of those memories stuck in that fob watch from Tecteun. Considering that Abena is a goddess herself, it makes sense that the Doctor’s new face is not shocking to her.

It is possible that the Doctor will start to peel back those layers of the past and uncover more secrets. This means we could see the Fugitive Doctor return again. Perhaps we will get more flashbacks as we discover what happened to the Doctor during that time.

Abena got in cahoots with the Barber, who admits that he was once human. He was the fuel behind telling the gods’ stories and printing them to strengthen their bond with humanity. However, he didn’t get credit for his stories, so that’s why he wants to ruin them all. In the end, Abena has a change of heart and decides to tell a story about braiding hair, giving the Doctor cornrows and a pathway towards escaping. It’s a story where everyone lives, which is always nice. But it was even better to learn a bit more about the Fugitive Doctor and see her once again.

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Video Explores Why Pop Culture Can’t Decide If Vampires Are Scary of Sexy

In popular culture, vampires dip in and out of vogue. But with Sinners, Nosferatu, and AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, the undead are in style once again. It seems we as a culture can’t decide how we want our vampires. Do we want them scary, or do we want them sexy? And when did the whole sexy vampire thing even begin? There are many videos out there on this subject, of course. The latest Monstrum video essay from PBS’ Storied actually gets its facts right when it comes to the history of sexy vs. scary vampires. You can watch the video in full right here:

The vampire of ancient folklore was indeed a terrifying, repulsive creature. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was far more repulsive than sexy. Yet despite popular opinion, Hollywood didn’t actually create the sexy, aristocratic vampire trope. In the near-century before Dracula, popular tales like The Vampyre, Varney the Vampire, and Carmilla, all popularized the seductive undead. Monstrum host Dr. Emily Zarka actually acknowledges that the Dracula image made famous by Bela Lugosi was actually a fusion of both versions. Thus, creating the ultimate vampire archetype we know all still today.

Warner Bros/AMC Networks/Focus Features

This video covers almost all the bases of major vampire fiction ever since 1922’s Nosferatu and all the iterations vampires have gone through in media ever since then. The Lost Boys, Buffy, True Blood, they all get a nod. And yes, Twilight is too big a pop culture milestone in the genre to ignore. Oddly, despite various versions of Anne Rice’s vampires from both film and TV getting screenshots, Rice’s Vampire Chronicles doesn’t pop up in the timeline. But other than that curious omission, this video essay really understands that when it comes to vampires, we’ll never decide which version we like better. As the saying goes, “Why not both?”

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Marvel Brings Back X-MEN: AGE OF APOCALYPSE for Its 30th Anniversary in a New Series

Thirty years ago, Marvel’s entire X-Men universe radically changed, when the publisher unleashed the Age of Apocalypse. For months, the classic line of X-Men comics ended, replaced with new X-Men books set in a dystopian timeline where Charles Xavier died young and Magneto founded the X-Men to fight a war against Earth’s tyrannical ruler, Apocalypse. Now, Marvel has announced that this beloved storyline will return in a new mini-series X-Men of Apocalypse, written by Jeph Loeb (Batman: Hush), who contributed to the original event, with art by Simone Di Meo. You can check out the first artwork, as well as the official series synopsis, right here:

Click To View Gallery Marvel Comics Simone Di Meo/Marvel Comics Marvel Comics

The X-Men of Apocalypse crash into the Marvel Universe! A dystopian future created when Charles Xavier was killed, Age of Apocalypse is home to a wartorn group of X-Men led by Magneto. In order to free their Earth from Apocalypse’s cruel reign, they were willing to sacrifice their very existence—or so they thought! The main timeline was restored, Apocalypse was defeated, but their world lived on! Taking place in the direct aftermath of the original crossover’s explosive finale, X-Men of Apocalypse reignites the mission of this iconic reality’s X-Men as they journey here to ensure their universe’s survival. This desperate mission will take them into the main Marvel Universe, where they will come into conflict with their classic counterparts, forever impacting both team’s destinies!

In a statement, Jeph Loeb said “For the 30th anniversary, an all-new, all-different story with spectacular art by Simone Di Meo brings us to this uncanny team that shouldn’t even exist — and they are coming here! Join Gambit, Sabretooth and Wild Child, Blink, Forge, Morph, and more as they try to save one universe without dooming another!”

Marvel Comics

The original Age of Apocalypse introduced radically different versions of the iconic Marvel mutants. We had a Wolverine and Jean Grey who were a couple, plus a heroic Sabretooth. There was even a version of Morph who lived. It will be interesting to see how these versions of the X-Men interact with their main timeline doppelgangers. X-Men who themselves are now radically different from their ’90s counterparts. X-Men of Apocalypse: Alpha arrives on August 3.

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SUITS LA Canceled After Just One Season

Time to pour one out for Suits LA. Via Deadline, we’ve learned that NBC has canceled the high-profile legal drama after just one season on the air. The series was a spin-off of the beloved USA Network series Suits, and featured former Arrow star Stephen Amell in a lead role as Ted Black. The show garnered decent viewership for its premiere episode. However, the series from Aaron Korsh, who created the original Suits, never gained much viewership. Suits LA landed at just around a million viewers a week and we guess that’s what led to it getting canceled. The show aired on Sunday nights, which is a competitive time.

NBC

The original Suits series was a huge draw on the USA Network, and ran from 2011-2019, for nine whole seasons. After it ended, the original Suits received a huge resurgence on Netflix. There, it found a whole new audience, becoming a big hit for the streaming giant. This prompted NBC to give the new version a try. However, what is huge on basic cable and streaming does not always translate to a regular network audience. And ultimately, the now-canceled Suits LA failed to get the Sunday night linear TV crowd to give it a chance. This is despite original Suits cast members like Gabriel Macht, Rick Hoffman, and David Costabile returning to their roles for several episodes.

The network did its best to increase viewership. They even went as far as staging a “Thursday night Suits LA takeover” with a three-hour marathon of repeats. But that didn’t do enough to get a new audience to check it out. Of course, if Suits LA finds eventual viewership on Netflix or another streamer, it might have a future down the line, even given its currently canceled state. It just probably won’t be a future on NBC. Suits LA also starred Scott Davis, Josh McDermitt, Bryan Greenberg, Troy Winbush, Rachelle Goulding, Azita Ghanizada, Maggie Grace, and Alice Lee.

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THE WITCHER Joins DEAD BY DAYLIGHT

Woah! Guess who is coming to Dead by Daylight. Why, it’s the Witcher himself, Geralt of Rivia. Get out of here is what we have to say to that. Dead by Daylight is known for playing host to all kinds of colorful characters, including Nicolas Cage himself. But having The Witcher join the fray has to be Dead by Daylight‘s nerdiest move yet. And we approve. At PAX East, Dead by Daylight made several exciting announcements in celebration of its ninth anniversary, among them was the arrival of The Witcher to the game, as well as new details of its Five Nights at Freddy’s collaboration. Let’s take a look at what we learned.

The Witcher Arrives in Dead by DaylightBehaviour Interactive

Fantasy and horror gaming really do go hand and in hand. And now players who love The Witcher can express that love on Dead by Daylight with a newly announced Witcher Collection for Dead by Daylight. A release shares, “Fans will be able to step into The Fog wearing Outfits inspired by the game’s iconic cast, including the Witcher himself, Geralt of Rivia.”

Dead by Daylight Product Director, Rose Li notes, “Our favorite of the Collection is of course Geralt’s Legendary Outfit for Vittorio Toscano. Not only will it let players essentially take on the exact look of The White Wolf, but we’ve also added some really nice details as part of this Outfit. Geralt will have unique lobby animations, and best of all, brand-new voice lines recorded for our game by the original voice actor, Doug Cockle.”

New Geralt content from Dead by Daylight? We did not have that on our bingo card. But it sure is exciting. The Witcher collection will also include Very Rare Outfits for Yennefer, Ciri, Triss, and Eredin. 

And just when can you add The Witcher to your game, you might ask? Well, Dead by Daylight’s The Witcher Collection will be available June 3.

Five Nights at Freddy’s Springtrap Will Be Dead by Daylight‘s Newest Killer

The Witcher is making its way into town, but that’s not all that’s happening for Dead by Daylight. At PAX East, Dead by Daylight shared that Five Nights at Freddy’s Springtrap will be the game’s latest Killer.

According to Dead by Daylight, Five Nights at Freddy’s was its most requested license! Not bad for a bunch of animatronics. Additionally, this will be the first time Springtrap is a playable character in a game. That’s a big moment for everyone involved.

Behaviour Interactive

There’s a lot still to reveal about Dead by Daylight’s Five Nights at Freddy‘s collaboration, but at PAX East we learned that, “As part of the Chapter’s Collection, a Springtrap Legendary Outfit will be released letting players embody the ‘Yellow Rabbit’ version of the character, portrayed by Matthew Lillard in the Blumhouse adaptation. Lillard was also revealed to have lent his likeness and recorded original voice lines for the Outfit. The Chapter will also include a new Map featuring Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, filled with easter eggs and surprises for fans to discover.”

Behaviour Interactive

The new Dead by Daylight Five Nights at Freddy’s Killer and Map are “coming soon.”

All we have to say is we are SEATED.

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Original BLADE Trilogy Writer Wants Marvel to Let Him Write the Long Delayed Reboot

It’s been six years since Mahershala Ali walked onto the stage at Comic-Con and Marvel announced him as the new Blade. But aside from a voice cameo in Eternals, we’ve yet to see the vampire hunter on screen again. Unless you count Wesley Snipes returning to the role as the OG Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine, of course. Yet this new Blade movie just can’t seem to get going. And one person who can’t understand why, and would be happy to help, is original Blade trilogy writer David S. Goyer. Here’s what he told ScreenRant when they asked if he would have an interest in writing Marvel Studios’ Blade reboot:

Give me a call. I would. I’ve always loved the character and I love him. I’ve been sitting on the sidelines wondering, ‘What in the world is going on? Why is it taking so long?’ Because I’m a huge Marvel fan myself, and I’ve just been totally puzzled.

New Line Cinema

Production almost began on Blade in 2022, but just as they started building sets, Marvel canceled the film. Directors Bassam Tariq and Yann Demange both left the project at different stages, leaving Marvel to pull it off the release calendar. One version would have been set in New Orleans in the 1920s. We can’t help but wonder if Ryan Coogler’s Sinners being set in the early ’30s South was too similar, sending Marvel back to the drawing board. How Marvel hasn’t figured out that the perfect period piece for Blade is the ’70s, harkening back to the character’s debut, is baffling.

Marvel Comics

David S. Goyer did nail those first two Blade films back in the day, which was officially the first successful movie based on a Marvel comic. Blade walked so X-Men and Spider-Man could run. Of course, Goyer also wrote and directed Blade Trinity, of which the less said, the better. But he co-wrote Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, which means Goyer has more wins than misses in this genre. Maybe Marvel would be wise to at least give him a crack at it. What have they got to lose at this point? Kevin Feige maintained as of last year that Marvel is still trying to get Blade right. Here’s hoping they’re not overthinking it. We just want to see the Daywalker take out some bloodsuckers with cool weapons. How hard can that be?

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DUNE: AWAKENING Senior Art Director Gavin Whelan Talks Creating Arrakis at PAX East

It’s impossible to miss Dune: Awakening at this year’s PAX East in Boston. How could you when there’s a massive sandworm coming up out of the exhibition floor? Shai-Hulud stands out even at a massive expo hall. The dozens and dozens of stations offering fans an early chance to play the game help, too. That’s what I got to do when I stopped by during the convention’s first day. I’m not very experienced with open-world games, but I certainly know Arrakis. And playing Dune: Awakening was like being on Frank Herbert’s iconic planet. It was also like stepping into one of Denis Villeneuve’s movies. (Which is why I intentionally got myself eaten by a sandworm within three minutes, a truly incredible visceral experience thanks to the vibrating gaming chair I was using.)

How did Funcom not only recreate in vivid detail and depth one of the most legendary planets in pop culture history but also make it a massive, absolutely stunning place you can explore yourself? Once I finished up with my demo at PAX East, I sat down with Dune: Awakening‘s Senior Art Director Gavin Whelan to talk about the challenges of bringing the most dangerous planet in the galaxy to consoles. Turns out sand is just as tough on developers as it is for offworlders.

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(Note: Funcom developed Dune: Awakening with Legendary Entertainment, which also produces Villeneuve’s films. Nerdist is a subsidiary of Legendary Digital.)

Nerdist: I just played Dune: Awakening and thought it was gorgeous. How much of the inspiration for how the game looks is from the books vs. the movies vs. your own creation?

Gavin Whelan: The movies were the first real (inspiration), because we worked so closely with Legendary. They flew a bunch of us down to the movie set. So it was very hard not to be influenced by this stuff. And we were getting concept art from them constantly. Then it was working both ways. We were sending work to them and getting their take on it, making sure that tonally we were correct.

The books, of course, were central. From the design perspective, it was always, “Make your designs fit Dune, not the other way around. Don’t try to cram the Bene Gesserit into this thing.” No, it’s, “This is the way they are in the books,” and you have to try as best you can to make a game out of this. And to try to stay as true to the books as possible while taking the story on a different route to avoid the obvious problem of having Paul (Atreides) being the principal actor. We had that with Conan Exiles, where many people asked, “Can you play as Conan?” No, sorry. You can’t do that. You have to be somebody else. “Am I important?” Not really. And we try to create an interesting backstory.

I don’t want to give spoilers here. It’s kind of cool. I think there’s a lot of interest in there as you grow and as you play the game. There’s a lot of mystery.

I know you don’t want to ruin any of the mystery, but what’s your favorite part of the Dune: Awakening that you can talk about? Whether that’s how something looks, how you designed something, a certain gameplay aspect, etc.

Whelan: I’m on the artistic side, so any chance to be artistic is useful and fun for me. So, building is the part where I think people can be really expressive. We had the brutalist architecture, we had a vision of the way the world was, and we were trying to create something that feels like it belongs in Arrakis. And then you see what the players are doing in the beta and how they took things and just these amazing architects. They just went crazy in different directions. It was really, really interesting, really fun to see. Actually, I was super relieved when I saw people doing crazy stuff with the buildings.

When you play Dune: Awakening, you’re there on Arrakis, which I expected. But the first thing that awed me happened when I was randomly scrolling around the screen. I scrolled up, and all of a sudden, there was a giant Spacing Guild ship there. I just wasn’t expecting that. What aspects of the game that are not directly in your face or obvious do you think are real standouts in the game?

Whelan: I always say it’s a sci-fi game, it’s a sci-fi world. You need to have something in the sky that does something interesting. So those big ships were really something I was pushing to get in there from day one. And to use that 50% of the screen to say something, but not be in your face, just to be subtle. So you get that sense that there’s a bigger universe out there.

Having the Heighliner there, as well, is also important. There are connections.

Nerdist

And also for players, we look at the areas of importance. “What is important to you?” That sort of scale, that circle that you can build around the player of how important that area is. When you first start, it’s like 20 feet away from you. “Where can I get water? How can I survive this? Where can I get shelter from the sun? From a storm?” As you build, as you expand your knowledge, and as you get stronger, these circles increase in size and you become more aware of the world around you. You come into contact with larger, major factions, other players, other guilds that are growing. So we just want to keep pushing things upwards and outwards.

I don’t know if you got to use any of the vehicles…

No, I was just running around as a player. I didn’t get to try any of the vehicles.

Whelan: That’s one of the things I’m really proud of and amazed by. This is a whole team effort. It’s not just our thing, it’s how that level of interest is maintained as you get up to the point where you have an ornithopter. And you’re flying across the massive areas, because we had that challenge with Conan Exiles to a degree, when it was just a horse and a map. All of a sudden it felt small and you could travel from one point to another. How do you still maintain that sort of scale of world and interest and just keep on building upwards and upwards? That was the challenge.

What was the single biggest challenge in terms of design or making your vision a reality for Dune: Awakening?

Whelan: Design was always challenging. Sand is incredibly hard to get right.

Tough planet!

Whelan: It’s a tough planet and there’s a lot of it. :whispers: I hate sand. No, I love sand, but you have to get it right. And the sand deformation, the way the sandworm interacts with the world. I always start by apologizing to the VFX artist because we threw so many things at them. It’s like, “Okay, sandworms, yes. Big deforming sand, lots of sand effects. And can we have a sandstorm? And can we have ornithopters flying and can we have spice that blows?”

The list kept on going, just massive big effects we threw at the game, all these things happening at the same time. You have this big purple column of spice exploding up, and a sandworm is moving across it. Then you have the storm behind it. Ornithopters just flying around and explosions going off. These are things you just don’t want to do in a game normally and have these big massive VFX effects. But it needed to be big, though. It’s a big world, and you need to be able to see these things from a distance.

Funcom

You talked about how the books are so important to the game. I’m sure you thought a lot about Frank Herbert while you were making the game.

Whelan: Yeah.

Is there an aspect of the game you think he’d be most happy or impressed by? I know I’m asking you to answer for someone who can’t, but I just wonder if you’ve thought, “Wow, I wish I could show him this.“

Whelan: I don’t know. That’s a really…I am struggling to actually answer that one, because I’m scared to actually think what he would think.

It’s probably more on the narrative and story side. Because the book also reads like an internal monologue, and that’s very hard to do in a game setting. So I think it’s the way we build upon the world that he created. And, of course we’re in contact with the Herbert estate. We communicate with them a lot. But I still think it’d be interesting.

I don’t know how people would react to that, though. “I made this thing. This is mine.” Then somebody else is coming on, making version two, three, four of this? It’s like giving a movie license to somebody else, and they take it and go in a slightly different direction. I would like to think he would be happy to see what we’ve done with it, but I’m also scared.

That’s the blend of joy and terror I have working on this license. It is a very important thing for many people, and you have to respect that. You’ve seen with David Lynch in the past, how things can go wrong with something where everybody has an opinion or a vision or a viewpoint of this. So there are risks involved. And I knew it was going to be a challenge. It was never going to be an easy planet to bring to life with the politics, and to build a game around this that feels compelling. But hopefully, we’ve made a world in which the player is that missing part. The unexpected variant that comes in and changes things, and it can take Dune: Awakening in different directions.

I’m sure you’ve talked about Dune: Awakening a lot now with a lot of people. What’s something nobody’s asked you about yet that you’re just itching to talk about that you haven’t yet?

Whelan: It’s the stuff I can’t answer. It’s the stuff in the future and where the story goes, and the twists and the turns. But also, how we expand beyond just this endless desert game. And I always drop in these kind of little things like, “Oh, there’s a Heighliner in the sky. It’s a shame not to use it,” as bait.

I would love you to ask me what planets we’re going to, and I can’t answer because we do have a few things in mind, and we’re writing for that now. It’s a big universe. The second movie ended with Paul flying off into space. We want to bring the players places. We want to take them on those journeys. There’s a lot of scope in this story to keep on going for years really.

Funcom

Are you talking about expansions to Dune: Awakening or are you talking about sequels?

Whelan: I’d say expansions. When you go to a sequel, you have a risk of losing players at that point. And you just want to keep on building. They own [the game] at that point. You just need to keep on feeding them new experiences all the time. Give them something new to play with and, not keep them happy, but see what they’re doing with it and try to adapt to that as much as possible.

Because the moment you release a game, it doesn’t matter how serious your view of the game is. On The Secret World, some guy half-naked riding a bicycle with a cowboy hat on was the first thing I saw in the game. And I thought, “Okay, well, he’s doing his thing, he’s making his world his way.”

With the building competition we had, where players were making giant sand worm buildings and giant scorpions, the players will add that unexpected twist. You never know what they’re going to do with the world. I’d love to sort of think it’s a very easy, single narrow path, but they will go in different directions. But I think players still want to have that Dune fantasy at the core of it. They want to have that experience.

We want to push people in different directions. I wanted to play as an Atreides, but by the end, I was a Harkonnen. I don’t know how that happened. So we will see where people go, and it’s going to be fun to watch them go that way. Certainly, when we’ve been doing tests, the amount of interest we get when we see the map and see where players are traveling and how they’re exploring and what they’re unlocking and what they’re doing, it’s really fascinating to watch.

Dune: Awakening comes to PC on June 10, 2025.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist who isn’t afraid of the fear virus. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

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