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What kind of show was Marvel's ‘What If…?’ meant to be?
An anthology isn't meant to have ongoing storylines.
The Watcher takes center stage on this week’s 'What If…?'
The Watcher has taken an oath to never interfere, but he forgot about the observer effect.
‘Star Wars: Visions’ breaks from canon while Marvel’s ‘What If…?’ refuses to
'Star Wars: Visions' and Marvel's 'What If...?' both explore their multiverses in different ways.
‘What If…?’ put superheroics on pause to explore a more militaristic MCU
What if Eric Killmonger took the MCU off its heroic rails entirely?
‘What If…?’ is a tantalizing glimpse of future Avengers lineups
The second-stringers shine in this week's episode of Marvel's alt-reality cartoon.
Marvel’s 'What If?' expands beyond its anthology beginnings
This week's episode of Marvel's 'What If...?' went a little dark.
Marvel’s ‘What If…?’ turns grim in its third episode with mixed results
This week's episode of 'What If...?' went a little dark.
Marvel’s ‘What If…?’ is a fun diversion, but not required viewing
The new Marvel 'What If...?' is a show for the die-hard fans.
The biggest streaming announcements from Comic-Con
Another San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone, and as always, there were a colossal number of trailers and previews for upcoming shows and movies, including many in the streaming realm.
Disney+ will play a huge part in MCU phase four
Marvel has provided the first details for phase four of its Cinematic Universe, and it won't surprise you to hear that Disney+ will play a large role. There are no less than five superhero shows reaching the streaming service, although you'll have to wait a while to watch them. And you'll have to watch them if you're an MCU completionist -- at least some of them will provide context for events in upcoming movies.
Marvel is reportedly making a 'What If' animated series for Disney+
What if Captain America was elected President? What if Spider Man had joined the Fantastic Four? What if those and other What If plots came to TV? According to Slashfilm, Marvel Studios wants to adapt the popular What If comic books into an animated series to stream on Disney+.
What If: Clash of the Frozen Thrones
I love doing lore columns, and I really enjoy doing Tinfoil Hat Editions of Know Your Lore -- I like the process of finding all the loose threads from expansions past and pulling them together in a way that is just weird enough to feasibly work. Sometimes, however, I come up with ideas that are just a little too far out there for a Tinfoil Hat Edition. Certainly they're interesting enough, but feasible? Not in the slightest. When it comes to Warlords of Draenor, there are a lot of questions that haven't been answered. This is to be expected. We haven't even seen the beta for the expansion yet. We have absolutely no idea where that story is going to lead, other than commentary at BlizzCon suggesting that it will directly feed into the expansion following. Yet that tiny little comment, along with some thinking about Warlords itself gave me a theory regarding the next expansion. No, not Warlords -- I'm talking about the expansion after that. It's entirely implausible of course, which is why I'm not sticking it in the Know Your Lore column. But what the heck, let's take a moment and ask ourselves what if -- and consider the possibility of Azeroth's greatest villain reborn.
Remember Me dev Dontnod enters 'judicial reorganization' following financial struggles
Remember Me developer Dontnod Entertainment is in financial mire, but CEO Oskar Guilbert claims the company isn't on the brink of bankruptcy. Speaking to GI.biz, Guilbert dismissed reports coming out of France today that the Parisian company is in fatal trouble after it entered "judicial reorganization" this week. "We started new projects and those new projects need some investment and we decided to resize the company in order to match these new needs. That's why we needed judicial reorganization," Guilbert asserted to GI.Biz today. "I cannot say that we have no financial difficulties, we have some, but I think that now they are behind us, not in front of us." Judicial reorganization or redressement judiciaire is a similar process to receivership, where the French courts appoint an administrator to oversee a company's restructuring when it has troubles paying its debts. The process can be drawn out over many months, but it's often a precursor to liquidation. Guilbert says Dontnod is in "close negotiations with one big partner," presumably to take over, and in "very close negotiations for our next project with one of the top publishers." Despite being published by Capcom, Remember Me was a game that struggled to live up to its name, both critically and seemingly at retail; Capcom failed to even note the game in its financial brief for the quarter following its release last summer. In March 2013, Dontnod received 200,000 euros from France's National Center of Cinematography, apparently for a separate project denoted as "What if?" – here's hoping that isn't an ominous name too.
What If: Shadows of the Assassin
When we last left off with the what-if challenges, Rossi wrote up a perfectly delightful idea for the premise of Shandris Feathermoon being a main antagonist for an expansion, then left me with the notorious half-orc assassin Garona Halforcen for my next challenge. One would think it'd be easy enough to build an expansion around someone who makes a habit of stabbing people, but Garona has essentially been a non-entity since we last saw her, briefly, in the Twilight Highlands. Her absence from the final fight with Cho'gall was noticeable. One would think that she'd be more than happy to pitch in and help defeat the creature that had been controlling her the majority of her life, forcing her to do things that colored her fate in such a way that she's been forced into hiding. Yet ... Garona wasn't there. In fact, she's all but disappeared. Which makes one wonder ... how much of Garona is, in fact, Garona -- and what would she do if given the unique opportunity to change her fate?
What if: Rage of the Kaldorei
If you saw the previous installments in this little fictive game Anne and I are playing, you know the score. You take an unlikely character from Warcraft lore (they have to be alive as of the time of the writing) and you speculate on how you could build an expansion pack around that person. I went first, so I got to pick Velen for myself and gave Anne Alexstrasza, and she retaliated by handing me Shandris Feathermoon. And if you know me, you know I happen to think Shandris is a heck of a character and I'd love to see her get used more. But how do we even conceive of an expansion with Shandris as the main antagonist? Note, I didn't say villain. Shandris Feathermoon has been through a lot over the past ten thousand years. A child when the Burning Legion first came to Azeroth, she lost her family and indeed her very home village to the Legion. Effectively 'adopted' by Tyrande, Shandris grew up with a bow in her hand, and following the Legion's defeat she became leader of the Sentinels, the Kaldorei military, when her erstwhile paramour Jarod Shadowsong, who had led the night elves in battle against the Legion, turned his back on their people and walked away. Not Shandris - she has spent the past ten thousand years defending the night elves of Kalimdor. And at present, Kalimdor has become a very hostile place for the night elves.
See Ultima X: Odyssey in glorious action
One of 2004's most anticipated MMOs, Ultima X: Odyssey, was struck down by parent studio EA near to its completion date. The strong interest in this title coupled with the advanced state of its development has always been one of the most maddening "what if?" scenarios in the industry. While it is slightly outside of our power to restore the Ultima X project and push it out the door, the folks over at Ultima Codex unearthed a 34-minute gameplay video to at least show us how this title looked in action. Clear out a half-hour and check out what could have been with the following footage! [Thanks to John for the tip!]
Wouldn't this be cool? Another draenei ship
My good friend Matthew Rossi's Wouldn't this be cool? post took hold in my brain at just the right moment in time to spark my own crazy idea. Wouldn't it be cool if there were another draenei ship out there, lost to the stars, that Velen somehow found a way to rendezvous with? The draenei version of the Battlestar Pegasus could be out there, floating in the dark, those inside not knowing of the continued threat of the Burning Legion or Velen's flight from Draenor and triumphs on Azeroth. Let's face it: After The Burning Crusade, the draenei were shunted off into a corner and never heard from again. We saw a naaru in Wrath, and there were those draenei in Borean Tundra being refused by the Alliance military, but that was it. The draenei were even less present in Cataclysm, with their corrupted Broken brethren actually getting the lion's share of the shaman roles in the most recent expansion. Velen has been reduced to a punch line.
The Game Archaeologist and the What Ifs: Imperator Online
It's been a rollercoaster ride over these past two months bringing the maddening -- and fascinating -- topics of "what if?" MMOs to light. We've covered a wide range of promising titles that were cut down before their release, from True Fantasy Live Online to Mythica, and we've only scratched the surface. Unfortunately, the process of MMO development is rarely smooth and casualties can and do occur, which is why we now pay homage to these fallen games. While I'd love nothing more than to continue this series, I also feel that it's time to return to our normal format starting next week. So today marks the last "what if?" for now, and I've picked a mind-boggler of a game, one that not only frustrates us with its potential but one that asks a "what if?" question of its own. I'm talking about Imperator Online, the MMO from Mythic Entertainment that dared to ask "What if the Roman Empire never fell, but instead continued on to become a really radical futuristic online role-playing game setting?"
The Game Archaeologist and the What Ifs: True Fantasy Live Online
As an extremely amateur historian -- and an extremely attractive archaeologist -- I've always been fascinated with the "what ifs" of gaming's timeline. What if Blizzard had pulled the plug on World of Warcraft during development as it did for Warcraft Adventures? What if Hellgate: London had a lot more time and resources before it launched? What if North America had embraced the free-to-play model much earlier instead of the subscription model? What if Shawn came to his senses before he hired me? Life would've been a lot better. Or worse. That's the problem with counterfactual history: We can make educated guesses, but we'll never really know. While it's sad to see MMOs shut down due to underperformance, it's especially maddening to contemplate MMOs canceled before they even made it to the starting gate. In a new periodic series here at The Game Archaeologist, I'm going to look at a few of the "what ifs" of prematurely terminated MMORPGs. And to kick us off, I'm tackling probably one of the most frustrating, painful subjects that still linger amongst potential fans. I'm talking, of course, of True Fantasy Live Online, the game that could've shown the true potential of console MMOs. Or, y'know, not.
The Road to Mordor: What if?
By the time you read this, I'll be scurrying around PAX East in Boston, feeling much like a Hobbit: unable to see over the crowd, far out of my element, and deeply wishing I purchased shoes. I'll of course be talking with the folks at Turbine to see what information I can wheedle out of them about the future of this terrific game, so if you don't hear from me again, I'm most likely languishing in a PR dungeon somewhere for being too nosy. It's a good week, therefore, to be thinking about the future. My mind never stops thinking about future possibilities for any franchise, and even if they never come to be, these speculations are a great pastime of any fan. I'm always wondering "What if?" as I play Lord of the Rings Online -- what if I could mug Frodo and become the Ring-bearer? What if those lazy bums finally finished the repairs to the tavern in Frogmorton? What if Elves could kill innocent woodland creatures and go to the dark side? Playing "What if?" with LotRO is tougher than with other games because of the limitations imposed by the IP. Despite what some say, Turbine's struggled hard to stay within the boundaries of lore and setting, and while that's helped the company to be creative in ways that it might not have otherwise, it does present some unique obstacles that aren't present in competing MMOs. So to celebrate PAX, LotRO, and the future, here's a column of "What ifs?" for your consumption!
