Director Zack Snyder has said it would be fun to see a James Bond movie tell a story about a young Bond that digs into the super-spy's past and upbringing. Snyder told The Atlantic that he believes audiences would show up to learn about Bond's early days and the trauma that made him who he is.

"It'd be cool to see, like, 20-year-old James Bond," Snyder said (via Variety). "The humble roots that he comes from. Whatever trauma of youth that makes you be able to be James Bond. There has to be something there."

The 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall saw Bond return to his childhood home, but there hasn't been a proper prequel that shows Bond's upbringing. In 2022, actor Tom Holland said he pitched a James Bond origin story as a new film but he admitted his idea "didn't really make sense." Holland's idea apparently made it all the way to the producers of the Bond movie series, but the actor said, "I don't think the Bond estate were particularly interested."

Paul Giamatti has almost 120 film and television credits to his name and is looking to grab his second Oscar nomination this year for The Holdovers. He is also the most recent actor talking to GQ about breaking down his most iconic roles and characters. Giamatti spoke at length with behind-the-scenes stories--he broke his hand in John Adams, and didn't realize Kenny Rushton was a real person--but also a role he's yet to play that he's desperate to.

When asked about his wanting to play a Bond villain, Giamatti describes the type of archetype he'd love to be in the James Bond world.

"I'd want an accent of some kind. I'd definitely want an accent. It'd be nice to have an animal with me of some kind," Giamatti responded. "Not necessarily a cat, but something. Any animal, maybe. Not a parrot or something. Something real. I don't know. An accent, though, of some kind I'd have to have. A guy who's all in fur coats and stuff like that? Be great."

The start of 2024 will see a few huge departures for Xbox Game Pass. Grand Theft Auto V, Persona 3 Portable, and Persona 4 Golden will reportedly leave the subscription service on January 15, per X user Idle Sloth.

GameSpot can confirm from the Xbox Game Pass app that all three games are listed under the Leaving Soon section, though no specific date is mentioned. The other titles joining them on console and PC are Garden Story and MotoGP 22.

GTA V was a surprise addition to Xbox Game Pass in July 2023, so that means the Rockstar title will have been available for roughly six months. Previously, GTA 5 left Xbox Game Pass in July 2021 after only three months on the subscription service.

At 12:01 AM Monday, the earliest version of Mickey Mouse went into the public domain. It took little time for projects featuring Mickey and his gloveless hands to be made into anything. From erotic prints to logos on shirts for labor rights. There were also more elaborate projects like "edgy" video games and even two slasher films: Mickey's Mouse Trap, and another untitled movie where a deranged mouse goes after ferry guests.

In Mickey's Mouse Trap, young Alex is stuck at work on her birthday at an arcade. When her friends decide to surprise her, a masked killer dressed as Mickey Mouse appears and hunts them down for sport. The film was shot, edited, and directed by Jamie Bailey and written by Simon Phillips. Check out the trailer below.

You might be wondering what they can and can't show concerning the world's most beloved mouse. It's pretty simple: It has to be proto-version of Mickey from the Steamboat Willie animated shorts. The most important thing is to make sure that people know that Disney has no endorsement of anything like this.

Craig Robinson, who played Darryl on The Office and appeared in more than 100 episodes, has commented on the possibility of a remake and if he'd be interested in appearing in it. Speaking to AV Club, Robinson said if there is a new show in the works, he hasn't heard about it.

"I only hear that when I do interviews [laughs]. 'I heard that there was something going on...' It hasn't been mentioned to me. If it does [happen], I would love to reprise Darryl at some point," he said. "But right now, I don't know. Nor do I think so."

Darryl is a fan favorite character on The Office who sees his career shift from the warehouse, to the office, and eventually to the Philadelphia-based sports marketing company Athlead (later Athleap). Darryl's story ended on a high note, as he became an executive at Athleap, got back together with Justine, and moved to Austin, Texas.

Shigeru Miyamoto--the creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, and other characters and games over his 40-plus years at Nintendo--is 71 years old and has no plans to retire. Speaking to The Guardian, Miyamoto said he is thinking about a succession plan, but he plans to work for some time more.

"More so than retiring, I'm thinking about the day I fall over," he said with a smile. "In this day and age you have to think about things in a five-year timespan, so I do think about who I can pass things on to, in case something does happen."

Miyamoto went on to comment on his legacy, saying he is thankful there is "so much energy" around the things he has created. "They've been cultivated by others, other people have been raising them, helping them grow, so in that sense I don't feel too much ownership over them any more," Miyamoto said.

Square Enix said that it plans to be aggressive in applying AI to both its game development and publishing pipelines.

In Square Enix's "A New Year's Letter from the President," Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu said, "I believe that generative AI has the potential not only to reshape what we create, but also to fundamentally change the processes by which we create, including programming."

"In the short term, our goal will be to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts," he continued. "In the longer term, we hope to leverage those technologies to create new forms of content for consumers, as we believe that technological innovation represents business opportunities."

Actor Adam Driver played Kylo Ren in the new Star Wars trilogy, but don't expect him to return to the sci-fi series anytime soon. He said on the SmartLess podcast recently that he's aware that Lucasfilm is producing more Star Wars content, "but not with me."

Driver went on to say, "I'm not doing any more." Asked if he was finished with Star Wars because of Kylo Ren's death in The Rise of Skywalker, Driver confirmed that is indeed the case (via ScreenRant).

Before this, Driver discussed how Kylo Ren's arc in the new Star Wars trilogy was not originally set to unfold the way it did. In the finished movie, Kylo Ren refined himself as Ben Solo. But the original plan was for Ben to lose himself as the sith lord more and more throughout the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

CD Projekt Red has confirmed that it has no interest in being bought out or part of a larger corporation, and wants to maintain its independence.

In an interview with Parkiet, CD Projekt Red CEO Adam Kicinski said, "We are not interested in being incorporated into some larger entity. We have worked all our lives to reach our current position. We believe that in a few years we will be even bigger and even stronger."

Kicinski also confirmed that CD Projekt Red don't have any acquisitions itself planned at the moment, and isn't interested in mergers where the only goal is to consolidate financial results as he doesn't see the value in that. This has been CD Projekt's Red stance for several years so Kicinski's continued insistence about independence aren't surprising.

The earliest version of Mickey Mouse is now in public domain as of January 1, 2024, and as many guessed, a game developer has announced its own twist on the character in a spooky setting.

Nightmare Forge Games has announced Infestation 88, an episodic 1-4 player co-op survival horror game set in 1988. You play as an exterminator called upon to rid dwellings of "twisted versions of classic characters and urban legends." And yes, Mickey Mouse is one of those characters. The game is set to release later this year on Steam as an Early Access title.

The version of Mickey Mouse that went into public domain today, January 1, is the character's earliest appearance, dating back to 1928's Steamboat Willie. Newer versions of the character remain under Disney's control. Legal experts expect Disney to remain highly protective of its brand and Mickey Mouse specifically, so it'll be interesting to see what happens in the days, weeks, and months ahead as inevitably more and more Mickey-related projects come to light due to the public domain status of Steamboat Willie.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is fairly formulaic as far as sequels go. The reunion of Insomniac Games' take on Peter Parker and Miles Morales builds upon past foundations, adding just enough to reach new if unsurprising heights. It's in the efforts to stay close to its predecessors, however, that a key differentiator sets in. With the focus on bringing back lesser-known characters while fleshing out self-contained depictions of the friendly neighborhood spiders, the story sidelines Marvel Cinematic Universe expectations in structure and spirit, creating a stronger narrative as a result.

Editor's note: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 spoilers to follow

Avengers: Endgame was released a year after Marvel's Spider-Man, with Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales following a year later. Ever since, the MCU has attempted to rekindle the spotlight, to varying results. It's safe to say the film conglomerate doesn't draw the eyes it once did. But its influential tidal wave, for better or worse, still ripples over Marvel-related media, including the video game space.

World of Warcraft will be 20 years old in 2024. After two decades, one might think that players of Blizzard's MMORPG have seen it all. But 2023 proved that Blizzard still has plenty of ideas about the game's future, and if the last year is any indication, that future certainly looks bright.

The latest expansion for the modern version of WoW, Dragonflight, launched at the tail-end of 2022 to positive reviews, alongside an ambitious content release roadmap for 2023. The expansion itself proved to be a well-crafted, return-to-basics affair that the game sorely needed after 2020's widely disliked Shadowlands expansion. All that goodwill, however, could have easily been squandered if Blizzard failed to deliver on its promises to deliver more content on a more frequent basis in the year ahead.

Considering how the release schedules for expansions like Warlords of Draenor and Shadowlands went, when six or more months could go by without any substantial additions to a game users pay $15 a month for the privilege to play, I think it's safe to say many players were skeptical Blizzard could deliver on its promises. Two major content updates alongside four minor ones over the course of 2023 sounded ambitious, to say the least.

Following the lukewarm reception to its latest horror game Ghostwire: Tokyo, few might have expected the next game from the Shinji Mikami led-Tango Gameworks to be a brightly colored, rhythm-based character-action game. Hi-Fi Rush saw a surprise release early in 2023, arguably kicking off the stellar year of unexpected brilliance with its tightly designed combat, incredibly likable cast of rebels, and standout boss fights. Each one of Hi-Fi Rush's numerous boss fights is memorable for one reason or another (the scale and complexity of the final fight against Kale is as awe-inspiring as the first fast-paced duel with antagonist-turned-ally Korsica), but none come close to comparing with what might be the most adrenaline-fuelled three-phase fight of the year: Roquefort.

Like much of Hi-Fi Rush, Roquefort isn't memorable because of his outright challenge. The character-action presented in Tango Gameworks' latest pairs rhythm-based sensibilities with the flow of traditional character-action, equipped with an engaging scoring system that judges your aptitude at balancing both. Smart touches around each stage consistently remind you of the beat you need to keep when inputting presses for combos, while enemy attacks (mostly) adhere to the same beat, only breaking out in half-steps when trying to trip you up. Roquefort is the culmination of everything you've learnt about this blend of genres to that point, acting as the penultimate boss that is meant to gatekeep your progress from the game's eventual most-challenging foe, both figuratively and literally.

A mysterious fog-covered town, a tropical paradise covering up something deadline in the great below, and vast ocean canyons that sailors rarely make it out from. Every section of Dredge's sizable archipelago is full of secrets that could easily sink your fishing ship as soon as you slow down to investigate.

Except your ship never stays at the bottom of the salt for long. As soon as you die in Black Salt Games' Dredge--a Lovecraftian horror adventure about a fisherman finding work in a mysterious archipelago--you find yourself right back in the nightmare once again. There is no escape, which works wonderfully as both a story and lore mechanic.

Dredge isn't a horror game about survival or bloodthirsty creatures who are hunting you. It's about a world that's already miles deep and full of questions that will never have answers. Spending hours running and getting killed by sinister sealife isn't nearly as compelling as simply spending more time near though. The questions slowly pile up, and it's satisfying to just try and answer them.

Remnant 2 has a fair few bosses. There's a corrupted alien wolf that's got altogether too many eyes and really wants you to kill off a magical deer. There's also what I can only describe as a night terror turned into ethereal flesh, which crawls out of walls trying to kill you while opening a portal from its chest to spit spiders at you. There's even a giant alien baby thing that blurs the lines between realities and tries to kill you using a mixture of black holes and laser beams to protect its home from careening into an event horizon.

Note: Spoilers for Remnant 2 ahead.

Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars is one of my favorite games of all time. I've played it once a year for over a decade, and as such I am very familiar with this offbeat take on the Mario universe. I loved the characters, I loved the battle system--my first foray into turn-based RPGs, in fact--and I loved the idea of expanding on a franchise I'd been visiting since I was three years old. Before SMRPG, the Mushroom Kingdom and its surroundings was a collection of flat worlds where I'd move from left to right. This time, however, it actually felt like a kingdom, with towns and cities populated by people to speak with, not just enemies to jump on.

On June 21 of this year, Nintendo made the announcement I'd waited on for 27 years: Super Mario RPG was coming back, rebuilt from the ground up with new visuals, new mechanics, and a revamped soundtrack by the original composer. My initial reaction was my brain melting out of my ears coupled with actual tears of joy, but once I settled down and really started to process this news, that joy gave way to a small bit of anxiety: What if the game's personality gets lost in restoration?

Part of what endears me and many other players to Super Mario RPG is just how silly the whole thing is. It revels in physical comedy, like Mario's pantomimed retelling of events to the Mushroom Kingdom's Chancellor. Characters and bosses are inherently weird, from the affable idiot Booster to a battle against a literal two-tiered wedding cake where each tier is a separate enemy. Some of the jokes and puns are dated--show of hands for those who know what the giant knife named Mack was referencing. The mountain of obstacles looked to be the size of Everest; would this remake make it to the summit?

Xur is back in Destiny 2 this weekend, giving you one last chance to pick up new Exotics and Legendary gear before the end of The Dawning. Here's where you can find Xur this weekend and everything he's selling.

This week you can find Xur on Nessus, in the Watcher's Grave area.

Xur is offering Skyburner's Oath for his Exotic weapon this week. Hunters can snag the Orpheus Rig leg armor; Titans have the Hallowfire Heart chest armor; and for Warlocks, Xur offers the Contraverse Hold gauntlets.

A lot of airtime and screen-space has been spent talking about just how big Baldur's Gate 3 is. And it's massive, even growing bigger consistently as the game gets an array of foundation-altering patches. However, Baldur's Gate 3 best sings in its relentless commitment to careful combat and dungeon design. Rosemyrn Monastery is RPG level design at its most straightforward and its most dazzling.

In its overall structure, Rosemyrn sharply inverts the typical dungeon: Above is the dungeon, below the town. The space-faring warriors, the Githyanki, have taken the area below the monastery as their Créche, but most of the monastery itself--the above-ground areas that were once overflowing with clergy, pilgrims, and other guests--is almost entirely abandoned. Rosemyrn was dedicated to the god of dawn, Lithander, and many ventured there to ask his favor.

While 2023 was certainly a great year for movies and TV shows as a whole (unless you're the Marvel Cinematic Universe), it was an especially great year for adaptations of our favorite video game franchises. As a prime example, Nintendo and Illumination Studios' The Super Mario Bros. Movie hit theaters in April. It was hard to know if the movie was going to work, as even the casting of Chris Pratt stirred disdain among fans. Would they be willing to watch Super Mario on the big screen?

It turns out, they absolutely would. The Super Mario Bros. Movie would earn more than $1.3 billion at the box office, becoming the third-biggest animated feature ever--behind Disney's Lion King remake and Frozen II. It's also the highest-grossing video game movie of all time, and the second-biggest movie of 2023, domestically and worldwide. That's a pretty dramatic change, compared to previous years.

"I think that part of the problem with translating games to movies is that the structure of what makes a good game is very different from the structure of what makes a good movie," Super Mario and Legend of Zelda creator and all-around video game icon Shigeru Miyamoto said back in 2007, after years of bad adaptations that included 1993's Super Mario Bros.

Alan Wake 2 surprised us in many ways--how much it differed from its predecessor, how much Saga Anderson added to Alan Wake's story, the way Alan Wake 2 continued to really tie together all of Remedy's games. But the biggest surprise of all begins with two words taking up almost all of the screen:

WE SING.

WARNING: This is your chance to get out of here before I spoil one of the silliest, weirdest, and best gaming moments in Alan Wake 2.