Fans of Netflix's The Witcher TV series were surprised earlier this fall when the show was renewed for Season 4, but star Henry Cavill putting down the sword of Geralt of Rivia with Liam Hemsworth would be brought on and assume the role.

In the days that followed, The Witcher's fanbase expressed their shock and dismay that Cavill was walking away from one of his dream roles. They even organized a Change.org petition that has over 275,000 signatures, calling on Netflix to try and persuade Cavill to stay. Cavill's mind had been made up, however.

"My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures, and alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4," Cavill said in a statement at the time. "In my stead, the fantastic Mr. Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf."

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QA workers at an Activision Blizzard studio in Albany, NY have officially unionized. The vote came after Activision Blizzard appealed to the National Labor Relations Board to have the entire studio vote rather than its QA staff, but the body rejected the argument for a second time.

At Blizzard Albany--formerly known as Vicarious Visions--workers celebrated the move, with one telling the Washington Post that it was "extremely exciting and gratifying." Albany is now the second Activision Blizzard studio to have its QA workers organize, after Call Of Duty developer Raven Software. Blizzard Albany is currently working on the Diablo series.

Activision Blizzard tried the same strategy to prevent the QA workers at Raven from unionizing, arguing that the entire studio should vote, rather than just the QA workers. In both cases, the NLRB explained that the QA staff are sufficiently different enough to vote by themselves, citing their separate department, supervision, and lower wages than other employees at the company. It's unclear if these studios are the beginning of a larger movement towards unionization in the industry.

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Last season, Epic abandoned its normal weekly story quest structure in Fortnite, opting instead for a batch of quests that were available only in the first two weeks, followed by another batch of quests near the end of the season. And in Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 1, it looks like it's taking a similar approach with the Oathbound quests on the awesome new island.

Before you can get to those, you'll need to do the tutorial on the new augments. Fortunately, that involves little more than just clicking some buttons when prompted in your first game or two of the season. Once you're past that, the Oathbound quests will trigger and you'll get a notice to make contact with AMIE, the AI assistant to Seven member The Scientist. If you did any of the story quests in Chapter 3, there's a good chance you'll be familiar with her.

Aside from the time limit--you only have two weeks to do these quests--there's no restrictions on how you do them. You can complete one quest step per match if you want to, or you could theoretically (but probably not) do them all in the same match.

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Warner Bros. Discovery executives are reportedly close to formalizing a new name and platform for its upcoming streaming service combining the pre-existing HBO Max and Discovery+ services. According to Variety, the new app may be called Max.

Representatives for Warner Bros. Discovery have declined to comment on the name change, though CNBC further reports that internally, the service is code named "BEAM." Unnamed executives, however, confirmed that Max is "the likely choice." Other names are still being considered.

In 2021, CNBC also reported that top WarnerMedia executives never liked the name HBO Max for its streaming service and were glad for the Discovery merger because it gave them a chance to change the name. However--as it apparently needs to be pointed out--changing from HBO Max to Max really isn't that major of a name change?

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Fanatical has kicked off its Bundlefestive promotion, a week-long event that's focused entirely on Steam game bundles. Bundles are Fanatical's bread and butter, so this is definitely something you'll want to pay attention to. It's a great way to stock up on PC games (and Steam Deck games!) for cheap.

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Each day through Friday, December 9, Fanatical will offer at least one new game bundle. All of the bundles go live at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET, with the exception of Friday's bundle, which will be available an hour earlier. It's worth noting that these bundles are not only available for 24 hours. Like virtually every game bundle on the storefront, you have some time to decide if you want them and choose the games, if it's a build-your-own bundle. So, you could wait until all of the new bundles are live before making your choices.

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There are a lot of ways to make money in Disney Dreamlight Valley, including fishing for some rare catches, mining for gems, or just selling all of the random materials you collect as you explore each biome doing your daily tasks. However, one of the best methods of filling your coffers quickly is making a specific dish using a specific crop and then selling it to Goofy at one of his stalls. In this guide, we'll tell you how to make it happen and why it's such a great method for money-making.

How to make money fast selling pumpkin-filled Grilled Veggie Platters

Planting and harvesting pumpkins has long been a popular money-making method for Dreamlight Valley players, but with just a bit of extra work, you can increase your profits by quite a bit. All you have to do is head to a stove and use three pumpkins to make a Grilled Veggie Platter.

Plant a bunch of pumpkin seeds (200-500 is ideal), which you can purchase in Forgotten Lands. Wait four hours for them to grow, then harvest them using one of your gardening companions to ensure you get extra pumpkins as you're picking. Before you head off to cook them into Grilled Veggie Platters, go ahead and replant more seeds so that they can get started growing while you're cooking and doing other errands.

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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition is out on December 14 as a free upgrade, and we had the opportunity to play it for a few hours. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S upgrade of CD Projekt Red's beloved open-world RPG features several visual improvements, a photo mode, and a new quest.

This new quest is the most notable inclusion and, even if you don't plan on replaying The Witcher 3 in its entirety anytime soon, I highly recommend revisiting The Northern Realms just for this. Thankfully, all your saves will carry over, and it introduces cross-save. The quest itself features new characters, Henry Cavill's armor from the Netflix show, a new monster to fight, and a new-ish location. I won't say too much in order to preserve the surprise, but it fits nicely within the context of The Witcher 3 and expands on an area that felt underutilized in the original release. At the very least, it's nice hearing Doug Cockle reprise his role as the White Wolf, even if the quest itself is brief.

The meat of the Complete Edition is the visual and performance enhancements. On PS5 and Xbox Series X, there is a performance toggle. One favors the visuals with some subtle ray tracing added, while the other favors performance. During my time with the game, I preferred performance mode. The ray-traced visuals add some extra warmth and detail to interior environments, but it wasn't worth sacrificing the high frame rate available in performance mode.

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Microsoft's blockbuster bid to acquire Activision Blizzard has garnered headlines and scrutiny all around the world. However, according to a new report from the New York Post, a conflict over the deal at the Federal Trade Commission might handicap the panel's ability to intercede.

The report states that FTC Chair Lina Khan is pushing to block the deal if possible, with a Politico report stating last month that a lawsuit against the deal was "likely." In a turnaround, this new report says that at least one Democrat on the four-member panel has become more likely to approve the merger in recent days, which would likely impair any such suit from appearing.

Those three Democrats are Khan, Rebecca Slaughter, and Alvaro Bedoya. Republican Christine Wilson has already indicated her support. The report suggests that Slaughter is the commissioner in question. It also states that a settlement--which would alter the terms of the merger instead of blocking it altogether--may be a more likely outcome at this juncture. A tie would effectively approve the deal.

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During the last Project L update back in August, executive producer Tom Cannon said there would be one more update for the upcoming fighter from Riot Games before the end of 2022. That update has arrived in the form of a six-minute dev diary highlighting core gameplay mechanics, tag options, and brand-new gameplay.

Cannon and game director Shaun Rivera are the featured devs in this video, with Rivera walking through multiple core mechanics that make up the fighting system of Project L. Both offensive and defensive mechanics are shown, including air mobility options like double and super jumps.

Rivera then explains the tag system, where he specifically calls out three important tag features:

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BioWare has released a new trailer for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, and while it doesn't include any gameplay, it does dig into more of the backstory and motivations of Solas, the Dreadwolf. The cinematic, which is a work-in-progress, is narrated by the Dragon Age II companion Varric Tethras.

BioWare released the trailer as "a little treat" to celebrate Dragon Age Day--December 4. The developer also noted that this trailer would be how BioWare plans to "close out" 2022, which could suggest the title won't make an appearance during The Game Awards this week, though nothing is confirmed yet.

2022 has already been a big year for Dreadwolf, as BioWare announced in February that the game had officially entered the production phase of development. In June, BioWare announced the game's name, Dreadwolf, and in October, BioWare confirmed that the game reached Alpha and was playable from start to finish.

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Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 might see a return of Rebirth Island and the popular Resurgence game-mode in the coming weeks. A map posted on a popular Call of Duty Facebook group has suggested that a small island off the coast of Al Mazrah will be the next location for Warzone 2.0.

The leak claims that this new map will be compatible with Ground War, DMZ, and the returning Resurgence mode. It also includes a number of named locations, including a beach club, town center, and even a castle.

As a whole, the map looks less professional than some leaks that have appeared over the years. In the above-linked thread, some users question its legitimacy on these grounds. However, Insider Gaming notes that Activision Blizzard has issued DMCA notices in an apparent attempt to contain the leaks, which leads credence to the claims.

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Former Batgirl directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah recently talked about their optimism about someday, in some way, fans will be able to see the first live-action Batgirl movie with Leslie Grace in the titular role. They've confirmed that meetings with James Gunn, newly-made co-head of DC Films, have occurred, but with the movie's fate still aetherial, the two opened up about the traumatic experience of the movie getting canceled in the first place.

"At that time, it was pretty unprecedented, so it was like movie history, but in a crazy way," El Arbi told Deadline during a press event for their new film, Rebel. He continued by saying that there's nothing that they could do to coax WB Discovery into releasing the film at the moment. He did theorize that the current comeback success of Brendan Fraser with The Whale, who played the villainous pyromaniac Firefly, could boost Batgirl's chances of resurrection.

"Should it maybe be released, there’s still a lot of work to be done and I don't know if they are really going to go back for that," he said.

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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the sequel to 2019's action-adventure game from Respawn, will be released in March 2023, according to the game's Steam page first spotted by Resetera. Some people are seeing a March 15 release date and others are seeing a March 16 date on the page.

The Steam page remains live at the time of publishing. According to a previous report, Jedi: Survivor's release date is scheduled to be officially announced during The Game Awards this week. A new trailer for the game will be shown at the event, too, the report said.

If Jedi: Survivor doesn't sound like your cup of tea, Disney is reportedly planning to launch a new Star Wars title every six months, so another title might not be far behind.

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If you've had your PS5 for a while, you might already be familiar with a particular annoyance that arises as your library of games has grown. With just 667GB of usable space, those who regularly play their PS5--especially those who play live service games--can fill up the entire drive quicker than they might expect. Thankfully, there's an easy solution to this pesky issue: installing your own internal SSD. Right now, there's an excellent deal on the Samsung 980 Pro 1TB NVMe SSD at Amazon and Best Buy. You can get this PS5-compatible SSD for only $100.

Samsung 980 Pro 1TB SSD $100 (was $160)

It's important to note that this is the earlier edition of the 980 Pro, so it doesn't come with a heatsink. You need a heatsink to use this SSD (and all others) with the PS5. Thankfully, third-party heatsinks are really cheap. For example, you can get this well-reviewed heatsink at Amazon for only $9. Securing the SSD to the heatsink is a simple and quick process.

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The PS5 requires a fairly high-end SSD with fast speeds, and the Samsung 980 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD ticks all the right boxes. When installed properly, you'll experience speeds that are almost indistinguishable from the console's built-in SSD. And since it's manufactured by Samsung, you'll know that you're getting a reliable drive that's built to last.

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Disney is implementing the first price increase for its streaming service Disney+ this week. The price hike was announced months ago, but it's finally happening on December 8 alongside the launch of a new ad-based subscription tier.

With Disney+ about to get more expensive, now is a good time to consider your options to help save some money. If you plan to continue to subscribe to Disney+ and you expect to for the next year, you can lock in for a 12-month subscription at the current yearly rate of $80.

On December 8, Disney will raise the base rate of Disney+ to $11/month, or $110 per year if you lock in for 12 months. The current Disney+ price is $8/month when purchased month-to-month.

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The Simpsons is no stranger to parodies and video games. On the December 4 episode, the animated show combined the two to tackle Roblox with a title called Boblox. Bart and Milhouse are seen playing the spoof on a PC, with avatars of themselves on the monitor.

The official Simpsons Twitter channel gave a brief synopsis of the episode, stating: "the gamer to crypto bro pipeline." Another tweet showed that Maggie could speak within Boblox because of emojis. And judging from the video, the whole family is playing the spoof, not just Bart.

These guys game. Play Boblox with us tonight at 8/7c. pic.twitter.com/pN5SX9r5GU

— The Simpsons (@TheSimpsons) December 4, 2022

Matt Selman, showrunner for The Simpsons, shared storyboard images for the episode titled "Game Done Changed" on his Twitter page. Bart teams up with Principal Skinner after discovering a glitch in Boblox that sees them creating a criminal enterprise. This even leads to the animated show taking a shot at the HBO classic, The Wire.

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The $90 million Batgirl movie was canceled during post-production, but the directors of the project aren't feeling totally burned by Warner Bros. Discovery, saying they are open to returning to the DC film universe and even have a meeting booked with new DC boss James Gunn.

Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the canceled movie and some of their future plans. Asked if they would work with WB Discovery again, Fallah said, "Yeah, we'd still work with them."

"But on the condition that the movie comes out. I mean, if Warner says, 'Do you want to do the next Batman or Superman?,' of course we'll say yes. Just so long as the movie comes out!" Fallah added.

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Geoff Keighley has confirmed that The Game Awards 2022 will be much shorter than last year's showcase.

During a recent Twitter Spaces talk--via Resetera--Keighley discussed the upcoming ceremony, which is set to air on December 8, and answered some questions about what to expect. The Game Awards is usually filled with not only award presentations, but interviews with developers and trailers for brand-new games. This usually results in a lengthy broadcast, considering there are also ads aired throughout, but Keighley has said it will be shorter this year.

"I won't say anything officially until we're through our rehearsals but we think it's going to be significantly shorter," he said. Last year's pre-show lasted around 30 minutes while the main event went on for 3 hours, so those tuning in can expect this to be significantly reduced.

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Frozen's co-director has revealed that she wanted to kill Olaf the snowman, a character that would go on to become one of the film's most beloved characters.

Jennifer Lee said at an awards show in Los Angeles this weekend that when she came aboard Frozen mid-way through development, her first suggestion was to get rid of Olaf.

"My first note was, 'kill the snowman,'" she recalled, as reported by Variety.

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HBO has released a full official trailer for The Last of Us, which spotlights the pivotal uneasy relationship between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as they make their way across a post-apocalyptic US and try to escape a zombie outbreak. The series adapting the popular video game franchise will be coming to HBO on January 15.

More than any other clip or teaser trailer before, this one showcases the obstacles and enemies the pair will be forced to cooperate in overcoming. The show has stayed true to the design of the fungus-zombies and we're even treated to a horrifying view of the awful Bloater at the very end. The trailer does a great job of pulling double-duty--reassuring PlayStation fans that the show will honor its source material, and also helping newcomers understand the world, characters, and story. Check it out below.

The trailer also demonstrates the show's excellent casting. In late November, HBO released a series of character posters to get fans further pumped--here, you'll see Storm Reid as Riley and Nick Offerman as Bill. We're also shown plenty of Joel and Ellie bickering, and realizing that they need each other to survive.

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