News
Prepare for Call of Duty… IN SPACE
Earlier this year Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, two of the key guys behind the original Dead Space, left Visceral Games to join Activision’s brand new Foster City, CA based studio, Sledgehammer Games. Well, according to Gamasutra, Sledgehammer is hard at work on a Call of Duty title that’s “set in the future” and will feature space marines.
I’m predicting a disappointing lack of vial organ-hungry aliens and strategic dismemberment in this future-set Call of Duty, but there’s still a small chance this as of yet unannounced game could be set in the horror genre. Imagine the possibilities: a horror game with Call of Duty’s pedigree and polish. Sure, there are plenty of high quality horror titles out there but I’m from the school of thought that says we could always use more. So why not hit that attractive Read More button for a full report on this series’ lustrous future? I bet it’ll be worth your while. Let’s try and put all that Inifnity Ward controversy behind us so we can better soak in how shiny the future is for the Call of Duty series. We have Black Ops, out now, that’s officially put Treyarch in the same league as its “competitor” Infinity Ward. Now we have talk of a futuristic Call of Duty that will likely fuse the series’ love of realism with bulky and excessively manly Space Marines (something I say the industry certainly doesn’t have enough of already).
What we know of this future-set Call of Duty is it’s being developed by Activision’s new Sledgehammer Games studio, it’s another first-person shooter and it’s, assuming you haven’t gleaned this already, set sometime in the future. Oh, and don’t get this title confused with the also yet to be revealed Call of Duty MMO that’s being developed by another team entirely.
So what do you think of Activision’s incredibly strong push on the Call of Duty franchise; Is a new game every year a bit much for you or is the fact that so many developers are working on different installments and spin-offs in the series keeping it from feeling stale?
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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