Light Start: Horizon on PC, The Hobbit read by Gollum, FaceApp is back and a Fallout TV show incoming

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Horizon Zero Dawn is available on Steam for PC pre-order

PC players can finally get their hands on the brilliant ope-world PS Exclusive soon. In August, Horizon Zero Dawn will officially launch on PC, and is already available on Steam for pre-order. Not long now until y’all can play the brilliant story of Alloy, featuring some of the best open-world gameplay we’ve seen. 

Developer Guerrilla Games updated the Steam page for the game with the release date of 7 August. So that’s good to know, eh? Before this, we only had the vague release timeline of ‘this summer’ as if seasons are equally everywhere in the world. This w2eekend, the pre-order went live, and South Africans quickly realised it’s far cheaper than expected, priced at R260 a pop. Apparently, the game was priced according to the country’s affordability. But soon the price shot up to ‘normal’ AAA levels, because people from outside the country were using VPNs to buy the game at a cheaper price in SA. Sneaky buggers. That just pushed the price up to R680. 

“In addition to coming with the expansion and the DLC outfits, the Complete Edition comes with some PC-specific graphical upgrades, including ultrawide display support, graphics customization, and unlocked framerates — all things PC players love, so that’s a good start,” TNW details. 

Source: TNW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

‘The Hobbit’ is getting an audiobook read by Gollum and we’re here for it

We’ve never been more excited about an audiobook voice announcement than right here. The infamous ‘Gollum’ voice actor, Andy Serkis has announced that he will voice the next audiobook of JRR Tolkien’s best-seller, The Hobbit. The new audiobook version of the prelude to The Lord of the Rings will be out in September. 

As a short teaser, the publishers of the audiobook, HarperCollins released a snippet of Serkis’s narration at the very beginning of the book. We only get a taste of about two minutes of Serkis’ narration, and can’t wait for the full 7-hour-and-40-minute playthrough. “We are delighted to announce the release of a brand-new audiobook of The Hobbit, read by @andyserkis, HarperCollins UK tweeted last week. 

To catch you up: Serkis portrayed Gollum in the Peter Jackson-directed The Lord of the Rings trilogy and was the second unit director on The Hobbit trilogy, so the man’s no stranger to Middle Earth. The seasoned voice actor will probably breathe some personality into all characters and dialogue, and we can’t wait to hear it. 

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FaceApp is back, and apparently it is more secure

Do you remember that brief moment in 2018 where people became obsessed with turning pictures of themselves and celebrities older or gender-swapping them? Yeah, that feels like a decade ago, thanks to 2020, but it happened. And once people started finding out the app was sending personal information to Russia, the app fell off the face of the earth. Now FaceApp is back and as dodgy as ever. 

So the people over at Engadget decided to have a heart-to-heart with Juggs Ravalia, the Vice President of FaceApp Inc. Ravalia used to be a Yandex executive and a Microsoft alumnus who joined the US-based subsidiary of the Russian company last year. When asked about the safety precautions of FaceApp, Ravalia mentioned the company’s newly updated, and now very thorough privacy policy, “which has grown considerably since the one published in early 2017,” according to Engadget. Although the app shows live previews on the device, it only sends the single, uploaded image to a server. After this, the image is encrypted with a key that’s only held on your phone, “even if someone came to us asking for this photo, we don’t store the key.” 

So, that’s some good news for anyone who really wants to face swop or turn ‘emselves into old men, ladies or babies. Maybe that’s exactly what a post-Corona world needs. 

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We can’t wait for this Fallout TV show confirmed by Bethesda Studios

Last week, Amazon and Bethesda announced that it is planning a TV show based on the post-apocalyptic game series: Fallout. The show will be set in the Fallout universe, and will be produced by our favourite dystopian show, Westworld’s creators HBO.

The developers behind the game, Bethesda, posted a teaser video on the official Fallout Twitter account. The best thing to come out of this is that Amazon has committed to a full series commitment from Amazon, while the whole thing will be streamed on Prime. Honestly, Fallout, is the perfect game world to turn into a series, with the sheer amount of potential content in a ridiculously imaginative world. “Nolan and Lisa Joy, who signed a blockbuster overall deal with Amazon last year, will exec produce alongside Athena Wickham for Kilter Films, with Todd Howard as an EP for Bethesda Game Studios, and James Altman for Bethesda Softworks. Lionsgate is also executive producing the series,” Variety reports.

Following the immense success of The Witcher on Netflix, we expect a massive influx of showrunners igging into the worlds of videogames. It’s an untapped market of brilliant worlds and great characters. 

Source: Variety[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]