Alan Moore’s classic to be animated by Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Animation is bringing Alan Moore’s iconic graphic novel, The Killing Joke, to its roster of adapted films. The studio is also bringing back two famous voices to go along with it.
Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy will return to the studio to reprise their respective roles as the Joker and Batman, according to Comic Book Resources. Conroy and Hamill first teamed up together in 1992 to work on Batman: The Animated series, which ran for three years before being taken off the air. Conroy continued to voice Batman, as did Hamill with Joker, through a variety of mediums, including Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight.
In a statement to Comic Book Resources, Hamill said that he is excited to work again with his “favorite Batman" on a story that explored the "definitive origin of this iconic villain." His sentiments were echoed by Conroy, who added that working with Hamill always inspired him to be a better actor.
The Killing Joke, one of the most widely read installments in the Batman franchise, was written by Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta) and illustrated by Brian Bolland (Judge Dredd). In the 1988 novel, Moore explores the origin of Batman’s most nefarious foe, the Joker. The book was loosely based on a story from a 1951 issue of Batman, "The Man Behind the Red Hood!"
Set to join Conroy and Hamill are Tara Strong, who will play Barbara Gordon, and Ray Wise, who will play Commissioner Gordon.
Although there’s no exact release date for the film, it’s expected to debut this summer. The movie will premiere during Comic-Con International in San Diego this July.

Norwegian studio teases its secretive new project With its next game, Norwegian developer Krillbite Studio is tackling a genre unlike that of its horror hit Among the Sleep. Where its predecessor focused on childhood trauma, Mosaic, a point-and-click adventure game planned for a 2017 release, will instead focus on the blandness and alienation of adulthood.
“It’s about being a small piece in this big machinery that you don’t feel anything for," artist Bjørnar Frøyse told us when we spoke during Game Developer Conference 2016.
Players control an office worker, going through the motions of his routine, day-to-day life. It’s a narrative that the studio thinks will be familiar to those who play Mosaic, and one which CEO Jon Cato Lorentzen boiled down to telling of "urban isolation."
As for how that storyline plays out, the studio stayed mostly mum.
"You start to feel like you don’t fit in," community and marketing head Kristina Halverson continued. "Then, one day, these strange things start happening."
That was the most the team offered about the specifics of the game. The screens below suggest that theme, thanks to Frøyse’s melancholic artwork. A short teaser the team showed us also hinted at the oddities that unfurl over the course of the Windows PC game.
The development team remained highly secretive about what Mosaic will entail — offering a sense of mystery that, according to Krillbite, the game itself shares.
"In the game, we’re going to try to embrace the same sense of curiosity," Lorentzen said. "Stuff is happening, but stuff isn’t always explained."
Despite the secrecy, the developer obliged to contrast the game with its previous work. Shifting away from the horror genre that won the team acclaim with Among the Sleep in 2014 was a deliberate move; even with only two completed games on their docket, Krillbite doesn’t want to be pigeonholed.
This is in spite of the fact that, according to the team, fans wrote in following Among the Sleep’s release begging for a follow-up. Yet Mosaic began life as a breather from the protracted development period of that earlier game, which took the young studio four years to complete. A combination of a desire to challenge itself and find relief from the emotional horror game led to Mosaic becoming the studio’s next project.
"If we made another horror-type , then people would expect that," Lorentzen said. "If you specialize in a genre, then people start getting expectations.
"I hope people will respect us for this, ‘Wow, they’re doing something entirely different."
How different, exactly, Mosaic will be from Among the Sleep remains to be seen. The team did offer that the game will offer about three hours of play, telling a story that players will question more and more throughout. While the narrative will tell one complete story, the team is working on a "secret section" that it hopes will offer its own sense of replayability.
That narrative — whatever it truly entails — is what is most important to Krillbite, not just with Mosaic but all of its projects.
"Games don’t have to be a kind of escapism," Frøyse said. "They can leave you with something more than that."
More will be revealed up until the release of Mosaic next year. For now, the studio is happy to tempt its fans with the screens below.

Virtual reality is expected to dominate the showcase at Game Developers Conference 2016 this week, but there still will be a lot more to see and a lot more said about new trends and new games in development. Polygon will be there to cover everything, and you can recap all of it here in this storystream as the conference goes on. Next week the annual Game Developers Conference kicks off in San Francisco. Long a bastion for game developers to gather to discuss their art and work to improve upon it, the show also typically does a good job of predicting what’s to come in the game industry.
This year that prediction is anything but subtle.
With at least four major virtual reality headsets exhibiting and at least 60 games spread out between the bunch, it’s clear that the game industry is officially heading into the age of virtual reality.
On Monday, the Game Developers Conference is home to a two-day Virtual Reality Developers Conference with talks ranging from the highly technical (“A real-time rendered future") to the unsettling ("Harassment in social VR spaces") to the intriguing ("Virtual journalism: VR with a cause").
But talks surrounding the development of games and experiences for virtual reality aren’t just during those first two days. The big backers in virtual playspaces are also each hosting events, panels and booths to discuss the near future, launch their headgear or just give people a chance to check out what all the buzz is about.
Ubisoft says it will be hosting informal talks all week long to discuss and test the company’s latest live VR and tech demos. Something Ubisoft president Yves Guillemot has said shows enormous potential.
Valve, which partnered with HTC to create the HTC Vive headset, is hosting a VR lounge during the last few days of the show. The company is basically giving its booth space to about 30 developers to let them show off the creations they made for the Vive, which starts shipping on April 5.

VR Headsets
Gear VR: Available now, $99
Oculus Rift: March 28, $599
HTC Vive: April 5, $799
PlayStation VR: No date or price yet announced

"By default, VR offers an entirely new range of possibilities for games, story telling, education, and more," said Valve’s Doug Lombardi. "It is something everyone in technology has dreamed about for years. And we are finally at a point where the combination of computing and graphics allow us to create truly convincing VR solutions and experiences."
Oculus is hosting several days of events for the gathered press to show off its latest software in the lead up to the Rift headset’s March 28 release date. They anticipate having more than 40 games at the event. At least one game, Minecraft for Gear VR, will be shown for the already-released, Samsung-phone-powered Gear VR headset as well.
For Oculus, the timing of GDC fits in perfectly with their hardware release plans.

"This month holds both GDC and the launch of high-end consumer VR with the release of the Rift on the 28th," said Jason Rubin, head of worldwide studios for Oculus. "Game developers have been waiting for decades for the opportunity to put gamers into the worlds they have created, and the excitement in the development community couldn’t be more excited for this moment.  As one of the largest gathering of developers in the business the show makes sense as a launching and sharing point for their titles, middleware, and ideas."
Rubin says he believes that VR marks both a new frontier for gaming and a way to enhance current games.
"VR is a new medium allowing developers to flex their mental muscles to create and explore new ways of thinking and developing games that immerse players in ways they have only previously imagined," he said. "But we will also see current games move to VR displays without changing their core gameplay because VR enhances their immersion and visual appeal.   For both reasons, VR is fundamental to gaming’s future."

Sony too is getting involved in the VR buzz with a press event during the show, but not part of it, which will apparently showcase some of the PlayStation VR’s games. While Sony hasn’t announced a release date for the PS4-supported VR headset, the company has said it will come out in the first half of the year. Next week’s four-hour event will kick off with a presentation followed by hands-on demos, according to the invitation. No word on how many games will be there.
Epic Games is hosting VR games that use the company’s latest iteration of the Unreal Engine at both their booth and at the GDC VR Lounge.
"I believe there’s around 12 to 15 different Unreal Engine powered games and experience being shown at our booth on a variety of platforms, including both Oculus and Vive," said Ray Davis, Epic Games’ Seattle Studio Manager and company VR evangelist. "We’re also hosting the GDC VR Lounge which has another 12 Unreal Engine powered VR games to check out this year."
Meggan Scavio, general manager of Game Developer Conference events, sees all of the news, games and buzz building around virtual reality as a sign of how far along the tech has come.
"In many ways we are finally upon VR’s commercial birth," she said. "Fans, developers, investors are all interested in understanding where we are today, where the industry is going and how fast it will get there."

Must Read

Valve and HTC’s Vive stand at the precipice of VR’s future, but they may have a long wait

Epic’s Davis says that GDC is reflecting what’s happening in the game industry at large right now.
"It’s safe to say that the word has gotten out about the magic of VR at this point," he said. "Nearly every developer I talk to these days is either actively building VR content or at least dreaming up ideas of what they want to build when they finally get their hands on a VR headset.
"For many developer veterans VR breathes new life into the creative process and gives us a massive new sandbox to play in.  It seems perfectly natural that VR is taking over GDC as it’s still one of the best places to meet up with other creators, share stories of what’s awesome and what didn’t work so well, and of course to get hands on with all the new toys that companies are building for VR.  I imagine that given the multiple consumer launches of VR headsets this year we’re only going to see more and more growth of VR from here on out."
While VR had a huge increase at last year’s E3, the technology’s schedule to consumers was still very ephemeral. It’s clear now, given the number of games, press gatherings and talks surrounding virtual reality, that this is the first big, broad push we will see for the technology.
But what about the future?
"VR represents a critical step in getting us that much closer to the dream of creating a completely immersive realities," Davis said. "It’s the big leap forward we need to grant players the ability to truly step into their games and it will lead to us building some groundbreaking games.
"The closest comparison I can think of would be the introduction of the first GPUs that enabled the industry to adopt real-time 3D rendering – VR is going to have an even bigger impact and it’s going to lead us to defining new genres that weren’t possible before.  As a lifelong gamer I’m giddy at the thought of playing some of my favorite games re-imagined for VR, or to lose myself for days at at time in VR’s eventual equivalent to World of Warcraft."
The complete guide to VR in 2016

Not much else to reveal, but the three-year-old projects are still on The Half-Life and Portal movies that J.J. Abrams said he was working on three years ago are still in development, and have writers assigned to them, the Star Wars: Episode VII director told IGN.
“Nothing that would be an exciting update," he added, but at least the project is still alive and kicking.
Abrams first revealed his collaboration with Valve on the adaptations back at DICE 2013, during a panel discussion with Valve boss Gabe Newell. At the time he said the project was in such an early state that he couldn’t say anything about it. Newell, at the panel, said he and Abrams had had conversations for years about storytelling in film and video games, and that’s when the two decided to get together on two of Valve’s best known properties.
"We’re not looking to make a movie in the gaming world," he said then. "We’re not looking to impose what we do on that."
Abrams and Valve had previously collaborated on an interactive trailer for Abrams’ Super 8 in 2011, which ended up inside Portal 2.
Abrams was discussing the Portal and Half-Life projects in a larger interview about 10 Cloverfield Lane, which premiered on Friday. For more on the sci-fi thriller, which Abrams produced, see our review.

Links to subscribe to Newsworthy in iTunes, your podcast player of choice or to download an MP3 are all a click away, tucked inside the buttons below today’s episode.

It was a surprisingly great episode Well, shit.
Ariana Grande, who took on the difficult task of hosting and performing both musical acts during Saturday Night Live last night, started the show by letting that swear word slip during her opening monologue.
Although the actress turned singer turned pop sensation quickly recovered from the slip, it was a noticeable mistake that plenty of people called attention to online.
Despite starting the show off on the wrong foot, Grande proved to be an asset to the episode, nailing every skit she was included in and delivering powerful musical performances. The most notable of which included her renditions of classic songs from other female vocal powerhouses during a sketch where she has to work for Tidal. From Britney Spears to Christina Aguilera, Grande hit each note with an enthusiasm and energy that hasn’t been seen on a sketch like that since Bruno Mars’ appearance on the show in 2012.
It’s the type of performance that requires a performer to be able to interject moments of comedic acting while focusing most of their attention on hitting the impersonation they’re taking on.
Grande managed to get through it with ease, and although it was her defining performance of the evening, it was by no means the only good one she delivered.
Her impression of Jennifer Lawrence was also one of the night’s highlights during SNL’s fan favorite Celebrity Family Feud.
Although the announcement of Grande’s hosting didn’t inspire much confidence in SNL fans, she was the takeaway of the night and it was her various performances that made the episode one of the season’s most surprising.
Best sketch: Tidal
In the sketch, Grande plays Chloe, an intern for streaming service Tidal who’s forced to perform a medley of hits from various pop stars after the company suffers system failures. If it sounds at all familiar, it’s essentially the exact same sketch that Bruno Mars performed in 2012, just switch out Tidal for Pandora and female vocalists for male vocalists. Voila!

Despite the extreme similarities, however, Grande knocked the sketch out of the park and brought a refreshing take to the concept.
It was a smart move for the writers to include it, as it plays up the singer’s strengths without having to coach her. Grande has proven before —€” during appearances on late night shows like the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon —€” that she can do these kinds of impersonations and do them well. This was just another example of how easy it is for her to take on the tone of another singer.
Come for her take on Britney, but stay for her killer performance as Christina Aguilera.
Runner up: Celebrity Family Feud
Most of the time, hosts are required to try and do an impression of another actor or musician, but they tend to fall a little flat.

Grande was tasked with impersonating Jennifer Lawrence, and not only did she carry off the, “I’m too cool" demeanor that Lawrence has come to be famous for, but she also manages to sound exactly like the actress.
Although the writing for the sketch wasn’t up to par with what it could have been, Grande was a strong presence. As was Jay Pharoah, whose impression of Idris Elba was one of the night’s funniest. He didn’t have much material to work with, as has been the issue this entire season, but his performance was spot on.
Most surprising: This Is Not a Feminist Song
This digital short could have gone two different ways: it was either going to be a biting take that brought attention to feminist issues or it was going to fall flat and come off as insulting. Luckily, the short fell into the former category.

The ladies of SNL have been doing these musical digital shorts for a little while now, and each one seems to be better than the last.
Aidy Bryant, one of the most underused comedians on SNL, was the best part of the short, and it’s something I’d like to see the show explore even more than they already have.
Worst sketch: Mermaids
Mermaids, one of the weirdest sketches of the night, would have been much better suited at the end of the episode instead of the beginning.

It’s the type of sketch that can get away with being weird if it’s tucked away, but it was placed higher up and I still don’t quite understand why.
Mermaids uses antiquated jokes that aren’t funny anymore, and even worse, are performed by comedians who obviously don’t believe in the lines they’re delivering. It was stale and failed to evoke much laughter out of the audience when it was on. Not quite sure how this one made it past dress rehearsal.
Saturday Night Live returns April 2 with Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage hosting. He’ll be joined by Gwen Stefani as the musical guest.

Parkour your way through Call of Duty with this ‘death run’ mod This is MP_DR_MIRRORS_EDGE, a map mod within Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that’s a tribute to the 2008 cult favorite by Electronic Arts. And yes, you can parkour your way through it, too.
It works with BraXi’s Death Run Mod for Call of Duty 4, a five-year old mod based on the game type of the same name in Counter-Strike. This map is the work of SuX Lolz , with assistance from several others. He constructed the map to resemble the prologue level of Mirror’s Edge, with a day/night cycle, plus some secrets and rooms thrown in.
SuX Lolz spent about three months building it, and it’s probably going to be his last for the original Modern Warfare. He’s releasing it for free, but is accepting donations. His contact information, plus the full credits for those who helped on the map, are available in the “about" section on the YouTube page.

Links to subscribe to Newsworthy in iTunes, your podcast player of choice or to download an MP3 are all a click away, tucked inside the buttons below today’s episode.

OK, it’s the easiest one — Birdie’s — but still. Go baby! The story mode for Birdie in Street Fighter 5 is so easy, even a baby can beat it. Really.
As first spotted by our friends at Kotaku, this here is the six-month old child of YouTuber PapaPaint. The new dad was playing some Street Fighter 5 while minding the kid and thought, hey, why not.
Lo and behold, baby beat ass galore through Birdie’s three quick fights to complete this part of the story for proud PapaPaint. The tyke even managed to pull off a taunt in the first bout. Go baby! With your bad self.
Next up, Daigo Umehara, right? Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll take it easy on you, kid.

Links to subscribe to Newsworthy in iTunes, your podcast player of choice or to download an MP3 are all a click away, tucked inside the buttons below today’s episode.

Classic bomb squad tension clears a hardcore puzzle Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is, purposefully, not a single-player game. The action comes from one player describing what they see on the screen, and another following along in a bomb manual, reading back the proper steps to take. It’s like the Winner’s Circle on The $100,000 Pyramid, except it’s your ass on the line.
However, one dedicated player not only made it a single-player game with the aid of “Charlie," a speech bot he wrote, he also beat an absolutely hellish puzzle with 22 seconds to spare.
Watch along, it is fantastic tension that really highlights both Keep Talking’s taut design and Devan Hurst’s steely resolve and ultra-pro skill. There is almost no wasted language, though a couple of times he has his bot read back an instruction just to be sure. The payoff, I can’t spoil that here, but watch to the end, it’s a nearly lifelike reaction from his AI partner.
Better yet, you can use the AI yourself! Hurst published his work on GitHub and a glossary of the keywords and nomenclature he uses to elicit the correct response from the bot. By no means is this actually cheating. A player still has to be fast, accurate, and know the language to keep from getting blown straight to hell.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes will come to PlayStation 4 sometime this year. It’s already available for Windows PC and Mac. Now, if you want to see how not to do it, then watch Polygon’s Charlie Hall in Illinois, Susana Polo and Samit Sarkar in New York and Dave Tach in Ohio try not to get Griffin McElroy killed in Texas. Warning, the language in the following video is very, erm, explosive (NSFW).

It’s Friday, which means we’re burdening you with yet another episode of CoolGames Inc! Here’s the premise: Each week Griffin McElroy and I take Twitter-suggested video game ideas, sort through them and pick a favorite to turn into a full-blown design document.
This time around, we explore the idea of Nintendo characters who know how to party, take a submission from Griffin’s brother Travis, trudge into uncomfortable territory with Dad or Alive Extreme, and I gets a visit from a very special plumber (Note: NOT MARIO).

Links to subscribe to CoolGames Inc in iTunes, via RSS, or using a direct MP3 download are all a click away, tucked inside the buttons below today’s episode.

Theme song: “Social Science" by Maxo

Want your game idea to be featured on a future episode of CoolGames Inc? The best bet is to follow us on Twitter: I’m on there as @babylonian and Griffin is @griffinmcelroy. Once a week — usually on Wednesday afternoon — we’ll put out a request for your pitches, so stay vigilant!
This week’s inspiration comes @DaniBarstad, who gave us this humdinger of a submission:

@Babylonian @griffinmcelroy Twitch Plays ‘RPG Maker’ #CoolGamesInc
— danibarstad (@DaniBarstad) March 10, 2016

The $49.99 is currently discounted by some retailers, Walmart included Outer Rim, the first premium expansion for Star Wars Battlefront, launches April 5 and will cost $14.99, according to this listing on GameStop.
The launch date represents a slight delay, although the original release was given only as March. Four premium expansions are scheduled, and a season pass entitles subscribers to all of them. The pass is being offered at $49.99, though Xbox Live does offer a $5 discount for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, and some retailers (including Walmart) are offering PlayStation 4 codes for less.
Outer Rim adds new heroes for play — the infamous Rodian, Greedo, and Lando Calrissian’s co-pilot, the Sullustan Nien Nunb — as well as new maps set in Jabba the Hutt’s palace, his sail barge, and on Nunb’s homeworld. New weapons are also on the way in Outer Rim. Outer Rim will offer a new game type, Extraction, a capture-the-flag variant in which Rebels have to bring a payload back to their transport while Imperials try to stop them.
Earlier this week, Star Wars Battlefront pushed out another free update and teased some new content that will be free to all, involving “Hutt Contracts" that appear to unlock gear upon completion.