Winter doesn’t have to be a bad thing In 1988, The Proclaimers, well, proclaimed that they would walk 500 miles for love. While international snow artist Simon Beck didn’t quite walk that far, he did trek a fair bit to showcase his love for Game of Thrones.
Hosted by Sky Atlantic, the British television channel that carries HBO’s hit series, Beck walked approximately 20 miles through Alpine snow to create this artistic tribute to the Stark family.
According to the description on the YouTube page, it took Beck about 24 hours to carry out the design, using just a compass for navigation. The entire piece takes up approximately 2.5 soccer pitches.
Game of Thrones returns to HBO for its sixth season April 24.

Ubisoft expands into Hollywood A second film based on Assassin’s Creed is in development, according to The Tracking Board. Studios New Regency and Ubisoft Motion Pictures are currently in pre-production on Assassin’s Creed 2, which will bring back star Michael Fassbender.
The first Assassin’s Creed adaptation won’t premiere until Dec. 21. While fans have seen stills and set photos of Fassbender in costume as the Assassin Callum Lynch, a trailer has yet to be released. In December, the film’s official Twitter account teased that the first look would premiere later this month.
The Tracking Board doesn’t have a release window for the follow-up. It’s not known whether director Justin Kurzel or castmates like Marion Cotillard will return along with Fassbender.
Ubisoft told investors last month that it would put the game side of the Assassin’s Creed franchise on hold for 2016. Instead, the company is focusing on launching the feature film this year while reexamining the development cycle for the popular stealth series.
“We’re taking this year to evolve the game mechanics and to make sure we’re delivering on the promise of Assassin’s Creed offering unique and memorable gameplay experiences that make history everyone’s playground," the developer said in February regarding the yearlong break.
We’ve reached out to Ubisoft for confirmation of the sequel and will update accordingly.

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This will be an unconventional installment in the Monster Factory saga. See, we’re not really playing an official version of a video game. For reasons that will become clear as you watch the above video, we’re exploring a version of Dark Souls that is downright sick — and we mean that in the literal sense, not in the way that a person doing extreme sports might say it. We don’t want to spoil all of the various tweaks and changes that this copy of Dark Souls has undergone, although we will go ahead and offer this observation: Most of the game is pizza.
You can watch Justin and I do a deep dive into this deep dish world in the Monster Factory episode posted above. We’re not 100 percent sure how the creator of this game managed this transformation, but, if we were placing bets, we’re guessing downloading most of the top UI mods on Nexus Mods and applying them simultaneously would get the job done.

No, J. Jonah Jameson won’t be crossing over Oscar winner J.K. Simmons has joined the cast of Warner Bros. Studios’ Justice League movies, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The actor will play the role of Commissioner James “Jim" Gordon, Gotham City’s chief of police and Batman’s frequent ally.
The film, a two-parter, won’t make its theatrical debut until next year. Part One is out Nov. 17, 2017, with Part Two to follow on June 14, 2019.
Simmons’ co-stars include Henry Cavill as Superman, Gal Godot as Wonder Woman and Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight himself. All three will appear in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, out later this month; that movie serves as a prelude to the team-focused Justice League films.
Commissioner Gordon was last seen on the big screen in The Dark Knight Rises, where he was played by Gary Oldman. Ben McKenzie plays the character on TV in Fox’s Gotham, which is currently airing its second season.
J.K. Simmons won his Academy Award for Whiplash, but the actor is best known by comic book fans for a role in a Marvel movie. He played Peter Parker’s boss J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, a part he also voices on the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon.

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Valve has been using a demo set in the Portal universe to show off the HTC Vive hardware for some time, and we wanted to give you a full, clear look at that demo now that we have the hardware and software in the office.
An earlier version of the demo allowed you to extend the reach of your arm by pressing a button on the controller, but the latest version features a teleportation mechanic so you can get around the room and reach things that may be outside the bounds of your physical play area. I also tried to take it slow and lean in close to some of the textures and items in the room so you can see how much love and care went into the environment.
In an interesting twist, the chaperone system — which shows the player a wireframe wall if they get close to a real-life wall — doesn’t show up in captured video. If you see what looks to be hesitation in the video, or hand motions that don’t quite line up, it’s due to the fact I was hitting the virtual walls and wanted to make sure I wasn’t about to hit real-world walls. It can take a bit of practice before you can use the size of your play area and the teleportation mechanic to walk around completely unimpeded.
This is almost like a short story set in the world of Portal, and the sense of place and scale is amazing when you’re wearing the headset. Who knew GLaDOS was so big? We hope this gives you at least a little bit of a sense for how the demo looks and plays in virtual reality. Valve has promised more Portal-branded VR experiences at GDC. If you’re hungry for more VR footage, check out Hover Junkers below.

Get a second chance at grabbing the definitive best amiibo Toys R Us is bringing back Mega Yarn Yoshi to stores, the retailer announced today on Twitter. Starting March 20, amiibo collectors, Yoshi fans and lovers of anything cute will have another chance to grab the limited edition plush.
Mega Yarn Yoshi is a deluxe version of the regular Yarn Yoshi amiibo, both of which launched to coincide with the release of Yoshi’s Woolly World on Wii U. The $40 collectible is 8 inches tall and, just as it was in its initial release, is only available at Toys R Us.
When Mega Yarn Yoshi hit stores in November, Toys R Us said that it would stock the special toy in “extremely limited" amounts. That holds true for the second wind of the store-exclusive amiibo.
To see Mega Yarn Yoshi in adorable action, check out our video below.

From Pyroblast to Shattered Sun Cleric to … almost every rogue card Along with its next expansion and the controversial addition of the new standard format, Hearthstone is set to receive some major downgrades — colloquially referred to as nerfs by the gaming community — to cards from its Classic and Basic sets. These are the first nerfs the game has seen since October of last year, but they’re far from the only nerfs it’s ever received.
In his most recent video, popular Hearthstone streamer and video creator Kripparrian runs down a history of every card update the game has received, starting from early beta. If you weren’t playing back then, the biggest surprise might just be how terribly overpowered the rogue class was in general.
Kripp also runs down a few notable buffs that some classes or cards received during those early days to help raise their power level and make them competitive. For example, did you know that at one point, priests didn’t even have the Shadow Word: Death spell available to them? Instead, they had a card called Fade that would give all minions taunt and draw a card for two mana. It wasn’t very good in the game’s meta at the time, though Kripp notes that it would probably be a great card these days.
Kripp misses a few nerfs from Hearthstone’s history — most notably an increase in the cost of the Leeroy Jenkins legendary to stop a combo rogue deck that had absolutely dominated the game for months — but he hits many of the most important and interesting developments.
Watch the full video above for yourself to hear about all the biggest changes Hearthstone has gone through so far as we wait to see what’s coming next. And for more Hearthstone shenanigans, consider checking out Polygon’s full playlist of videos on YouTube.

Woo-hoo! A year after Disney announced it was reviving its 1987 series, DuckTales, the studio has released the first official look at the characters.
In the illustration seen above, tweeted out by the company on Monday, Huey, Dewie and Louie take center stage. On top of that, the image also gives an official first look at the entire duck crew.
Disney announced it would be bringing the characters back last February, with a goal to premiere the series sometime next year on its Disney XD channel.
An exact premiere date may be announced during the company’s panel at the television upfronts — an annual look at what the networks have planned for the upcoming year — later this week.

How growing up in rural Pennsylvania influenced a stylish indie game Polygon Backstory is a podcast that celebrates conversations about the games we play.
This week my guest is Bethany Hockenberry, story writer for Night In The Woods, an indie game coming to Linux, Mac and Windows PC as well as the PlayStation 4 later this year.
Night In The Woods is the story of a cat named Mae, who fails out of college and comes back to live in her home town. The game is set in a crumbling, former mining village called Possum Springs. As it turns out, Possum Springs has a lot in common with the place where Bethany grew up in rural Pennsylvania.

Links to subscribe to Backstory 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.

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This week’s soundtrack is from Alec Holowka, coder, co-creator and composer for Night In The Woods. You can find his work on Bandcamp.

Teases ‘major’ feature update for Rock Band 4 Rock Band developer Harmonix has signed a new co-publishing agreement with Performance Designed Products — the video game accessory maker more commonly known as PDP — for future Rock Band 4 and Rock Band VR products.
Harmonix was previously working with financially beleaguered accessory maker Mad Catz. Harmonix and Mad Catz had worked together since 2010, when the accessory maker produced the 102-button, six-string pro guitar controller for Rock Band 3. Mad Catz later served as publisher of Rock Band 3 and was co-publisher of Rock Band 4.
In a statement, Harmonix said PDP will help create new hardware for a “major Rock Band 4 feature update" later this year.
"As we look to fully achieve our goal of creating this console generation’s category-defining music gaming platform, we need to partner with a truly world-class manufacturer that can operate at the scale that Rock Band requires," said Steve Janiak, Harmonix CEO, in a release. "PDP has a well-deserved reputation for innovation, customer satisfaction, and quality. They have the logistical and technical expertise to support Harmonix’s ambitious plans for the future of Rock Band, with new hardware alongside a major Rock Band 4 feature update coming this Fall." "Rock Band is the premier music platform for console players," said Chris Richards, CEO of PDP, in a release. "This will be a great partnership and gaming fans should get ready to experience new, innovative hardware products for Rock Band 4 and Rock Band VR."
Harmonix is currently working to bring Rock Band 4 to Windows PC. For more on the console versions of Rock Band 4, read Polygon’s review.