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Dead Take, The Psychological Horror FMV From Surgent Studios, Gets July Release Date, Full Cast Revealed
Last month, we learned that the next game from Surgent Studios, the team behind 2024's Tales of Kenzera: Zau, will be Dead Take, a psychological horror FMV game set to release this year. Now, the team has revealed it launches later this month on July 31, alongside the full cast players can expect to hear (and see) the game.
In Dead Take, you play as an actor, voiced by Neil Newbon (Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3), searching for his missing friend, who is played Ben Starr (Verso in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33). Set in a beautiful but seemingly abandoned Hollywood mansion, you must explore the house to figure out what exactly has transpired within its walls. There are puzzles to solve, videos to splice together, and more.
Check out gameplay in the latest Dead Take trailer below:
As you can see in the trailer above, Newbon and Starr will be joined by Jane Perry, Matt Mercer, Laura Bailey, Sam Lake, Travis Willingham, Alanah Pearce, and Connor Cdawg Colquhoun, with music by Ross Tregenza.
Dead Take launches on PC later this month on July 31.
In the meantime, check out the Dead Take reveal trailer from June.
Are you going to check out Dead Take? Let us know in the comments below!
The Next Game Informer Issue Includes D&D Poster, Forgotten Realms Reveals
Whether you’re a longtime tabletop gamer who has followed the world of the Forgotten Realms for decades, or you fell in love with the fiction by playing through 2023’s Baldur’s Gate 3, we’ve got some exciting reveals coming your way.
Wizards of the Coast has previously announced that new Forgotten Realms campaign setting books are on the way later this year. When we digitally launch Game Informer’s next issue in the coming days, we’ll have an in-depth feature showcasing what’s on the way in those books, including a first look at cover art, new details on included player character options, and the specifics of what is in each of the two game books targeted to players and DMs.
As a special bonus to all Game Informer print subscribers, we’ll also have an especially enticing treat – a packed-in, two-sided, fold-out art poster is included in your next magazine shipment, showcasing some of that cool fantasy art directly from the new D&D sourcebooks.
There’s still time to subscribe to Game Informer and receive this issue of the magazine. You’ll get all the details packed into our multi-page feature on the latest interaction of the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign setting, and you’ll also lock in that free poster, which you won’t find anywhere else. For more on the next issue of Game Informer, we also recently revealed which game will appear on our next cover.
Nintendo Reveals Link And Zelda Actors For Live-Action Legend Of Zelda Movie
Nintendo has found its Link and Zelda for its in-development live-action movie adaptation of The Legend of Zelda. Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Recycling Man) will portray Link, the silent warrior protagonist of the game series, and Bo Bragason (Renegade Neil, The Radleys) will portray Zelda, the princess of Hyrule.
Ainsworth is 16 years old, indicating Link might be a younger character in this adaptation, while Bragason is 21 years old. Despite today's casting news, though, there's still no word on whether this adaptation will follow a storyline from a game or be something completely new. Nintendo announced this news via a trademark post on X from game designer, director, and Legend of Zelda co-creator Shigeru Miyamoto.
"This is Miyamoto," the post reads. "I am pleased to announce that for the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda, Zelda will be played by Bo Bragason-san, and Link by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth-san. I am very much looking forward to seeing both of them on the big screen."
This movie will hit theaters on May 7, 2027.
Nintendo originally announced the release date for this live-action adaptation as March 26, 2027, as the first-ever news on its Nintendo Today app. However, last month, the company delayed the movie to May 7, 2027.
For more, read Game Informer's review of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and then check out our thoughts on The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.
What do you think of these casting choices? Let us know in the comments below!
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 Review And Xbox Layoffs (Feat. Ash Parrish)
In this week's episode of The Game Informer Show, we discuss our Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 review and Activision's controversial decision to change THPS 4's long-standing structure. Later in the show, special guest Ash Parrish, video game reporter at The Verge, joins us to discuss last week's Xbox layoffs and studio closures, Summer Games Done Quick, and Missile Command Delta.
The Game Informer Show is a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Thursday for chats about your favorite titles – past and present – alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry.
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- Alex Van Aken (@itsVanAken)
- Marcus Stewart (@MarcusStewart7)
- Kyle Hilliard (@KyleHilliard)
- Wesley LeBlanc (@WesleyLeBlanc)
- Ash Parrish (@AdAshtra)
Nintendo Details Why Donkey Kong Bananza Development Jumped From Switch To Switch 2
Donkey Kong Bananza, the next Switch 2 exclusive from Nintendo, launches in just two days on Thursday, July 17, and ahead of its release, Nintendo has released a three-part interview series with the game's leads. That's how we learned you can skip locations and parts of the story in the game, and why Donkey Kong Bananza's destruction gameplay can be traced back to a Goomba with arms. It's also where we learned more about Nintendo's transition from developing Donkey Kong Bananza on Switch to Switch 2.
When asked by the interviewer if Donkey Kong Bananza was planned as a Switch 2 game from the jump, producer Kenta Motokura explained that it began life as a Switch title, but was moved to Switch 2 around 2021 due to challenges the team (which also developed Super Mario Odyssey) ran into. Art director Daisuke Watanabe chimed in to add, "We first looked into how we could upgrade what we'd originally built for Switch to take advantage of Switch 2.
"One of the most obvious improvements was that we could place far more objects in the environment than before. Being able to place more objects in the terrain didn't just enhance the game's visual richness. More importantly, it increased the amount of things players could destroy, which amplified the exhilaration of being able to demolish anything and everything. That went hand in hand with the game's core concept of destruction. It convinced us that this game would be even more fun if we developed it for Switch 2."
One of the game directors Wataru Tanaka followed Watanabe up, explaining that from a programmer's perspective, the voxel technology powering the destructible environments in Donkey Kong Bananza uses a lot of system memory, leading to challenges on Switch. With the game being in 3D, Tanaka said dimensions of textures and materials grow by up to eight times, compared to 2D pixels. "So doubling all three dimensions [width, height, and depth in voxels compared to width and height in pixels] gives you 2 x 2 x 2, or eight times the data," he said. "It may sound simple to just 'double something,' but the reality is that memory usage, voxel density, and all kinds of processes end up gobbling up eight times the resources. It was clear that the memory available on Switch would struggle to handle that load, and we felt that manifesting the huge volume of terrain that we did in this game might have been unachievable on that platform."
With the move to Switch 2, Tanaka said the team gained not only more memory to work with, but great processing capacity, too, giving the team more freedom to incorporate gameplay ideas it previously abandoned because they were too demanding. He also said the Switch 2 could not only handle the heavy processing requirements, but do so at 60 FPS. "Things we'd given up on, like explosions flinging large objects or causing them to collapse, were now possible," Tanaka added. "Designers could also place as many objects as they wanted. There were so many moments when we thought to ourselves, 'Now we can really do this.'"
Watanabe finished answering this question, explaining, "Not only did Switch 2 enable the game to run well, it unlocked the game's full potential – no, it made the game possible."
Donkey Kong Bananza launches on Switch 2 this Thursday, July 17.
In the meantime, read Game Informer's hands-on preview impressions after two hours with the game, and then check out this Donkey Kong Bananza New Gameplay Today. After that, check out the Donkey Kong Bananza amiibo and then catch up on everything we learned about the game during the Donkey Kong Bananza Direct last month.
Are you picking up Donkey Kong Bananza this week? Let us know in the comments below!