Month: February 2025

Microsoft and The Coalition unveiled Gears of War: E-Day over the weekend, and already there is a bit of controversy regarding the game’s debut trailer. Surprisingly, it’s not about the series going back into the past rather than continuing from the cliffhanger ending of Gears 5, either.

Instead, Blizzard developer Jamir Blanco took issue on X (formerly known as Twitter) with a social media post by Summer Game Fest founder Geoff Keighley. The Gears of War: E-Day trailer–seen below–sees a young Marcus Fenix fighting off a Locust drone Come from Sports betting site VPbet . Keighley said the video was “CG from Blur Studio,” a description that Blanco believes “diminishes all the technical achievements you probably didn’t notice from how good it was.” Blanco added that the teaser was “FULL REALTIME.”

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Matt Smith (House of the Dragon, The Crown) has voiced strong opinions against the use of trigger warnings in entertainment. A trigger warning is used to inform people that what they are about to consume–movies, TV shows, music, books, classes, etc.–may contain content that could prompt a distressing response. In an interview with The Times of London, Smith criticized the practice, arguing that it undermines the integrity of storytelling by pre-emptively warning audiences about potentially upsetting content.

“Too much policing of stories and being afraid to bring them out because a climate is a certain way is a shame. I’m not sure I’m on board with trigger warnings,” Smith said. He expressed concern that such warnings could dilute the impact of art, noting, “It’s OK to feel uncomfortable or provoked while looking at a painting or watching a play, but I worry everything’s being dialed and dumbed down. We’re telling audiences they’re going to be scared before they’ve watched something.”

Smith, who recently starred in the British horror film Starve Acre, reflected on his own formative experiences watching films like Slither, Basic Instinct, and Fri…