(The choice to cut the scenes when the film was screened for press when this information was bound to get out anyway as soon as it premiered is an interesting gambit and one that I am definitely not irritated by still.) Now that the movie's out, we finally know what happens in the credits scenes, which officially introduce three Marvel heroes into the new roster.įirst off, a reminder about Eternals' cliffhanger ending: After saving the planet from cracking apart after birthing the giant Celestial Tiamut, the Eternals have split up, a few going off into space to search for more planets to save from the Celestials' genocidal reproduction program, and the rest stay on Earth to keep helping humanity out (one of whom, the child-sized Sprite, chooses to give up her powers completely and become human).
Weeks before the movie premiered, Marvel's Eternals took over the news cycle for its credits scenes, one of which surprised everyone by casting Dunkirk star (lol) Harry Styles as a character with major implications for the rest of the franchise. Sometimes they're just for laughs, like the still hilarious shawarma gag at the end of The Avengers, and sometimes they tease more ominous things to come, like Thanos' spaceship showing up just when things in Thor: Ragnarok seemed fine and dandy. Jackson cameoed after the credits rolled at the close of Iron Man, Marvel has turned its post- and often mid-credits scenes into something of an art form. But the nature of modern gaming is change - games aren't for life anymore, and we're going to have to get used to that.This piece contains spoilers for Eternals, obviously.Įver since Samuel L. It's a series that's always going to be close to our hearts, because it represents one of the key steps in bringing iPhone and iPad gaming to the mainstream - for that we'll be eternally grateful. While the Infinity Blade series is a classic, it's squarely stuck in what's now looking more and more like mobile gaming's distant past - a time well before anyone thought that the midcore market existed, let alone saw it as the best way to make money with games on the go.Īre we sad to see Infinity Blade go? You bet we are.
In terms of gaming paradigm shifts, this one feels akin to the switch from 2D to 3D in the home console market - that was a time when some of the biggest names in gaming fell by the wayside while developers tried to figure out how to make them work on the powerful new hardware.įortnite, PUBG, and more, prove that players on mobile are looking for something that's closer to the home experience. And it's likely that that's going to lead to more developers trying out more complex versions of their franchises on mobile.īlizzard is already showing the way with an exclusively mobile Diablo game called Diablo Immortal, and a commitment to bring its other IP to iPhone, iPad, and Android as well.
It feels like an important change because Fortnite, along with a number of other games that have come out this year and are scheduled for the next few months, is an IP that's gained fame elsewhere, and continued that success in the switch to mobile.
As I write this, Fortnite is the top-grossing game on the App Store in the US, and it's beaten the game that inspired it, PUBG, in the race to define one of the newest genres on the gaming circuit.įollowing the story here reveals the trends that have shaped mobile gaming - Infinity Blade was essentially a single player game with a premium price-point designed from the ground-up for mobile play Fortnite is a multiplayer-only experience that you can grab for free and that found success on consoles and PC before it made the leap over to mobile.
It's the Infinity Blade series taking off its crown and laying it at the feet of another Epic property - Fortnite.
In the overarching narrative of mobile gaming, that's got to be seen as a full stop.