Gaming: Bruce Campbell brings Ash to Dead by Daylight, Borderlands 3 unveiled, more

After Gearbox Software’s big trailer reveal for Borderlands 3, we still don’t know plenty about how the new game will fit into today’s changed loot-shooter landscape, a landscape its trigger-happy predecessors helped create. But we do know it’s not short on confidence.

Borderlands 3 got its long-awaited official reveal at this week’s PAX East event with a vault-raiding clip that amplifies all the deep-fried, sleazy humor and over-the-top gunplay that made the first two games such a hit back in the PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360 generation. Over one billion guns? Guns with legs? Yep, Gearbox teases — we got you, boo.

If skags and psychos gave Gearbox a hilarious and versatile template for building an amazing variety of enemy types into the first two games, then it’s kind of dizzying to think about what Borderlands 3 might have planned, with its enormous hybrid dinos and crazy (and deadly) new sci-fi contraptions. 

Old friends like Brick and Claptrap look like they’re returning, too, along with a new lineup of good and bad guys that Gearbox says we’ll start learning more about when details begin dripping onto the game’s website starting April 3. Also coming April 3 is a game-of-the-year collection that bundles everything released for the original Borderlands, as well as Borderlands 2, into one package.

Gearbox hasn’t said whether Borderlands 3 will introduce expanded co-op or even service-based, battle royale components to the series for the first time, or whether it’ll focus on single-player and tightly engineered limited co-op the way the first two games did. There’s also no release date, nor even the assurance that it's meant to be a current-gen, next-gen, or cross-gen game. But whenever Borderlands 3 finally does arrive, we’re pretty sure it’s gonna be hard to miss.

Bruce Campbell isn’t letting Ash ride off into the sunset just yet. The demise of Starz’s Ash vs Evil Dead series last year thankfully isn’t keeping Ash J. Williams off the screen altogether — you’ll just have to fire up Dead by Daylight to catch his next appearance. 

Behaviour Interactive revealed this week that Campbell himself will voice Ash when the zombie slayer arrives as the newest survivor to the ever-expanding 2017 survival horror game. Campbell dropped in on PAX East guests with a special video preview that showed off his in-game character model, which you can check out below:
 

Ash vs Evil Dead is just the latest franchise crossover for Dead by Daylight, following in the footsteps of similar character DLC drop-ins from big horror names like Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Saw. We won’t have to wait long to add Ash to the collection, either: He’s arriving April 2. Dead by Daylight is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, with a Nintendo Switch release timed for later this year.

Stay with us for this one: A detective noir board game is on the way that promises to dial up the mystery by letting you immerse yourself in the experience via Amazon Alexa voice commands.

X2 Games is billing St. Noire, set in the noir-ish small town of the same name, as “the world's first voice-controlled murder mystery board game.” Cast in the role of a “grizzled, dime-novel detective,” your job is to get to the bottom of a murder in the tiny town — and you’ll need Alexa to do it.

“What sets St. Noire apart from any other board game is the unique voice interaction through Amazon Alexa,” X2 teases in an official announcement. “Combining charming and genre-aware writing with Alexa’s ability to guide and randomize each game session” means no two playthroughs will be the same, and your interviews with local informants will be enriched thanks to “cinematic sound design and a rogues’ gallery of fully voiced characters that you can interact with.”

Set to arrive on July 18, St. Noire is already available for pre-order for $39.99 at Amazon.