Gaming: RoboCop & Terminator square off in MK11 trailer; Ghost of Tsushima’s big reveal & more

If the future is as dystopian as movies like The Terminator and RoboCop make it look, maybe the best thing we mere humans can do is step back and let our mechanical overlords fight until they’ve worn each other out. The folks at Netherrealm must be thinking the same thing, because the two borgs are going at it big-time in the new DLC trailer for Mortal Kombat 11.

Fresh off news last week that RoboCop would be coming to the new Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath story expansion, the Warner Bros.-owned studio dropped a gloriously gory gameplay trailer that finds the technologically terrifying pair facing off against each other — as well as an insane pantheon of other MK11 enemies, including new ones. Check out the action below, with RoboCop and The Terminator having their first words at the 1:40 mark and beyond.

(Also be sure to look out for another especially sweet finishing move, when RoboCop delivers his brand of non-vigilante justice to The Joker around the 2:45 mark):

For unexplained reasons we have absolutely no problem with, RoboCop is getting the upper hand in nearly all these encounters, which would probably come as a welcome sight to the Peter Weller character from Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 movie on which the MK11 version’s based.

Aftermath picks up right where the main game in MK11 ends, so to read a neat preview of where Netherrealm is taking the story, check out the full rundown at the game’s website. Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath heads to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia, and PC on May 26.

Sony devoted its State of Play update this week to a worthy cause: giving fans the huge info drop they’ve been waiting for on Ghost of Tsushima, the mystery-shrouded, feudal Japan-set samurai epic heading to the PS4 this summer. 

Showing off an 18-minute gameplay trailer that puts you in the role of Jin Sakai, one of the last remaining samurai left to stave off the 13th-Century Mongol invasion. The trailer is turning heads not just for its insanely gorgeous visuals, but also for the game’s near-elimination of visual clutter on the heads-up display, using environmental cues (like summoning a breath of “Guiding Wind”) to point you to your next destination. 

Check it out below:

As Jin, players can take the honorable route by default, fighting in head-on combat as a samurai. But things get interesting when he sneaks along as a dishonorable Ghost, which doesn’t turn him into a wispy specter…but does give him access to a killer ninja-assassin toolkit including smoke bombs, grappling hooks, fear tactics, and kunai weapons. 

Sucker Punch appears to be going for color-saturated realism with the game’s gritty story and historical setting (think Red Dead Redemption 2, but in medieval Japan) — though we definitely wish we had Jin’s ability to commune with every red fox we come across for skill-enhancing goodies. Follow the wind when Ghost of Tsushima arrives as a PlayStation 4 exclusive on July 17. 

Speaking of history, few game franchises have used humanity’s past as one giant sandbox the way Assassin’s Creed has. Skipping from medieval Europe to Ancient Greece and Egypt, all the way to the New World and back to Europe again (the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Valhalla reportedly unfolds in England and Norway), it’s a series that inadvertently exposes players to tons of historical times and places when it’s not honing their fighting chops.

To give social distancers an incentive to stay home as part of its “Play Your Part/Play at Home” campaign, Ubisoft is opening a pair of games in its Assassin’s Creed Discovery Tour series for free until May 21. Both Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece are up for grabs as fully-explorable virtual museums, where players can free-roam through Ptolemaic Egypt or travel through 29 regions of Classical Greece.

Both games feature curated historical tours that dial in on an aspect of history or culture. Egypt offers 75 separate guided walk-throughs, while Greece is peppered with hundreds of stations that zero in on one of five themes (philosophy, famous cities, daily life, war, and myths). You don’t have to own a separate Assassin’s Creed game to get in on the learnin', so head on over to Ubisoft’s landing page to take a walk down civilization's memory lane.