Saints Row, the upcoming reboot of Volition’s excessively silly open-world crime series, will include heaps of customization options, letting you change the appearance and function of your character, vehicles, weapons, gang, and HQ in intricate detail.
Revealed during a preview showcase and press briefing, the customization options in Saints Row range from the silly to the extreme. Its character creator will let you tweak the physique of your Boss in granular detail, shaping the bone structure of their face, eyebrow placement, torso shape, and even their vein definition. Hair options cover a variety of textures and styles that go beyond traditional Western haircuts, and prosthetic arms and legs are available, too.
There are some pretty outlandish options. You can change your skin to a range of weird materials, including rock, glass, or what looks like a cosmic pattern of galaxies. Volition is also placing great emphasis on the ability to create asymmetrical faces, meaning you can change the shape of your eyes and ears individually, or alter the muscle shape of one half of your character’s face.
Cosmetics get a big look-in, too. Shirts, pants, socks, hats, gloves, and other items of clothing can all be swapped out, letting you pick between everyday outfits and straight-up silly garms. Think everything from leather jackets to helmets shaped like dinosaur jaws.
Clothes can also be layered on top of one another, so you’re not locked to specific outfits, and every piece of clothing is gender-neutral, letting you dress up your crime lord in whatever option takes your fancy.
For vehicles, you’ll be able to customize each component of your ride – from fenders, bumpers, roofs, side panels, tire profiles, hub caps, and even axel height. They can be painted in a variety of colors. Even the sound of your car horn, engine, and transmission can be changed.
Alongside these cosmetic changes, you’ll also be able to upgrade your vehicles with functional upgrades, including nitro boosts, off-road wheels for driving across deserts, ejector seats, and a toeing cable that lets you drag objects behind you. Volition says that each type of vehicle in the game – including cars, bikes, hoverboards, and boats – will feature the same kind of granular customization.
The options available are pretty expansive. In the customization showcase, we spotted monster trucks decked out with metallic plating, motorcycles covered in neon lights, and a car that was essentially a sailing ship on wheels.
Weapons can similarly be personalized with paint jobs and decals. You can change the texture of individual components, so the barrel of your assault rifle can be a lovely lime green while the magazine is a rusty camouflaged brown. On the sillier side, you can swap between gun models, letting you stuff an RPG into a guitar case, change your default assault rifle into an umbrella, or walk around with a pinata stick instead of a crowbar.
Finally, your HQ – which acts as a hub for your gang and criminal enterprise – can be modified to showcase the various purchases and trophies you’ve collected in-game. The weapons, clothing, and vehicles of your entire crew can also be changed from here. So, when they roll up to help you in a firefight, they’ll be wearing your chosen uniform. Of course, you can make them look as ridiculous – clowns piling out of a tiny hatchback – or as brutal – paramilitary squad rushing out of a 4x4 – as you want.
Volition says you’ll be able to play around with the character creation tools ahead of the game’s launch on August 23, with a downloadable preview launching sometime in the next few months.
Every movie and TV show coming to Prime Video in May 2022
Prime Video has slowly been going about its business as we enter the next stage of 2022. We're almost a third of the way through this year and, after delivering a number of quality shows and movies to us between January and April, Amazon's streaming platform is gearing up to bring more top-tier quality your way.
The biggest Prime Video shows and films of the year – namely, The Boys season 3 and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – won't be with us for a while yet. However, there are other intriguing movies and TV series coming to Prime Video this month, with a pleasing blend of first- and third-party content set to arrive shortly.
Survival drama series The Wilds returns for its second outing, while Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 's predecessor – Into the Spider-Verse – swings its way onto Prime Video. A new dating show, sci-fi drama, and numerous films are also set to launch on the streamer, too, so there's bound to be something that'll pique your interest.
Like last month, Prime Video's monthly pickings aren't as extensive as Netflix's, but there's enough here to keep your occupied. Here, then, is every movie and show coming to Prime Video in May 2022.
The Wilds season 2
When to stream it: Friday, May 6
After its first (and break-out) season wowed audiences back in December 2020, The Wilds returns for its second outing in early May.
For those unfamiliar with the hit Prime Video series: The Wilds follows a group of teenage girls who, on the way to a Hawaii-based female empowerment retreat, are marooned on a deserted island after the airplane they were on crashes into the ocean. The show follow these castaways as they learn to work and live together, but something isn't quite right about the island they're stationed on, or the events surrounding the plane crash itself...
We'll refrain from spoiling The Wilds' first season here – those who have seen the show will know what goes down as part of its plot anyway. Suffice to say, though, you'll certainly want to check The Wilds out before season 2 returns, with its diverse and representative cast, engaging narrative, and surprise reveals positioning it as a must watch for any Prime Video subscriber.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
When to stream it: Friday, May 6
Arguably the best Spider-Man movie of all-time – though we're sure 2004's Spider-Man 2 and 2021's No Way Home will have something to say about that – thwips its way onto Prime Video in May. And, if you haven't seen it (and why wouldn't you have done so!?) yet, you're in for a real treat.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a visual feast for the eyes, with its comic book style animation, laugh out loud moments, heart-wrenching story, and superb soundtrack setting it apart from its live-action Spider-Man brethren . Honestly, it's hard to do it justice in just a few paragraphs, but it's definitely worth watching if you're a Spidey, superhero, comic book, or general movie fan. Oh, and it did the whole Marvel multiverse plot thread before Marvel's Phase 4 plans introduced it in its MCU movie and TV shows, so it's a pioneering flick in many ways.
Into the Spider-Verse stars Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, a rebellious Puerto-Rican-American teen who – yep, you guessed it – gets bitten by a radioactive spider. After his universe's Peter Parker/Spider-Man is killed by the villainous Kingpin, Miles takes it upon himself – with a little help from Spider-Men and Spider-Women from across the multiverse – to take action and prevent Kingpin from carrying out his nefarious plan.
There's a reason (well, multiple, actually) it makes our best superhero films ever made. Stick this on your 'to watch' list immediately.
Night Sky
When to stream it: Friday, May 20
Now this could be something of a sleeper hit for Prime Video. A sci-fi drama thriller starring J.K. Simmons and Sissy Spacek, with input from The Crown director-executive producer Philip Martin? Consider us sold.
Simmons and Spacek star as Franklin and Irene York, an elderly couple who, years earlier, discovered a chamber – buried in their backyard – that acts as a portal to a distant and seemingly uninhabitable planet. The pair have closely guarded this secret ever since, but it isn't long before their neighbors and the authorities begin to take an interest in the Yorks' private getaway – especially when an enigmatic young man called Jude (Chai Hansen) mysteriously appears on the previously deserted planet.
Amazon Studios has a knack for bringing us surprising, thoughtful, endearing, and gripping sci-fi projects, with the likes of Tales from the Loop , Solos , and the recently released Outer Range drawing in viewers. Expect Night Sky to perform a similar feat later this month.
Everything coming to Prime Video in May 2022
Here's a full albeit brief rundown of every film and TV series that'll be available to stream on Prime Video as soon as May 2022 rolls around.
May 1
May 6
May 10
May 13
May 18
May 19
May 20
May 27
iPhone 14 probably won't be the first Apple Pencil iPhone, despite the Galaxy S22 Ultra
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra has brought a stylus to flagship phones, for the first time since the Galaxy Note series sailed off into the sunset. But could Apple carry the torch and bring a stylus to the iPhone 14 ?
Well, we could write an article about how this would make it the best iPhone ever, or compile an evenly-weighted debate about whether or not it could happen, but we don't want to waste your time.
It's not going to happen.
A long history of iPhone stylus rumors
It feels like we've been hearing about iPhones getting the Apple Pencil since recorded history began. We heard rumors in 2017 , 2018 , 2019 , 2020 , 2021 - we'll likely hear them in 2022 as well.
These weren't vague 'iPhones could get a stylus' rumors either, and they named the devices - we heard it about the iPhone 11 especially, and have heard it a few times about the iPhone Flip now too.
And do you know how many iPhones we saw in that time that actually worked with the Apple Pencil? A grand total of zero. So there's no reason to think the iPhone 14, unlike its predecessors, will actually get a stylus.
Taking rumors with a big pinch of salt
We often hear whacky rumors regarding iPhones, but they rarely come true.
That's because Apple tends to only offer features that have mainstream consumer appeal - MagSafe is useful for everyone, as are 5G and 120Hz screens, three improvements we've seen in recent iPhones. Leakers don't seem to have seen this memo, though.
Sure, to a select group of users styli are also useful, but not enough to introduce them to the iPhone range.
That's because there are only four members of the annual iPhone family, so if one or two use a stylus, that's a quarter or half the range, all touting a feature that not too many people will use.
For comparison, Samsung has loads of different phones across various ranges - it has the Galaxy S, A, J, Z and M lines, each of which has countless devices. So if you don't want a stylus in a Samsung phone, you've got plenty of alternatives.
Will we ever see an iPhone with a stylus?
Never say never - it's possible that user habits will change to make styli more popular, or perhaps more apps will be designed that make use of them.
But it'll take time - Apple doesn't reinvent its devices, just refines them, and it'll take a few years to progress from the current blocky design to one with space for a stylus.
It's also worth pointing out that Apple will actually need to design a stylus small enough to fit inside an iPhone - unless it has another storage solution planned.
Possibly before that, we could see the tablet Apple Pencil become compatible with the phone, to bring multi-device functionality which could help with certain types of creatives and artists. But again, it's not something we're expecting anytime soon.
The iPhone 14 rumors have pointed to enough upgrades already that we're not expecting any more: the lack of a notch, a camera resolution increase and the replacement of the mini with an iPhone 14 Max are all we're really expecting for now.
So despite the fact that the Galaxy S22 Ultra is a popular stylus phone, and that Motorola is making a bigger and bigger push into this market niche, we don't see this feature catching on enough for Apple to follow suit.