What made headlines in the world of pop culture last week? Below you’ll find all the gaming, film and comic stories that got people talking, and stood out for us.

Gaming

Just a reminder that the 2024 installment of rAge, South Africa’s long-running Really Awesome Gaming Expo, is coming up this weekend in Johannesburg. Taking place 29 November to 1 December at the Johannesburg Expo Centre, Nasrec for the first time, rAge 2024 has some new attractions among its signature offerings: esports, casual gaming competitions, tabletop games, robotics, cosplay and cosplay contests, the BYOC weekend-long LAN, tattoo stations, plus great shopping from local crafters and big retailers alike.

Some highlights to look forward to:

  • The second ever Nibble gaming lifestyle fashion show on Saturday at 2pm. The show merges cosplay, fandom merchandise, and street fashion.
  • Monster Energy & Mettlestate’s Call of Duty Showdown, where the qualifying teams will battle over a R10,000 prize pool. Meanwhile, casual rAge attendees can enter ‘King of the Hill’ COD competitions for the chance to win prizes.
  • A MMA machine where attendees can test their skills and see if they’re better than World Middleweight Champion Dricus du Plessis.
  • Mzansi Esports Champions: The Queen Arrow Invitational 2024, which is taking place on Saturday and Sunday. This 100% female Tekken competition features 8 renowned female players from 8 different African countries, including Zahraa «Iron Fist» (South Africa), and Sylvia Gathoni Wahome «TheQueenArrow» (Kenya).

Day passes for rAge are R200, with special reduced family passes also available.

This past week saw the nominees announced for The Game Awards 2024. Leading the pack are Astro Bot and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which received seven nominations each, followed by Metaphor: ReFantazio with six.

The all important Game of the Year category is as follows:

  • ASTRO BOT – Team Asobi/SIE
  • Balatro – LocalThunk/Playstack
  • Black Myth: Wukong – Game Science
  • Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree – FromSoftware/Bandai Namco
  • Final Fantasy VII Rebirth – Square Enix
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio – Studio Zero/Atlus/Sega

The public has a say in the results, contributing 10% of the vote versus 90% from a preselected voting jury of industry professionals and media outlets. You can participate in here.

The Game Awards 2024 will be streamed live on 12 December out of Los Angeles – which is extremely early on 13 December in the EMEA territories.

Still on matters of end-of-year game awards, the results of this year’s Golden Joystick Awards were revealed via a ceremony held on 21 November. In this publicly voted event, facilitated by GamesRadar, Ultimate Game of the Year went to Black Myth: Wukong, while Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth and Helldivers 2 both took home 4 awards, making them the biggest winners of 2024.

Film

Disney aren’t the only ones on a mission to turn their classic animated films into live-action entertainment. DreamWorks Animation and Universal have just unveiled the teaser trailer for How to Train your Dragon, which comes to cinemas (including IMAX) on 13 June next year.

Dean DeBlois, the writer and director of the animated How to Train Your Dragon films, is responsible for this adaptation of Cressida Cowell’s book series as well, with The Black Phone’s Mason James playing Hiccup, the timid son of Viking Chief Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, reprising his voice role from the animated franchise). Hiccup defies centuries of tradition when, in a society where dragons are the despised enemy, he befriends Toothless, a feared Night Fury.

You can also watch a 2-minute First Look for How to Train Your Dragon, featuring more of the cast, here.

As a movie tidbit from this week, DC Comics’ military hero Sgt. Rock looks set to finally make it to the big screen under James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU creative regime at Warner Bros. Challengers filmmaker Luca Guadagnino has been attached to the project for the while, with Daniel Craig now apparently being courted to play the “superhuman” WWII infantryman created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert back in 1959.

Comics & Books

Conan the Barbarian isn’t the only Robert E. Howard pulp hero to enjoy a return to the comic page. Now grim 16-17th Century Puritan avenger Solomon Kane is back as well, in upcoming miniseries Solomon Kane: The Serpent Ring from creator Patrick Zircher. Published by Heroic Signatures and Titan Comics, Issue #1 is on sale March 2025, with a cover by Hellboy’s Mike Mignola.

For the record, Zircher’s take on Solomon Kane has already been glimpsed in The Savage Sword of Conan, and the character has made an appearance in crossover miniseries Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone. The last time Kane was published in comics was in the period 2008 – 2011 when Dark Horse unveiled four volumes of new tales mixing period action, adventure and the supernatural.