Beyoncé Announces Much Anticipated ‘Renaissance’ World Tour

Beyoncé is taking her “Renaissance” global — the superstar will start a world tour in Sweden in May with stops throughout Europe and the United States. (AP)
Beyoncé is taking her “Renaissance” global — the superstar will start a world tour in Sweden in May with stops throughout Europe and the United States. (AP)
TT

Beyoncé Announces Much Anticipated ‘Renaissance’ World Tour

Beyoncé is taking her “Renaissance” global — the superstar will start a world tour in Sweden in May with stops throughout Europe and the United States. (AP)
Beyoncé is taking her “Renaissance” global — the superstar will start a world tour in Sweden in May with stops throughout Europe and the United States. (AP)

Beyoncé is taking her “Renaissance” global — the superstar will start a world tour in Sweden in May with stops throughout Europe and the United States.

The highly anticipated tour announcement she made on Instagram and her website Wednesday comes days before the Grammy Awards on Sunday, where the global superstar is the most nominated artist and could make Recording Academy history.

Beyoncé, the most decorated woman in Grammy history with 28 wins, could break the late Hungarian-British conductor Georg Solti’s record for most awards won if she wins four awards.

Her 2022 album “Renaissance” is a celebration of dance music and is nominated for album of the year. Her tour will make stops in London, Paris, Barcelona and Toronto before ending Sept. 27 in New Orleans.

There were hints that she might tour again after she performed an invite-only show in January in Dubai at the Atlantis The Royal Resort, her first show in four years. Her last solo tour was in 2016, but she went on tour with her husband Jay Z in 2018.

Ticketmaster said in a release that sales will begin Feb. 6 and fans will need to register through their Verified Fan system. Sale times will vary based on city.



Long-awaited Ubisoft 'Star Wars' Game Hits Shelves

"Outlaws' is Ubisoft's first foray into the Star Wars universe. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File
"Outlaws' is Ubisoft's first foray into the Star Wars universe. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File
TT

Long-awaited Ubisoft 'Star Wars' Game Hits Shelves

"Outlaws' is Ubisoft's first foray into the Star Wars universe. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File
"Outlaws' is Ubisoft's first foray into the Star Wars universe. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File

After more than four years in the making, French video game designer Ubisoft on Friday released its much-anticipated "Star Wars Outlaws", an immersive spinoff from the famed saga.
The group's first foray into the universe created by George Lucas, "Outlaws" is an open-world adventure featuring Kay Vess, a young outlaw who travels the galaxy far away to pull off the heist of the century.
"This project is a childhood dream for many of us," the studio's creative director Julian Gerighty told AFP.
The game crafted by Sweden-based Massive Entertainment allows players to explore cities and space stations in a fictional planet truthful to the sci-fi epic.
While "Outlaws" is not the first Star Wars-themed game, Gerighty says his teams managed to design dense cities and ultra-realistic vessels thanks to the advent of state-of-the-art, powerful consoles.
"We created new planets, new moons, and characters that enter this universe," said Gerighty.
"Outlaws" is the product of a partnership struck with the company LucasFilms, the video game branch of the Disney-owned franchise.
Its creators were granted access to the entertainment giant's "exclusive library with all the details and design documents" of Star Wars -- the key to rendering an authentic atmosphere.
An odyssey without Jedis
Fans however should not expect Jedis -- members of the saga's mystical knightly order. Rather, "Outlaws" brings the galaxy's underworld into the spotlight.
The world features iconic characters and legendary locations, with planet Tatooine, where original hero Luke Skywalker was born, as its setting.
The "incredibly ambitious" project inserts itself between the events of the "Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi", said Gerighty.
Some of the adventure's protagonists could appear in other productions, he added, as Disney in recent years has scaled up spinoffs from the franchise.
"Outlaws" will be the first Star Wars game to be developed by a publisher other than Electronic Arts (EA), since an exclusivity contract between the brand and the US firm ended in 2021.
Some gamers who were granted early access reported a few bugs, which the creators have pledged to fix.
'A plethora of adaptations'
EA since 2013 has rolled out a number of titles, from shooting multiplayer "Star Wars Battlefront" to laser sabre combat "Jedi: Fallen Order" and "Jedi Survivor".
"These games have been key successes," said Mat Piscatella, an analyst for the industry-tracking firm Circana, who says Disney terminated its deal with EA to "maximize" revenue from the franchise.
The latest Star Wars video games have all ranked among the top 10 best-sellers in the US, according to Piscatella's figures -- the likely trajectory for "Outlaws".
"There has been a plethora of adaptations" since the late 1970s, said Thibaut Claudel, the author of "Star Wars - Disney and the legacy of George Lucas".
"As an entrepreneur and an artist, George Lucas has always been interested in gaming," which explains the "insane range" of games in the early 2000s, when the second trilogy came out, said Claudel.
"It's a lot of pressure on the creators," he added, pointing out that fans with high standards dissect every fresh release.
Once the "Outlaws" frenzy dies down, connoisseurs will shift their attention to "Star Wars Eclipse", a space epic by French studios Quantic Dream, who have yet to announce a release date.