March 2020

Activision has officially released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered--though it's just the campaign and it's only available on PS4 for now. If you're looking to play the game on Xbox One or PC, you'll have to wait until April 30.

A limited-time PlayStation exclusivity deal for a Call of Duty game isn't anything new, this has been the tradition for the franchise since 2015. Normally, however, the PlayStation exclusivity is only in regards to multiplayer--either a certain mode is limited to PlayStation at the start (like Spec Ops Survival in 2019's Modern Warfare) or PlayStation gets access to certain content updates first (like in 2018's Black Ops 4).

Persona 5 was a very long game even by RPG standards, and the updated version Persona 5 Royal is even longer. It earns its lengthy runtime by integrating social sim elements and RPG dungeon crawling to tell a heavy story and develop its characters. With a brand new story arc that includes an extra palace (dungeon) and series of events, P5R will be taking up a lot of your time.

I'm currently in the process of reviewing the game and have finished it, including all the new story-critical content. According to the overall play time on my save data at the very end, Persona 5 Royal took 125 hours to finish.

The aforementioned story-critical content alone (the new palace and semester of events) added about 18 hours to the original game's runtime. This could range between 15 to 20 hours depending on your own pace.

Ubisoft announced today that it plans to provide people with free games, trials, and more throughout April as a way to support those who are stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first bonus is a free copy of Rayman Legends on PC, which is available to claim until April 3. You can find this offer as well as all future ones at Ubisoft's free giveaway page.

All you need to claim Rayman Legends is a Uplay account--you can sign up for one at Ubisoft's website. Once you've done that, head over to the free giveaway page and click "Get Free Game." You'll be directed to a page where you can choose your platform (PC is the only option for Rayman Legends), after which the game will be added to your account. Rayman Legends is a fantastic 2D platformer that you can play alone or with your friends. Ubisoft says that this is just the first giveaway of many, with more trials and offers on the way from series like Assassin's Creed and Just Dance.

Ubisoft recently took part in the massive Twitch Stream Aid livestream that raised $2.8 million for the COVID-19 Solidarity Relief Fund. Ubisoft itself pledged $150,000 to the cause and stressed in a press release that it hopes its initiatives will encourage people to stay home in these uncertain times.

QuakeCon, the long-running annual convention held by video game investor ZeniMax Media to promote its subsidiaries' projects, has been canceled due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, Bethesda Softworks and id Software announced in a statement on Twitter.

"In recent weeks we have spent a lot of time discussing how we might still move forward with QuakeCon this year, particularly given that it's the 25th year of the event," the statement reads. "However, with all of the logistical challenges and uncertainties we currently face due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made the difficult decision to cancel this year's QuakeCon.

"The health and safety of our employees, volunteers, vendors, sponsors, and players will always be our top priority, and in these times it felt wrong to be talking about a gathering when gathering is the last thing any of us should be doing right now."

Yesterday, after a couple weeks playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, K.K. Slider finally made an appearance on my island. But the traveling canine guitarist has apparently become hot shit over the last two decades, so much so that he wouldn’t deign to visit until I took painstaking steps to bring my island up to his…

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Like most people, I haven’t been moving around much these days. Aside from a daily walk, I only use my body to move around the tight circuit of my house: desk, sofa, microwave, bed. My fingers see the most action. I type emails to friends I haven’t spoken to in years and wash my hands over and over until the skin…

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Breaking down the numbers — and what they mean

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60, single, and sexy

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Bethesda and id Software have "made the difficult decision" to cancel this year's QuakeCon, which would have marked the 25th anniversary of the event, as a result of the ongoing upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

"In recent weeks, we have spent a lot of time discussing how we might still move forward with QuakeCon this year," the companies wrote in a joint statement, "However, with all of the logistical challenges and uncertainties we currently face due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made the difficult decision to cancel this year's QuakeCon."

"The health and safety of our employees, volunteers, vendors, sponsors, and players will always be our top priority, "the statement continued, "and in these times it felt wrong to be talking about a gathering when gathering is the last thing any of us should be doing right now".

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The Persona 5 Royal Goro Confidant opportunities and improvements are really something to crow about.

The post Persona 5 Royal Finally Gives Goro the Attention He Deserves appeared first on Siliconera.

Transform your Mag into a Green Puyo! Just... try to keep it from colliding with three other Mags.

The post Phantasy Star Online 2 Puyo Puyo Collab Transforms Your Mag Into a Puyo appeared first on Siliconera.

Pokémon Go, as its name would suggest, puts so much emphasis on getting out and about, that the phenomenally popular mobile title is being forced to adapt its ways due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated "Stay Indoors" rulings. This leaves millions of  Pokémon Go players (rightly) stuck at home and in self-isolation.

Summer is always a big season for Niantic's augmented-reality game, as the sunny weather brings with it more outdoor activities and events. But the publisher hopes that players will still be able to gather together - virtually at any rate - with a new "remote Raid" feature, expected to go live in-game soon. This will allow players to form up into groups online and travel to gyms as per usual, but from the comfort and safety of their own sofas.

In addition to this, Adventure Sync, a mode based on a player's movement throughout the day, will also be tweaked to prioritise simple movement and exercise around the home, so players will still be able to meet mileage goals and hatch their eggs without venturing outdoors to their workplace, shops, gym or other such locations. Other annual summer events, such as Pokémon Go Fest, will also be adapted to fit in with the current climate, though Niantic is yet to reveal how these events will work.

PUBG is the original realistic military battle royale. While each of the major battle royale games take a slightly different approach, PUBG is the one that can most claim it's rooted in realism and survival. No abilities, no crafting, no respawns -- just straight kill or be killed.

However, PUBG's April Fool's Day limited-time mode is more Skyrim than Battlefield, more Dungeons & Dragons than Call of Duty. PUBG is launching a joke mode called "Fantasy Battle Royale" that might prove to be rather popular during its seven-day runtime.

Fantasy Battle Royale has players pick one of four classic fantasy roles to play as. They are: Barbarian (melee-only, high health, and consecutive successful attacks increase his movement speed which turns him into a whirling dervish that stabs and slices), Ranger (long-ranged sniper, high damage, low health, and is stealth-oriented as her movement makes no sound), Wizard (highest damage output through casting spells like raining down meteor showers, but has the lowest health of any class), and Paladin (healers who aid their party by hitting them or throwing area-of-effect health bombs, but they can also hurt and slow down enemies by striking them).

Rayman Legends is a fantastic game, and if you've somehow avoided it since 2013, here's a chance to get it for free. The eye-catching platformer is up for grabs on PC until April 3, 2020, at the Uplay store.

Seriously though, if you haven't run through Castle Rock before, I can't recommend it enough.

This free game deal is a part of a wider initiative underway at Ubisoft in light of COVID-19 and the ensuing stay-at-home orders. The company is hosting "a month-long series of offers, trials, and discounts to help everyone who is following health authorities' guidance by staying at home."

If that sounds like something you'd be into – Assassin's Creed and Just Dance are among the "free offers and trials" coming up next – then here's the dedicated freebie website to keep tabs on.

There are a lot of different ways to make Bells in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. You can make a Tarantula island and then catch them to then sell them; you can grow fruit that’s not native to your island or you can accrue interest by putting all of your Bells in your savings account on the last day of the month, which is something that I just found out about today.

You might have been wondering what exactly is the point of having a savings account in Animal Crossing: New Horizons if there’s no way to lose the money you already have in your wallet. Well, what If I told you that you could make 0.05% interest on your Bells in just one day?

Mike Zaimont and Mariel Cartwright of Lab Zero Games break down the design and production processes that brought Indivisible to life. ...

Dozens of devs have chipped in for this latest 100 percent charitable bundle in an effort to raise money for those on the front lines of the COVID-19 response effort, one $30 bundle at a time. ...

The Division 2 has released another Rogue Agent as part of Warlords of New York Season One. The latest target you're tasked with hunting down is Venus, the second of five total targets that are set to appear throughout the season.

Taking down the first four Rogue Agents will lead to the discovery of your prime target, Jupiter. To draw Venus out, you'll need to head to Downtown East, Federal Triangle, Judiciary Square, and the Pentagon to complete missions, control points, and bounties. Once all of the objectives in each area have been cleared, you'll receive a new bounty leading to a fight with your newest adversary.

From her profile, we learn that Venus was a doctor in the Division before turning rogue. On her way out she stole some supplies and killed the Division agents that were sent after her, so not exactly the greatest bedside manner.

Update: Despite having no discount whatsoever, the $450 Nintendo Switch starter bundle at GameStop is now sold out, which just goes to show how high demand is for the console right now. The Switch Lite starter bundles are still available. We'll update this story if we see the Switch bundle back in stock.

Original story follows.

Developer Ubisoft Montreal has dropped a new Rainbow Six Siege update on the PC test server that makes several adjustments to the tactical FPS' operators and more. We've compiled the full patch notes below.

Many of Siege's operators have been tweaked for balancing purposes. Characters like Buck and Ying have seen their claymores replaced with other throwable explosives, while Caveira has a new customization item for her M12 SMG and Jager has been changed to make him "a bit less oppressive in-game." Further, Mozzie's "Super Shorty" secondary has been removed, and the TCSG12 shotgun's damage has been decreased.

Elsewhere in the patch, Ubisoft addressed a number of bugs that continue to plague the game. These include barricade replication issues that cause rubberbanding, minor menu and shop visual problems, clipping issues, and others.

Sony has declined to sell Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Remastered in Russia, according to Activision. Though the company didn't specify a reason for the declination decision, it may be that the controversial "No Russian" mission could have caused concerns of cultural sensitivity. The game was surprise-released in most other territories.

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered is a remastered version of the fictional, single player campaign experience originally released in 2009, now fully restored in HD," read a statement from Activision to GameSpot. "Sony Interactive Entertainment has decided not to sell Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered on the PlayStation Store in Russia. We are looking forward to releasing Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered digitally in Russia on Xbox One and PC via Battle.net.”

No Russian caused waves upon its initial release. The mission centers on a Russian terrorist group killing civilians in an airport. The name comes from a line of dialogue from the terrorist leader, reminding the others not to speak Russian--since their plan is to frame American intelligence operatives for the attack. As an undercover agent, you have the option to participate in the plan and kill civilians. The game also allows you to skip the sequence altogether.

Last weekend, the EVE Online community team hosted a Twitch viewing party to help EVE players stave off COVID-19 isolation related boredom. The stream was a marathon of a machinima series called “Clear Skies,” beloved in the EVE community. CCP Convict, one of EVE’s community managers, hosted the event alongside the…

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Last week, during a surprise Nintendo Direct, Square Enix gifted the world with a demo for Bravely Default II. The demo offers a taste of everything series fans should expect: lovely sprites, marvelous hand-painted backgrounds, and a return to the ever-rewarding Brave/Default turn-based battle system. But it also…

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Two international tournaments are both canceled

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The Kickstarter campaign could be the biggest of 2020

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What’s actually coming out?

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Untitled Goose Game's official soundtrack, with arrangement by Dan Golding, has come to major streaming platforms.

The post Untitled Goose Games’ Soundtrack Hits Streaming Platforms appeared first on Siliconera.

Let’s just say that Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord has had a bit of a rough start. Performance issues are plentiful and many have complained about it. Some are funny, like the baby mode pictured above, but many are really not amusing at all.

Some workarounds have been found, as well as causes for critical errors, so we’ll list the most troublesome ones here for your convenience.
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The ongoing crisis of the COVID-19 outbreak is going to get a lot worse in the United States before it gets better. That is if listen to doctors, epidemiologists, nurses, experts, and anyone who isn't some nut job on the internet. That means more time locked down at home and more annual video game trade shows, conventions, and tournaments that have to start making some difficult decisions.

As we continue to push closer to the Summer season with no slowdown in sight for the virus's spread, shows set to take place several months from now are being called off. Today, the organizers of the annual QuakeCon announced it had canceled what would have been the 25th anniversary of the event.

If battle royale is all about surviving, Warzone cheaters are living fast and dying young. Like Dikembe Mutombo swatting shots and finger-wagging in disapproval (I miss sports!), Infinity Ward is shutting down cheaters left and right.

The message is loud and clear: Do not bring that weak shit or we will fuck you up. (My phrasing, not Infinity Ward's.) In a statement addressing cheating in Call of Duty: Warzone, Infinity Ward mentions that 50,000 rules-infractors have been shown the door. Their accounts have been gifted permabans, never to cheat at Warzone again.

Infinity Ward also details how it's monitoring cheaters, and how the developer's security team is working in shifts around the clock to issue punishments. The gist is that the reporting process will get quicker, and more people are gonna catch bans. Infinity Ward says it's going to routinely update ban numbers, like a war machine tracking confirmed kills.

The last figure we were given is that Warzone is over 30 million players. 50,000 cheaters make up .17 percent of that population. Not everyone's a bad egg! But the bad eggs are gonna get cracked.

Cheaters Not Welcomed in Call of Duty: Warzone [Activision]

After technical woes messed with the schedule last week, Capcom has patched up the Resident Evil Resistance open beta. You can get back in there and try the survivor-versus-mastermind multiplayer game on PlayStation 4 and PC once you've updated to version 1.01. The Xbox One version works too.

I know I wasn't keen on this pack-in game – I called it a hot mess in my impressions piece based on the launch version – but if you're counting the hours until Resident Evil 3 goes live, I would play some Resident Evil Resistance. Now's the time to check it out before you're preoccupied and never look back.

A few basic pointers to make your early matches less frustrating:

Although the U.K. is currently under soft lockdown legislation, this didn't stop physical game sales from spiking last week. Although, overall, sales were down last week, (due to the launch of Animal Crossing: New Horizons) sales were up over 100% when compared to the week prior to that.

Activision's military shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has returned to the number-one spot, perhaps helped by the ongoing success of sister release Warzone, while EA's indelible football sim FIFA 20 is back at number two. Last week's new releases Animal Crossing and Doom Eternal are now sat in third and fourth place, respectively, while Activision holds fort at the back of the Top Ten with family-friendly releases such as Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, and Spyro: Reignited Trilogy.

Humble does not have time to mess around this week. There is no paying what you want or contributing more than the average. We are in the middle of a pandemic and there's no negotiating this time. Thirty bucks and you get a shitload of games. That's the deal.

The Humble Conquer COVID-19 Bundle has 45 games for $30, all of the money going straight to charity. There are also 26 ebooks included. Humble picked Direct Relief, the International Rescue Committee, Doctors Without Borders, and Partners in Health to donate the proceeds to.

There's a lot of bang for your buck in this bundle, a good number of quality games that will help pass the time stuck inside. Some personal favorites are: The Witness, Into the Breach, Undertale, Hollow Knight, Superhot, Darksiders, Brothers -- A Tale of Two Sons, and Brutal Legend. But, your mileage may vary and all that. Different strokes, different folks. The Humble Conquer COVID-19 Bundle is available until April 7.

Here are the 45 games that Humble is selling to fight the coronavirus pandemic:

Minecraft Dungeons, Mojang's co-op dungeon-crawler Minecraft spin-off game, won't launch in April 2020 as expected (and I'm sure you can guess why). The game's new release date for Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch is May 26, 2020 – a relatively minor bump, all things considered.

This delay is in fact "due to the current state of the world." The studio "wanted to guarantee the health and safety of our teams, and empower them to deliver the best possible experience to the community."

So much of the IP plainly isn't for me these days, but I'm pretty fond of Minecraft Dungeon's look and feel. There's no shortage of hardcore action-RPGs and dungeon-crawlers, so it's neat to see something that can speak to younger audiences and especially families given the four-player local/online co-op.

It should be a breezy Xbox Game Pass chill-out title. As a parting note, there are two editions – Standard, which is $20, and Hero Edition, which is $30 – and most of us can safely skip the latter. It comes with a pair of future DLC packs, a pet chicken, two character skins, and a hero cape.

Mojang expects to release a free update adding cross-platform multiplayer sometime after launch.

It’s that time of the year again, and developers are having fun while bringing a much-needed smile to their fans. The popular shipgirl-focused mobile game Azur Lane is no exception. 

Today Yostar released a video showcasing a romantic visual novel starring our favorite shipgirls. More precisely, it focuses on a recent fan-favorite, Baltimore. 

It pretty much looks like exactly what you expect from any romantic visual novel. Only, it isn’t real.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be real. I’d totally pay to play it, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. 

You can check it out below.

If you’re unfamiliar with Azur Lane, it’s is a free-to-play mobile horizontal scrolling shooter/RPG hybrid currently available for iOS and Android.

If you’d like to learn more about it, you can read our recent interview with Yostar’s director of operations.

Earlier this week, Niantic released a statement detailing their plans to make their games playable from home. This includes the ability to let you take part in Pokemon GO raids from the comfort of your own home.

Among these promised changes included a way to allow players to join in on raid battles from the safety of their own homes. Just today, the first step in that change seems to be taking place.

It was announced earlier today that the distance you need to be away from a gym in order to interact with it is going to be doubled. This is sure to help many players reach gyms that were previously too far away to be accessed from their homes.

However, this obviously doesn’t do much for players who aren’t within a few blocks of a gym. We’ll have to keep our ear to the ground about any rumblings of a more extensive raid from home system coming in the near future.

For now, it looks like you at least won’t need to walk as far to reach gyms if you don’t have any nearby. Besides raids, this means you can also spin the gym’s photo disc, battle the gym or defend the gym from further away.

Obviously, this will only be a temporary change. And Niantic has understandably not given a timeline on when any of these changes will return to normal.

They also noted that these changes will only apply to the gyms in Pokemon GO. Pokestops that are out of reach at the standard distance will remain that way.

Join Fire House Games in Cambridge, Massachusetts and help develop sustainable monetization strategies and engaging progression systems for a live game. ...