June 2020

Developer 343 Industries has been remarkably thorough and transparent throughout the process of porting the Halo: Master Chief Collection to PC, often releasing in-depth blog posts about the process. This week, community manager Tyler "Postums" Davis has posted an update on how the team handles bugs, from reporting to patching, after a bug-riddled release of Halo 2 Anniversary wreaked havoc on the Master Chief Collection.

While a lot of the discussion around game bugs is usually centered around the technical aspect of fixing them, Postums also goes into detail about how the community team is involved. As the first line of contact with the players, Halo's Community Team usually hear about bugs first, and often has to triage the seriousness of a newly reported issue. While this process also happens through Halo Support, the official tool for tracking and reporting bugs, players are just as likely to report bugs through forums, Discord, or in public social media posts.

Once identified, there's still a big process to go through before a bug can be fixed--one that ensures resources are assigned in the most efficient way. Testers look into details of a bug, finding out how and where it can be reproduced. When bugs are logged, they require details including "an outline of area, severity, description, reproduction steps, impact, expected results, media, and an assignment."

F1 2020 has unveiled a new track that has only recently been constructed in real life. The game will take players to Vietnam to compete on the Hanoi Street Circuit track for the first time. This route was completed in February 2020 and is expected to debut in the next F1 season (which is currently suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

In the trailer below, you can see Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc race around the digital track. It's 5.613km long (3.488 miles) and features 23 turns per lap, with a short pit lane and two long straights. The track is inspired by some other beloved F1 tracks, including Monaco and Nurburgring.

In the press release sent out alongside this trailer, F1 franchise game director Lee Mather said that the track "delivers both thrills and challenges, set against the backdrop of the stunning city skyline." He also warned that the track will "punish anyone who doesn’t respect the walled sections."

The iconic Call of Duty character Captain Price is being added to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's multiplayer and the battle royale game Warzone with its new Season 4 update. To promote the release, Activision is giving people a chance to get a video message from Price himself, or at least the closest thing to him.

The actor who plays Price in the new Modern Warfare--Barry Sloane--will record a personalized video message for you on Cameo if you win a contest. You can enter the sweepstakes here for a chance to win one of 50 messages. Everyone who enters gets a free Modern Warfare calling card, so you get something even if you don't win.

Activision is launching this sweepstakes following the successful run of paid-for Cameo appearances where people could pay $141--referencing Task Force 141--to get Sloane to record a message. The allotted supply ran out, and Activision is now launching the sweepstakes for 50 more.

A release date has been announced for Wrath: Aeon of Ruin, an FPS game built within a modified version of the Quake engine. The game, which will be published by 3D Realms and 1C Entertainment, and is developed by KillPixel Games (which is making its debut here), will launch on February 25, 2021.

Wrath: Aeon of Ruin is coming to PC, Switch, PS4, and Xbox One, and it looks very similar to the 90s classic it's based so heavily on. The game is currently available in Steam Early Access, and a new enemy, level, and weapon have just been added to the playable build.

The trailer below also introduces the game's Big Box edition, which will be limited to 500 units. It contains:

Summer in Mara, a beautiful-looking farming/adventure game, has announced a release date, and it's not far off. The game will arrive on PC through Steam and on the Nintendo Switch Eshop on June 16, developer Chibig has announced.

Summer in Mara, which earned over ten times what it was asking for on Kickstarter, casts the player as Koa, a young girl exploring and working on a tropical island. You can build up your own farm, take to the ocean and explore by boat, and dive deep into the island's numerous secrets.

Based on the trailer in the tweet below, it looks like a pretty chilled-out game. You can try the game out ahead of its launch on Steam, too--a prologue demo is available now.

Halo developer 343 Industries has updated its list of known issues for Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The studio is working to fix these issues, but the developer also cautioned that it's currently prioritizing the launch of Halo 3 on PC ahead of fixing these lingering issues.

"The scope and implications of these issues vary greatly so while some may see good movement in a given month, others may not," 343 explained in a blog post.

The list of known issues for Halo: MCC covers both Xbox One and PC. On Xbox, 343 acknowledged that it's aware of "performance issues" for Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3, and it's working toward a fix. Additionally, the studio has acknowledged issues with the pistol spread for Halo: Combat Evolved multiplayer when playing at higher frame rates on PC. A preliminary fix has already been released, but the developer continues to track down issues that are persisting.

Atomicrops is a farming game and a bullet-hell shooter and a Roguelike. There's a lot going on, it is intense, and while it might look silly and cartoony this is a tough nut to crack.

It works like this. You are the farmer of a small plot of land where you need to grow crops to earn money and feed a town. During the day, you plant seeds, fertilise and water them, and at night you defend them, moving and shooting like a twin-stick shooter. If you make it through to morning, a helicopter picks you up to fly you back to town.

Every third day there's a boss fight, after which you meet the mayor of the town and receive prizes depending on how many crops you grew and therefore people you fed. These prizes make you incrementally more powerful. Then it's back to your farm for a new season to see if you can do it all over again.

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The Guilty Gear -Strive- Closed Beta Test questionnaire has shared the rankings for the most requested characters across all regions.

The post Guilty Gear -Strive- Closed Beta Test Survey Shares Most Requested Characters Across Regions appeared first on Siliconera.

If you want more characters for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4, Bandai Namco just announced a new DLC fighter for the recent Musou-style game.

The new character is Charlotte Cracker. Like the previously-announced Charlotte Smoothie, it’ll take quite a bit for  him to join the crew. He doesn’t have a firm release date yet besides a “summer” launch window.

If you’re unfamiliar with Cracker, he’s one of the main antagonists of the Whole Cake Island arc of the anime and manga.

You can check out what he looks like in the image below. On top of Cracker, we also get the first actual gameplay screenshots for Smoothie as well.

Retailer ShopTo lists Prey VR for PlayStation VRhttps://t.co/BIZJ2jrrHt pic.twitter.com/fSCnS268xU

Jackie Chan once said that a lot of people could do some of the little flourishes in his films if they wanted to. Not the big dangerous stunts, but the tiny things that make a scene. In one sequence, I think, there's a huge fight and Jackie keeps grabbing this fan that travels back and forth across the action. He makes this tricky thing - grabbing a fan out of the air - look so simple. Not because he's unnaturally graceful - although he is - but because he's willing to film something 200 times until he gets the result he wants. That's dropping a fan 199 times for that glorious 200th try where it all works. Most of us could look a little cooler if we were willing to Kubrick our way through life like Jackie Chan. Or Jackie Chan our way through life like Kubrick. Now I wish they had made a film together.

Anyway: A Night at the Races. We're in Celeste territory here - punishing 2D platforming gauntlets that hinge on understanding the simple controls - left, right, jump, dash - and the way these controls interact with the environment. Reader, I have done astonishing things in this game. Precision wall-jumps between spikes, air-dashes with one pixel between me and disaster. This is not because I'm unnaturally graceful - I am definitely not - but because I am willing to do this stuff 200 times to get to the end of one of the game's short levels.

In a new update for League of Legends esports, Riot has added the equivalent of stadium signage to Summoner's Rift. A feature called SR Arena Banners will allow LoL esports leagues to customize how their viewers see the Rift, with the potential to display major sponsors and league details.

The new feature will roll out for the Summer Split, and will only be visible to those watching on official League of Legends broadcasts. "In the future, you can expect to see leagues begin to experiment with unique approaches that will more deeply integrate our partners to engage local and regional fan bases," the blog post details.

Notably, the new banners will only be visible to spectators, with players seeing the same standard Rift they are used to practicing on. "This will ensure that a new visual model won’t impact their ability to practice and compete on an identical Rift," the post adds.

Dungeon crawlers like Minecraft Dungeons have a big focus on getting the best gear available. In this game, the most sought after gear are the unique items, which give you additional abilities in addition to their regular weapon type stats.

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If Found lead developer Laurla McGee explains the creative process and motivation behind If Found's erasing mechanic. ...

Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku’s reader-run community: My Return To AAA Games Ep. 7: Dark Souls 2 Is A Sprawling Masterpiece • Chronicling The Most Anime I’ve Watched In Two Months • TAY Retro: Nintendo Entertainment System - Magic Johnson’s Fast Break [TV Commercial, NA]

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Willer Express is an overnight highway bus company that transports travelers between locations like Tokyo and Osaka. For many, being on a bus for a long period of time sounds worrisome during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

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What better way to celebrate 60 years of Sega, 40 years of Pac-Man and the Yakuza games than by drinking sake.

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Codemasters, creators of the beloved Colin McRae Rally series and the critically acclaimed Dirt Rally games, has secured the official WRC licence from 2023 (as reported by GI.biz), with a deal that currently runs through to 2027.

It does mean there'll be quite some time until we see the fruits of the deal, with a new game from the Dirt Rally team due before the deal commences, and with Dirt 5 also on the slate after its reveal earlier this year. Bigben Interactive continues to hold the licence and will carry on producing games in the meantime, with this year's WRC 9 set to continue developer Kylotonn's impressive run on the series.

The last Codemasters' game to carry the official WRC licence was Colin McRae Rally 3 back in 2002, whereupon it was picked up by Evolution Studios for a run of PS2-exclusive titles before Milestone stepped in.

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The new Nintendo Switch version of Xenoblade Chronicles has doubled the game's original launch sales on Wii.

Monolith Soft's Definitive Edition re-release of the game debuted in first place within this week's UK boxed game charts.

This director's cut release offers numerous gameplay tweaks, shinier visuals and remastered music throughout, as well as an all-new epilogue.

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In news that might peeve anyone who bought it last Friday, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition has already been reduced to £39.99.

Both Amazon UK and Argos have dropped the price of the newly-released Switch RPG this morning. Until today, it's been sitting at around the £50 mark at most retailers, with a couple going as low as £43.

In his Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition review, Martin called it a 'gently re-touched, thoughtfully expanded take on a modern classic' and slapped it with a Recommended badge. It's less a remake or remaster, but an expanded re-release with a few hours of additional content, too.

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Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition has enjoyed a fast start over in the UK. The game enters Gfk’s boxed chart tracking in first place, knocking Animal Crossing: New Horizons from its perch in the process.

As noted by Gamesindustry.biz, Definitive Edition, a remaster of a 2011 game, has sold more than double the number of the original. It’s also worth keeping in mind the game only launched on May 29, meaning it’s accumulated sales over only the last two days of the month.

Despite the sharp performance, however, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition’s launch sales fell just behind 2017’s Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which launched just before Christmas and therefore enjoyed a holiday boom.

Here’s the full top 20 best-selling games in the UK for the week ending May 31. Remember, this does not include digital sales.

June is here but E3 is not, with the games expo’s cancellation leaving the the industry without an anchor for the year’s big announcements and marketing blasts. E3’s organisers are not planning an online replacement of their own, so instead a load of different small expos, festivals, and marketing blasts will be filling in this year. While E3 and the surrounding blast are done inside two weeks, this all will go across two months. It can be a bit confusing so here’s the schedule of events and streams coming in E3’s stead, starting this week.

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I have a mystery that will likely never be solved. After my dad died in 2016, one of the more peculiar things I had to do was go through his computer, log him out of everything, and close down various accounts. Which included Steam. Looking in his library on there, there were three games that sat atop his “most played” list, with hundreds of hours clocked up for each. Skyrim, X-COM: UFO Defense, and, er, hidden object game Escape Rosecliff Island. Pardon?

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I’m really enjoying Minecraft Dungeons, and my only real criticism of it right now is that there just aren’t enough levels to explore. That won’t be the case as of next month, however, because the game’s first DLC, Jungle Awakens is dropping in July. On top of that, Mojang have announced they’re working on bringing cross-platform multiplayer to Minecraft Dungeons, as well as a bunch of other content in a free future update.

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Pinch, punch, first of the month, graphics card deal hunters. Unfortunately, the turning of the calendar means we bid farewell to the free games offer that made AMD-flavoured graphics cards such exceptional value. While they still offer more bang for their buck than their Nvidia-branded counterparts, the gap is much closer than it was last week.

Graphics card prices have, on average, ticked up a little this week, and continued coronavirus-related stock shortages means it’s not exactly a great time for epic graphics card deals, either. Still, to help you keep track of all of the top graphics card deals that are going on right now, we’ve put together this list of all the best prices for the today’s [cms-block]s so you can see exactly how they compare against one another, and whether they’re a good buy or not. Regardless of whether you’re upgrading your PC or building a new PC from scratch, here are the cheapest graphics card deals on offer this week.

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Minecraft Dungeons has a bunch of items that can help you when fighting off the Arch-Illager’s army. Some of the most important of these are artefacts, as they can give you powerful effects such as launching firework arrows at enemies or summoning an animal companion to aid you in battle.

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War is all fun and games, until a bunch of people figure out how to turn into snakes. By exploiting a glitch in Call Of Duty: Warzone, it’s currently possible to appear as if you’re lying prone when you are in fact standing up, letting you hide behind a wall while invisibly shooting people. It is a bit funny, but also frustrating and game-breaking. The snakening commenced over a day ago but the developers haven’t yet acknowledged it.

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With E3 2020 now spread out over multiple weeks and months, it can be hard to keep track of all the new PC games coming out this year. Luckily, we’ve done the hard work for you and collected all the new PC game release dates into one handy list so you know exactly when all the biggest and best PC games are coming out over the next six months, as well as which big PC games have since been delayed until 2021.

Ordered by month, I’ve rounded up all of this year’s new PC games so you can see exactly what’s coming out and when. There are still a fair amount of games whose release dates are TBA at the moment, but I’ll be updating this list regularly as and when they get confirmed – which will probably be quite frequently over the next couple of weeks as we start getting more and more big E3-style events on the horizon. In the mean time, though, here’s your complete guide to PC gaming in 2020 as it currently stands.

Guilty Gear -Strive- directors Akira Katano and Daisuke Ishiwatari answered various opinions and concerns received from players. 

The post Guilty Gear -Strive- Directors Answer Various Opinions and Concerns appeared first on Siliconera.

Stop me if you've seen this before. A big-name game launches simultaneously for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, with a Switch edition "coming later."

Given the reputation some games have as a "poor Switch port," some publishers really want to get it right so they don't mess up their chances at extra cash on what is ostensibly a cash cow system at the moment. We've seen it with Outer Worlds and we're also seeing it with the recently released Doom Eternal, which still doesn't have a Switch date.

Speaking of the former, publisher Private Division reached out to Nintendo Everything to provide confirmation of the impending June 5 Switch version, who explained what people can look forward to. In short, it's pretty standard Switch port stuff. The game will "target" 30 frames per second, with the aim to hit 720p in portable mode and 1080p docked. Apparently it'll also have gyro aiming and sticking targeting.

While this is an obvious statement, developer Obsidian says that it's "very happy" with how the game operates on Switch. If it actually hits those targets consistently, I think most people will be happy too.

The Outer Worlds – gyro controls confirmed for Switch [Nintendo Everything]

Remember Prey (the 2017 one, not the 2006 one)? Well it's back, in VR form: maybe!

Thanks to another retailer listing — which is becoming an increasingly reliable way to learn about actually real games — Prey VR could be a thing Bethesda is announcing in the future. The timing is very close to when Bethesda would have had its E3 showcase in the coming weeks, before it decided to bow out of that racket and pepper its announcements around in multiple mini showcases. 

The product info is from retailer ShopTo (spotted by Nibel/Nibellion), and simply lists PlayStation VR as the main platform. That listing has since been removed from the site. As a note, Bethesda typically supports multiple VR platforms, including SteamVR and PSVR. They also have been converting their big properties like Doom, Fallout, Wolfenstein and Elder Scrolls into modified VR experiences for the past several years: so all of this checks out.

Prey VR [ShopTo via Nibellion]

Pre-order Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (PS4) | $50 | Amazon
Pre-order Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Xbox One) | $50 | Amazon

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