August 2020

Dragon Ball FighterZ will now be temporarily or permanently banning players who disconnect from online matches on a consistent basis.

According to an in-game message, developer Arc System Works will be placing temporary one-week bans for players who deliberately disconnect from online games and could possibly turn into a permanent ban if done often enough. The full message:

We will now be imposing restrictions on players who deliberately disconnect during online matches. These players will be restricted from entering online lobbies for a set period of time (about one week).

(During this restricted period, players will still be able to play in the offline lobby.) If you are unintentionally disconnecting several times, please check your internet connection settings.

If a player is found to be repeatedly engaging in the above behavior, the restrictions mentioned above may become permanent for that player.

We will continue to do what we can to ensure all players have an enjoyable experience with the game.

The message gives no information about how many times one can rage-quit before receiving a ban, or how the system will differentiate between deliberate and accidental disconnects.

Dragon Ball FighterZ is now available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. The next downloadable content character, Master Roshi, will become playable sometime in September.

Just last week, Mega Pokemon were introduced in Pokemon GO. Now, thanks to The Pokemon GO Team, we already have details about the very first Mega Pokemon-themed event in the game. And if Pokemon GO fans are lucky, then they might even unlock a Halloween treat for completing the September Mega event.

First off, the event starts out tomorrow, so players don’t have much time to get ready. You’ll want to take advantage of the current remote raid pass bundle to participate in the increased number of Mega Raids going on in Pokemon GO.

This first part of the month-long Mega event runs from Sept. 1 at 8AM until Sept. 7 at 10PM (all times local). Besides the increased number of Mega Raids, the following features will also be active during this first week:

• There will be an increased attack bonus from friends in raids.
• Event-exclusive Field Research focused on raid-related tasks will be available for a limited time
• You can receive Mega Energy for Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise by completing limited event-exclusive Field Research tasks.
• The following Pokémon will appear more frequently in the wild: Abra, Magnemite, Exeggcute, Rhyhorn, Tangela, Electabuzz, Omanyte, Aerodactyl, Murkrow, Treecko, Torchic, Lotad, and Roselia.
• If you’re lucky, you may even run into a Shiny Lotad!

So far, there’s nothing new when it comes to different species of Mega Pokemon. Right now we have Mega versions of the Kanto starters and Beedrill. But the second week may bring some new species of Mega Pokemon into the mix.

Week two will still focus heavily on Mega Beedrill, just like the current Special Research. However, if Pokemon GO trainers complete 275 million battles during the second week, then Mega Houndoom will be unlocked in Mega Raids.

It's always amazing to witness how much raw talent the Zelda community brings to the table. I see it on a regular basis! But this duo of fan-made Guardian amiibo really stands out in this crowded month of great fan creations.

MarkelangeloStudios says that the figures were 3D-printed and hand-painted: by way of a Photon S SLA printer (which will run you roughly $380 MSRP) and Zbrush.  The bases on the newer Guardians are custom, with little etchings from the Zelda franchise embossed on them. They even went the extra mile and embedded backup NFC chips inside of the fan-creations, based off of the original Guardian style.

For reference, the middle figure is the Guardian Skywatcher: a flying (and very annoying) variant of the Guardian machine. The left-most figure is the Guardian Turret. The original amiibo mirrors the Stalker line.

MarkelangeloStudios is musing on the idea of crafting tutorial videos: if that ever happens, I'll try and track them down!

I made some custom guardian amiibo [Reddit]

As the quest to improve Horizon Zero Dawn on PC continues, Guerrilla has dropped its third major patch since the August 7 launch.

It's yet another lengthy patch with some provisos: alongside of the bug fixes is the implicit statement from the development team that there is more work to do. The currently known major issues are still very much on their radar (most notably the specific GPU/hardware optimization problems), and some crash fixes are already implemented as of today.

Two major GPU bugs (a resource leak and a hang) should shore up the general instability of the game, as well as at least four crashes that would trigger off of specific instances. The DLC area is also a little smoother (snow particles were giving players trouble in the past), as is the operation of 4K scaling (no need to go back to the menu to swap this back every time after booting it up).

There's more work to be done, but a lot of the legwork is done already. You can find recaps of 1.01 and 1.02 at the preceding links.

Horizon Zero Dawn 1.03 [Reddit]

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is a niche “anti-RPG” from 1997 that last week made its way westward, for the first time ever, via Switch. While the digital manual provides some much-appreciated assistance, I recently found myself stuck in a game-ending situation that would have been entirely avoidable had I respected the…

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Early on in Wasteland 3, you’re forced to make a choice. The family of one of your party members, a young woman named Lucia Wesson, was recently killed. An early quest has you stumble upon a camp of downtrodden apocalypse survivors, where you meet Lucia’s ex-boyfriend. Even if he didn’t technically pull the trigger,…

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Hollywood legend Ridley Scott might be better known for films like Alien and Gladiator, but he also found time in the mid-80s to make Apple’s famous 1984 commercial. With Epic Games very recently and publicly recreating the ad, only now with an anti-Apple stance, Scott has some thoughts.

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Yandere Simulator developer YandereDev finally made an announcement today that fans of the game have been waiting a long time for.

The first full-fledged rival Osana is now complete, and the developer released the previously-promised official demo of the game, which comes with a lot of content and pretty much the ability to try out the full gameplay loot.

The next step, if feedback is positive, will be a crowdfunding campaign to help finance professional developer that will bring the game to completion. 

The developer also released an extensive video in which he explains in depth the state of development and what comes next. 

At the moment, we don’t know exactly when the crowdfunding campaign will launch, as YandereDev wants to gather feedback from the demo and make possible changes to refine the experience before making the jump. 

You can check out the v below and download the demo here. 

Yandere Simulator is coming for PC and doesn’t yet have an official release date.

It's a treat to watch the Dreams community settle into the tools and flex its creative and technical muscles. In some cases, without the little "Made in Dreams" watermark (and the ability to actually play this stuff), it would be easy to doubt that what we're watching was created on a PlayStation 4.

That's how I feel about "Walk in the Park," the latest video from creator BadRobo82.

Pulling off this kind of complexity and realism within the confines of Dreams is staggering, especially for those of us who have slapped something together and run up against the very finite thermometer. If you dig in and inspect every single element, you'll notice repetition, but the effect is still convincing.

As lovely as everything looks, the creator says "it can still be done better." It's early days.

This nature walk isn't available from the Dreamiverse, but you can check out BadRobo82's progress in Dreams on Twitter and watch other equally impressive exploration scenes on their YouTube channel. 

[Via ResetEra]

Anu Chouhan is an illustrator and character artist from Canada working in the video game business.

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Players get banned for cheating every day, but you know who usually doesn’t get smited from the competitive heavens? Coaches.

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Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is going to expand its aerial arsenal with three new aircraft. This new DLC is scheduled for an autumn release, and contains the ASF-X Shinden II, XFA-27, and the CFA-44 Nosferatu planes. All of these have appeared in earlier entries in the franchise.

You can check them out in action in the trailer below. As well as these planes, the DLC will contain new weapons, skins, and emblems--the skins are revealed in the trailer alongside the new aircraft. It's unclear how much this DLC will cost, and a specific release date has not been announced yet.

At the same time, a free update will unlock a new, easier difficulty level for Ace Combat 7. The new difficulty is called "Casual Easy," and is designed as an entry point for players who struggle with the harsher elements of Ace Combat.

One of the most exciting new additions for NHL 21 is the "Michigan" skill move, so when the game's closed technical test went live today, people understandably tried to pull it off.

However, it's proving to be exceptionally difficult--so much so that some believe it might be bugged. Hockey YouTuber Nasher says he's tried more than 500 times but hasn't been able to do it. He even created a "dangler" build to give himself a greater chance, but it still isn't working for him.

For what it's worth, EA Sports said players should expect The Michigan to be an extremely difficult deke to pull off in NHL 21 to replicate the high degree of difficult of the real-life move. The studio has said it will use feedback from the closed tech test to tune this deke specifically, so whatever experience you get in the tech test may not reflect the final game.

Total War: Three Kingdoms is getting a massive free update soon, and it'll bring many additions and changes to the game. Update 1.6.0 will introduce new playable character Shi Xie, along with unique faction mechanics, as well as a map rework, a new unit type, and much more.

The update will arrive alongside the game's next DLC, The Furious Wild, on September 3. Shi Xie will be playable in 190 CE and 194 CE start dates, and comes with two unique mechanics: Splendor and Tribute Chests. Splendor "can be gained by smuggling family members into important court positions," and provides the player with bonuses relative to the court positions their family members hold. Tribute chests can be unlocked with splendor, and will provide bonuses for 20 turns.

Shi Xie will bring multiple members of his family with him, including three brothers and five sons.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is adding cross-play support between Xbox One and PC in a future update, and now developer 343 Industries has shared some details on how it will work and what's being done to ensure a fair experience.

Technical designer Dana Jerpback said in a blog post that there will be input-based matchmaking for certain playlists. "We are looking at input-based matchmaking being implemented at the playlist level. This allows us to have more control on where we do and don’t separate players into sub-groups," Jerpback said.

"Basically, what that means in terms of implementation, in certain playlists, players will be locked to a given input, and we will have a couple of different knobs we can tune to alter this experience over time," the developer added.

Madden NFL 21 didn't have the smoothest release. As with many of the previous years' releases, this year's Madden was criticized by many reviewers, including here at GameSpot, for its bugs and oddities.

EA has now reiterated that launch is just the beginning for the game. "Madden NFL is a live service and longtime players know that launch is just the start of the annual Madden journey," EA said in a blog post.

To that end, Title Update 2 came out with the game's official release on August 28, and it includes fixes for Face of the Franchise and Ultimate Team, among other areas of the game. EA is planning another, more substantial update to be released in September closer to the start of the NFL season. This patch sounds like it will provide fixes for some of Madden 21's more annoying and frustrating bugs.

Crusader Kings 3, Paradox Interactive's newest addition to its medieval strategy RPG series, is out September 1. Ahead of the launch, we've rounded up a selection of reviews to help you decide if Crusader Kings 3 is worth it.

Critics generally praised Crusader Kings 3 highly. It has everything that players loved Crusader Kings 2 for: an imaginative and expansive strategy component, coupled with an in-depth and compelling RPG element.

David Wildgoose, in GameSpot's Crusader Kings 3 review, gave the game a high score of 8/10. Wildgoose stated, "[T]he singular vision of Crusader Kings 3 [is] a grand strategy game that successfully operates across a bewildering scale, feeling vast and unknowable one moment yet awkwardly intimate the next. It's a marvel of connectivity, effectively linking together complementary elements plucked from different genres--the role-playing game, the visual novel, the life simulation, the city-builder, the wargame--even if at times you can sense it straining at the seams."

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries has shared some new details about the game's story--specifically, the studio has revealed a new enemy character. Jega 'Rdomnai is a member of The Banished, which is the evil faction of aliens in Halo Infinite. Here is how 343 summed up Jega in a post on Halo Waypoint:

"In hushed whispers throughout the ranks of the Banished, Jega ‘Rdomnai’s name is spoken of with care. The blademaster’s history is shrouded in rumor and half-truths. Some say he was an experiment, an affront to his own kind. Others make mention of a clandestine ambush gone wrong. Very few know the truth, fewer still speak of it. One thing is certain: he has hunted demons before, and as the first recruit welcomed into the Hand of Atriox, he will do so again."

Jega is further described as a "mysterious and battle-ravaged Sangheli warrior." He is one of "several" new characters that players will meet in Halo Infinite, 343 said.

September is just around the corner, which means a variety of new bugs and fish will soon begin appearing in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Unfortunately, that also means that certain species are about to leave the game, making this your last chance to catch them for the time being.

With summer winding down, a ton of different beetles and cicadas will soon disappear for Northern Hemisphere players, while Southern Hemisphere players only have a few more hours to catch dung beetles and Rajah Brooke's Birdwings. Below you can see all the bugs and fish that are leaving Animal Crossing: New Horizons today, August 31, so catch them while you can.

Fish And Bugs Leaving After August

Northern Hemisphere

Fish

Labor Day is nearly upon us, marking the unofficial end of summer and beginning of a busy fall season. To celebrate the occasion, many stores are kicking off their Labor Day sales this week, and while Labor Day promotions often tend to revolve around things like mattress deals or meal delivery discounts, you can find some pretty sweet tech and gaming deals as well. Some retailers, like Best Buy, will launch their Labor Day sales later this week, so stay tuned, as this is only the beginning of the deals. Labor Day falls on September 7 this year, so we've still got about a week for the deals to roll in. As of right now, we're seeing Labor Day deals on headphones, TVs, laptops, and more.

Note: This story will be updated with more of the best Labor Day 2020 deals as sales kick off throughout the week.

If you're a fighting game fan of a certain age, you might remember the PS1 fighting game Bushido Blade, where clashes were determined by a single decisive blow from a razor-sharp katana or rapier. If you're looking for a more modern take on that concept, the upcoming Die By The Blade might be just what you're looking for.

As shown in a recent gameplay presentation, Die By The Blade is a 3D fighting game where every hit has the potential to end the fight. Players circle endlessly around one another, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, and it looks quite impressive, especially considering it's under development from a very small team. The game is currently scheduled for a 2021 release, with a Kickstarter that will launch in October No word yet if it will include an unlockable character with a gun, as Bushido Blade did.

The Nintendo Switch is home to some fantastic fighting games, including Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Collection and Mortal Kombat 11, and now it's getting a brand new fight stick. 8Bitdo is known for its retro-style controllers, and it revealed its first fight stick. The 8Bitdo arcade stick costs $90 and features Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless, and wired USB-C connection modes. The fight stick releases on October 20, and if you're interested in picking it up, you can pre-order it from Amazon right now.

The 8Bitdo arcade stick works with both Nintendo Switch and PC and is compatible with 8Bitdo's button remapping software. You can flip between Switch and PC modes on the fly, and while this serves a functional purpose, it's also represented visually. The stick displays its button designations right above or below the buttons, and when you switch modes, the mappings will change. For example, RT and LT replace ZR and ZL respectively, while the face buttons swap places from the Switch's layout to their positioning on an Xbox One controller.

According to 8Bitdo, its arcade stick is also "ultra-moddable." The company notes that it is designed with a universal joystick plate, making it compatible with a wide number of parts.

ScourgeBringer will be leaving Steam Early Access and officially launching on October 21. At the same time, the game will be released on Nintendo Switch and Xbox One. ScourgeBringer will be available through Xbox Game Pass for PC on day one as well.

A new trailer teased the different areas and diverse enemy types that will be available in ScourgeBringer on day one. Embedded below, the trailer showcases The Entangled Ingress, The Still Bastion, The Wasted Pit, The Living Walls, The Old World, and two secret, possibly optional areas. The first is called The Beyond while the latter remains unnamed--we'll likely have to discover it for ourselves when ScourgeBringer officially launches.

Developed by Flying Oak Games and published by Dear Villagers, ScourgeBringer is a fast-paced action platformer with a roguelike gameplay loop. You play as Kyhra, the latest person to enter a mysterious monolith in order to stop the end of the world, only to discover a constantly changing dungeon full of monsters and alien-looking machines.

EA Play (formerly known as EA Access) is now live on Steam, so if you've been looking to hop into any EA titles using PC's most popular storefront, now's the time.

Subscribers can get in on EA Play for $5 USD a month, or $30 USD for a full year. Your subscription will give you access to members-only benefits like in-game challenges, members-only events, other exclusive content, and a 10% discount on EA digital purchases through Steam. This discount will work on full games, new releases, pre-orders, expansions, game packs, and points.

Let's face it: nobody likes cheaters. PUBG Corp certainly doesn't. According to a recent tweet, the free downloadable game PUBG Mobile banned a staggering 2 million accounts from August 20 to 27, along with nearly 1.5 million devices. As the breakdown image attached to the tweet reveals, 32% of players were banned for using x-ray vision, 27% used auto-aim, 12% used speed hacks, and 22% were banned for unspecified reasons.

PUBG Mobile recently announced its 1.0 update, along with a $2 million esports tournament. That update will bring up to a 36% improvement in frame rate and a 76% reduction in lag, according to a press release from Tencent. According to Sensor Tower's estimates, the game "has doubled its lifetime revenue in just over seven months to more than $3 billion globally." The Chinese version of the game, titled Game For Peace, is responsible for the majority of the revenue, with the United States coming in second. PUBG Mobile will also add New Erangel to the game in the coming weeks.

Rockstar recently meted out punishment to players who took advantage of a well-known glitch in GTA Online, and as a result, some players are deeply unhappy. The loophole in question is known as the apartment/garage glitch, and it allows players to amass in-game fortunes after they purchase properties and navigate through a specific set of menu options.

In late August, Rockstar reset a number of accounts that exploited the glitch. Though not a ban, an account reset means that all players affected not only lose all money, but also vehicles purchased and levels achieved. Players with reset accounts will need to start from scratch.

In response to the news, players on Twitter have been sharing their grievances and thoughts. Some argued that Rockstar went too far by resetting accounts entirely instead of just wiping bank accounts. Others commented that players who took advantage of the glitch should've known a punishment was likely.