October 2020

Third-party add-on developer SamScene3D has released its previously-announced Hong Kong City Times add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The add-on comes with a beautiful rendition of the major landmarks and districts of the city and even comes with an optional improvement for Hong Kong International Airport.

You can find it here and below you can watch a trailer and read a list of features (Sic).

Ubisoft shared a blog post today explaining how cross-progression, cross-play, and backwards compatibility will work for certain games once next-gen consoles arrive. It’s an informative read, but one thing that stands out is that a handful of the publisher’s PlayStation 4 catalog, including several Assassin’s Creed games, won’t be playable on PlayStation 5. 

While all Ubisoft Xbox One games will be backwards compatible on Xbox Series X/S, the same won't be true for the following PlayStation 4 games on Playstation 5:

Beyond Good and Evil 2 was finally announced after years of rumors during E3 2017, and while we've had a few additional looks at the game since then, it's been mostly quiet on the Ubisoft front. With the recent events of game creator/director Michel Ancel leaving the games industry altogether, for reasons that seem more complicated than what was first revealed, the future of the sequel doesn't seem as bright as many fans had hoped. 

During a recent earnings call (which also revealed the delay of Far Cry 6 and Rainbow Six Quarantine), Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot assured investors that the game is not stuck in development hell and that it is "progressing well." 

Despite losing such a key name as part of the development process with Ancel's departure, Guillemot promised that "The game is progressing well. The world is really fantastic. As you can see, Netflix also decided to take that universe and create a movie with it. So there's a lot of progress in that team and the game is coming along very well." 

With the imminent release of Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the Game Informer crew sat down with Bill Rosemann, Marvel Games' Vice President & Head of Creative, to discuss and explore the comic book origins and inspirations behind Insomniac's upcoming PlayStation exclusive. Specifically, Bill shares how the team found a natural fit by focusing on an older Peter Parker and younger Miles Morales within the same story, talks about the importance of representation within Marvel-based media, and how it all goes back to the genesis of Miles and the intended purpose behind his creation less than a decade ago.

Additionally, the Marvel Games vice president recommends the best comic books to learn more about Miles Morales and his supporting characters, as well as shares one of his favorite moments from The Amazing Spider-Man issue #33 and how it encapsulates the spirit of not only Marvel Comics, but the fast-approaching Spider-Man: Miles Morales video game.

Watch Dogs: Legion is out and highly interactive adventure is all about hackers, revolution, and the freedom to play how you want. In a clever marketing move from Ubisoft, Watch Dogs: Legion is hacking its way over onto other Ubisoft big games like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and more. 

Our own keen-eyed Brian Shea noticed something was a little off with Assassin's Creed Odyssey's cover art when looking through his gaming library and upon that discovery, there was a rabbit hole of hilarious marketing and Watch Dog crossovers to be found. 

Watch Dogs: Legion places the player smack dab in the middle of a near-future London where they will join the resistance. Unlike the previous two games, there is no main protagonist. Instead, players can recruit from hundreds of NPCs, all with their own skills, personalities, and even voice lines. Hacking, as is the franchise's staple, is key and what better way to showcase that than to have Ubisoft's latest game "hack" all others? 

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October is coming to an end, which means a new month ahead filled with even more games to enjoy. With the launch of next-gen gaming with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, November is an exciting month for diving into fresh adventures. Though some titles have been delayed, here are the biggest games releasing in November 2020. 

Whether you fancy yourself a Viking conqueror in Assassin's Creed Valhalla or want to try your hand as a crime boss in the latest Yakuza game, November has a plethora of gaming experiences to choose from. When looking to allocate your time (and your wallet), here is everything you need to know about the month ahead. 

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R, the 2012 update to a game originally released in 2002, is currently testing a patch on Steam (developed in part by a controversial figure in the fighting game community) that improves online play in a big way. This has led to a huge influx of players, completely shattering the…

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There are at least two familiar faces it could be

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The NieR Replicant White Snow Edition comes with a Grimoire pin set, script set, OST, Steelbook case, all in a Lunar Tear Collector's Box.

The post NieR Replicant White Snow Edition Video Gives a Closer Look at What’s Included appeared first on Siliconera.

Update (11/02/20): The original version of this story referenced the film having a "backdrop of GamerGate," and being "about women in esports and GamerGate."  Game Informer received an email from BuzzFeed Studios PR saying these statements are factually incorrect, so we have removed those specific mentions of GamerGate.  

Original Story: Video game films are largely regulated to pure adaptations of existing games. Once in a while, though, you get films like 1UP, which uses gaming as a backdrop to tell a more personable story. The underdog comedy begins production this winter and centers on women in esports, and the sexism that often surround it. 

Per The Hollywood Reporter, the upcoming film stars Paris Berelc (Hubie Halloween, Alexa & Katie) as Vivian Lee, an eSports player who quits her college team after enduring sexist behavior from her male teammates. At the risk of losing her scholarship, though, she’s forced to assemble her own team led by an “enigmatic coach” played by Ellen Page (The Umbrella Academy, Juno). 

Seriously, look how big his head is there. That thing is huge. Is this a bad photoshop, or is his head four feet closer to the camera than the rest of his body? Sorry, this has been the only thing on my mind since yesterday when I bought that Legend of Zelda NES cartridge ornament from Hallmark and saw this movie being advertised on the page. As much as I fantasize about Brandon Routh as a hot fireman -- and I do -- he always has a normal-size head in those fantasies.

Of course, Mr. Brain & Nerve Tonic up there is starring in just one of the many Christmas movies the Hallmark Channel has already begun shotgunning into its viewers' faces. If you're super into these movies like my parents, this is the best time of year because it finally gives you something to watch that probably won't have any commercials telling you to vote, which you know deep down are just commercials telling you to vote for Joe Biden. But if you're like me, you're just in it for the pictures of the dead-eyed white people on the promo page. There's even going to be a gay couple in one of the movies this year, but sadly, there are no pictures up for it yet, robbing us of the opportunity to see the lifeless expression of One Tree Hill's Robert Buckley.

What does any of this have to do with getting some questions for the Podtoid crew? Nothing really. I just love making fun of this shit. But if you have some questions for us, we'd love to see them in the comments below. The more creative the question, the more likely it is we'll ask it on the show.

Netflix’s new anime-ish action series plays fast and loose with ancient storytelling

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The big selling point of Watch Dogs: Legion is that just about any character you encounter in its futuristic open-world London setting can be added to your squad of hackers, provided you put in the work. But anybody who's taken a profiler out onto the street knows that there are a lot of people who wouldn't be all that helpful to DedSec as it fights fascism and organized crime. Some people are more talented and more useful than others, and finding them is a job unto itself.

There are some shortcuts you can take, though. If you know where to look and you're willing to put in the effort, you can grab some high-quality recruits. Legion also helps out by making good recruits a little easier to come by at points. But really, the trick is to build a well-rounded team that can fill a lot of roles. To get that, you'll want to explore London and learn where you can find different kinds of people with a variety of perks and weapon loadouts.

We've compiled a few quick tips that can help you get a quality DedSec team together without spending hours profiling every Londoner walking down the street. Here's what you need to know to get good hackers, drivers, and brawlers in short order to build your resistance. We've also got a bunch of tips for starting out in Legion that'll help you build your resistance.

With the launch of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S coming up very soon, people understandably want to know which system is right for them, which dovetails with the contentious "console war" debates about which plastic box is better than the other plastic box.

It's well and good to get all the information and make an informed decision about which console to buy, since we're talking about hundreds of dollars. But at the end of the day, we should remember that the big three--Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo--are all playing different games, measuring success differently, and succeeding in their own ways. As a result, the idea of a console war is sillier and less productive than ever.

There are plenty of reasons to be excited about the launch of the new consoles this year, and this post will round up some of them. Of course, you may not be excited about or interested in next-gen, and there are plenty of very good reasons to hold off buying a shiny new PlayStation or Xbox until 2021. But this story aims to highlight what gaming is doing right in 2020.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Halloween event is nearly upon us, but some players are creating events of their own. They're using Animal Crossing as a way to trick-or-treat since it isn't safe to go house-to-house in real life.

Players had already turned their islands into haunted houses and used the new skin tones from the Fall update to make elaborate costumes, so it's only natural that they would turn to the game to replace trick-or-treating. While some players simply plan to open their gates to let people in, others have started Discord servers to organize wider community events.

Animal Crossing's Halloween event runs from 5 PM to 12 AM on October 31. Players can give candy to their villagers and Jack, a special visitor, and receive in-game rewards. Other players can participate in the event, similarly to how they could with the summer fireworks, by visiting their friend's islands.

In this week's Grand Theft Auto V Online update, extraterrestrial Halloween-themed activities are in full swing. You'll get double payouts from Alien Survivals, Business Battles, and Gruesome Adversary modes.

A new Business Battle event featuring Merryweather agents in Fort Zancudo also takes place this week. Players will need to take out the agents and make off with any alien technology found. Upon winning any Event Business Battle, players will also receive a free Cultstoppers Tee.

If you want more free T-shirts, log in anytime this week and get perks like the Butchery and Other Hobbies Tee, the Knife After Dark Tee, and the Orange Dot Tech Mask. In the Diamond Casino & Resort's Lucky Wheel, a Blazing Death Albany Fränken Stange is up for grabs as the top prize.

NHL 94 Rewind, the retro-inspired hockey game mode that takes the current NHL roster and throws them into the trappings of NHL 94 but with modern controls, is now available for those who preordered NHL 21 on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.

NHL 21 launched on October 16, and those who preordered can now take their skills into the retro-styled throwback mode. All current NHL players will take on 16-bit styled graphics while retaining the controls featured in the main NHL 21 game.

Publisher EA said that those who missed the preorder period but still want NHL 94 Rewind can get the mode sometime this holiday. An exact release date has not been announced yet. EA said more details on how to get NHL 94 Rewind will be revealed in "early December."

Gears Pop, Microsoft's mobile and PC Gears of War spin-off, is shutting down. You'll have until April 26, 2021 to enjoy the game's mix of Clash Royale and Gears characters before the servers go offline.

Developed by Fall Guys creators Mediatonic, Gears Pop Was part of a push from Microsoft to diversify the genres its core franchises appeared in. The mobile game was announced alongside Gears Tactics in 2018--a XCOM spin on the Gears formula--before launching in 2019.

A post on the game's official website apologized for having to shut down the game so soon, stating that a lot more goes in maintaining a multiplayer title than just keeping the servers online.

It was the final Call of Duty: Warzone circle and Redditor otbdotcom and his teammate were the only ones breathing clean air on the map. Every other corner of Verdansk was covered in deadly gas, but another player was still alive.

A few seconds passed and the gas closed in and killed both otbdotcom and their partner, giving the win to the hidden player. They were hiding in the train station using what Warzone players call the "stim glitch," where they use an item that refills their health an infinite amount of times until they win the game.

"I'd tell you to report these players but it's not gonna change anything," otbdotcom wrote. "I found these two on the Call of Duty app and they won 3 games tonight with 0 kills...pathetic."

After unveiling and rolling out Ubisoft Connect--the combination of the Ubisoft Club and Uplay services--the company has detailed some of the games that support cross-generational play.

Ubisoft said that For Honor and Rainbow Six Siege feature cross-gen support, meaning anyone who owns these games can play together on the same console family. Cross-gen won't work if you're playing on PlayStation 5 and your friend is playing on PC or Xbox One. Ubisoft confirmed that more details on cross-gen play will be revealed "in the near future."

The company also said that Rainbow Six Siege will support cross-progression between current- and next-gen consoles as long as players are transferring their data between the same console family. It's possible to carry data over from PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5 or Xbox One to Xbox Series S / Series X but not between PlayStation and Xbox consoles. The same sort of cross-progression support (and restrictions) are also be applied to For Honor.

With the weekly reset on November 3, we'll be in the final week of Destiny 2 before the launch of Beyond Light. This weekend marks your last chance to finish up the Festival of the Lost activities, and the penultimate visit by Exotics vendor Xur in the Season of Arrivals. Head to Titan, to the The Rig area, to find Xur this week. For his weapon, Xur is offering Skyburner's Oath. Hunters can pick up the Ophidia Spathe chest armor; for Titans, there's the Eternal Warrior helmet; and for Warlocks, Xur has the Transversive Steps leg armor.

Xur Location

Use the Titan transmat zone on The Rig and hop on your sparrow, heading east along the edge of the platform. After passing under some scaffolding, look for a low building on the edge of the platform on your left. Inside the dark structure, you'll find Xur, enjoying the shadows.

Genshin Impact, the popular-open world gacha-based RPG, will be playable on PS5 via backwards compatibility. The upcoming Version 1.1 update, titled A New Star Rises, will add next-gen compatibility capability, along with brand-new quests--concluding the Liuye stage of the main storyline--and four new playable characters. A New Star Rises releases on November 11.

Of those new characters, two are 5-star, including Childe and Zhongli. Childe is a Hydro archer that can switch between long-range and melee attacks. Zhongli is a Geo polearm that can deal damage in large areas, cast strong defenses, and petrify enemies. The other two new characters, Xinyan and Diona, are 4-star and not much has been revealed about the duo. From character images, it appears Xinyan might have a music-based attack in her arsenal.

Sony has revealed the full lineup of games that will hit PlayStation Now starting in November. The crop, which includes Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Rage 2, is available for all subscribers to Sony's cloud gaming service. Check below for the full list of PS Now games.

The headliners are the racing simulator F1 2020, DC Comics-based fighter Injustice 2, and post-apocalyptic first-person shooter Rage 2. All three games will be available on November 3.

Also joining the aforementioned titles are the action-RPG and life simulator My Time at Portia, as well as historical-RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance and co-op survival action game Warhammer: Vermintide 2. All of these games will be on PS Now for the foreseeable future with the exception of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which is only available until May 3, 2021.

On this week's bittersweet episode of GameSpot After Dark, Jake and Kallie are joined by GameSpot Australia's Edmond Tran and Jess McDonell for their last day at GameSpot. Though they're leaving the team, they're not leaving our hearts and minds--and yes, we got the sappy stuff out of the way early so we could have a laugh and talk about new games, old games, and very new consoles.

CRPG expert Jess gives her impressions of Baldur's Gate 3, then Kallie and Jess talk about how incredible Persona 5 Royal is before Ed and Jake give their thoughts on the newly released Watch Dogs: Legion. Oh, and Cyberpunk 2077 was delayed again. We don't spend too much time on that one.

The main event this episode is, of course, that we can now talk a little bit about PS5 and Xbox Series X|S! Jake has a Series X, Kallie has a PS5, Jess' roommate has a Series S, and Ed wins with hands-on time with all three. While we still can't talk about too much, Ed shares his early impressions of PS5 pack-in Astro's Playroom.

Apex Legends Season 7: Ascension begins on November 4 and introduces a brand-new map (Olympus) as well as a playable legend called Horizon. After getting hands-on time with both, we finally know what Horizon's abilities are.

Horizon's passive ability, Spacewalk, increases her air control and prevents her from being stunned upon falling from great heights. Her tactical ability, Gravity Lift, throws out a device that temporarily reverses gravity, allowing her to send herself, allies, enemies, or the new Trident vehicles flying into the air. Finally, Horizon's ultimate ability, Black Hole, sees her create a micro black hole that sucks in all nearby players.

Horizon isn't the only thing mixing up Apex Legends in Season 7 either--far from it. I sat down with Apex Legends game director Chad Grenier to talk about how Horizon fits into the in-match meta, as well as the new in-game clubs, Trident vehicle, and character balancing changes coming in Season 7.

Borderlands 3 is getting even more content for its second season pass, and a recent Borderlands Show stream laid out the plans in detail. A newly revealed Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition will include all the content from both season passes, along with some new cosmetics.

The first addition is coming on November 10 with the new Arms Race mode, part of the Designer's Cut expansion. That expansion also includes a new set of skill trees for all four Vault Hunters. Both the Designer's Cut and another expansion coming next spring, the Director's Cut, is included with Season Pass 2.

To sweeten the pot, Gearbox is adding a new set of cosmetics called the Multiverse Final Form cosmetic packs. Rather than mere recolors, these are entirely different character models. Like your regular character models, they can be customized with the usual bodies, heads, and skins. The new cosmetics are included if you already own the Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition or the original Season Pass.

Just like the original Spider-Man, Miles Morales will have plenty of costumes to try out and wear in his own solo game on PS5. Miles Morales: Spider-Man has already shown off the regular costume that the young hero will wear, the TRACK suit designed by artist Javiar Garron, and the Crimson Cowl suit which gives Miles a fashionable hoodie.

Insomniac Games revealed yet another superhero suit for Miles, which will be instantly familiar to anyone who saw the hero's big-screen debut in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Not just a faithful reproduction of that costume, donning this outfit will actually replicate the look and feel of that film, emulating the 12 FPS animation style that Miles was rendered in for most of that film. Fortunately, for those with accessibility concerns, this animation style can be disabled, as the effect is a suit mod you can deactivate, according to Insomniac's James Stevenson.

Insomniac also tweeted that the Spider-Verse costume can be unlocked in the game by anyone and won't be a preorder exclusive. Preordering Miles Morales simply gets you quicker access to the suit.