November 2020

Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment released the patch notes for the game’s upcoming Season 7 Ascension, and contains big and small changes to the battle royale title.

Already announced as coming in the giant update is Horizon, the latest character who can bend gravity to her will, and the newest map Olympus with various ways to get around including vehicles.

Players will be able to play the Olympus map immediately since it will be the only map in rotation for two weeks, then will change to Olympus and World’s Edge with King’s Canyon vaulted “for the time being.” There will also be a one-week limited-time mode that allows players to explore the new map at their leisure.

The Trident vehicle will be exclusive to the Olympus map, and is more for transportation than as a tank. It cannot explode, but damage taken will disperse between the people inside the vehicle.

The battle pass also received an overhaul with simplified progression. Each level consists of 10 stars, and players can earn stars by completing daily or weekly challenges with every 10,000 XP earning one star.

Other characters received slight changes such as Caustic’s gas no longer blurring vision but has increased damage and ammo not counting towards Loba’s Black Market ability limit. Pathfinder continues to be tinkered with with slightly chunkier hitboxes and his grappling hook’s speed increased and cooldown period slightly decreased.

Fortnite’s latest update has enraged some pro players and others in the competitive scene following the removal of ‘Double Movement,’ alongside adding in new jetpacks, cosmetics and XP challenges.

Double Movement was a method used by mouse and keyboard players where they assign each movement direction to two keys. It’s supposed to give mouse and keyboard players the movement advantages that come with using a controller with two analog sticks. Here’s a handy video to help explain it in more detail.

However, since the release of Fortnite’s v14.50 update, Double Movement keybinds no longer appear to be effective. Players can still assign two keys with the same directional movement, but it no longer has the same, desired effect.

In the same hand that Epic taketh away, they also giveth. New jetpacks were added into Fortnite that have been improved since they last featured in the Battle Royale title, and as per usual, a number of new cosmetics such as the Ghost Rider skin were added into the game as part of the v14.50 update.

Finally, there’s a few new bonus challenges that will release later in the week that were added into the game in the update. These will certainly come in handy for players trying to wrap up those last shiny foil styles for your Battle Pass characters.

Starting today you can now purchase a Godzilla costume in Mediatonic’s hit party battle royale game, Fall Guys. The costume should be available in the store today and will cost a total of 10 Crowns. Apparently, this announcement coincides with Godzilla day, which is a celebration filled with announcements related to the Godzilla brand.

Now, this Godzilla costume won’t give you atomic breath or healing abilities, but you’ll look really menacing, maybe.

Devolver Digital released a gameplay trailer of the new costume in action. You can check it out down below:

I for one can’t wait to hop online in Fall Guys to see everyone wearing the costume. It’ll probably look a little something like this tweeted image from the Fall Guys Twitter account:

The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of bite-sized gaming experiences from developer Supermassive Games, with each installment tackling a different subgenre of horror. The latest, Little Hope, came out just in time for Halloween

Players are given the ability to influence events that affect the way these stories ultimately end, with all of the cast or none of them surviving, or any conceivable combination in between.

The Dark Pictures began with Man of Medan, which is set aboard a ghostly ship and sees a group of trust-fund kids attempting to make it through the night, as they are beset by madness and otherworldly apparitions.

Little Hope, meanwhile, sees a group of survivors stranded in a Silent Hill-esqe town in which a series of brutal witch trials took place during its colonial past, and from where they cannot escape.

There are a total of eight entries planned, and the next installment, House of Ashes, was briefly teased at the end of Little Hope (as Little Hope was at the end of Man of Medan) and looks to have a military/monster theme ala Alien or Predator, although we don’t have much to go on yet.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo

Continue reading…

Don’t hurt ’em!

Continue reading…

The 1979 movie and the new CGI story showcase the same version of an iconic character

Continue reading…

The tracks arrive on the 6th anniversary of the miniseries

Continue reading…

Love them or leave them, microtransactions are clearly paying off for Activision Blizzard because in a recent earnings call it was confirmed that the company netted over $1.2 billion in revenue due to this monetary feature. 

Despite recent controversies and uncertainty within the Blizzard community, the previous quarter was a fruitful one for the company. With over $1.95 billion in revenue overall between July through September, $1.2 billion accounted for microtransaction sales alone. The massive surge in additional monetary value comes from many franchises, but it was Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare that netted the most. 

“Our teams continue to execute our growth plans with excellence during incredibly challenging circumstances,” said Bobby Kotick, Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard. “We are on a path to deliver sustained long-term growth across our fully-owned franchises. With confidence in our ability to continue to execute, we are raising our outlook for the year and remain enthusiastic for our growth prospects next year.”

BioWare sticks true to their patterns by making us overwhelmingly want for every crumb they drop our way, especially in regards to those illustrious Mass Effect trilogy remaster reports. The Mass Effect trilogy, which ended in March 2012 (but never in our hearts), continues to be a reigning staple in the RPG world. With Commander Shepard – the undeniably strong hero facing tremendous odds, companions that burrow their way into your heart, and a storyline that is as epic as the characters brought into it – BioWare gave a true gift with this epic franchise. If you're a hardcore fan like I am, you'll be excited to find out that the original trilogy cast is reuniting for a special N7 Day panel! 

Jennifer Hale brought the iconic Commander Shepard to life as the female version of our beloved protagonist, and she couldn't wait to share the good news about the crew reuniting once more: 

When Devil May Cry 5 first released in 2019, Capcom's newest entry in the long-running series continued the tradition of engaging combo-based combat alongside another wild story featuring Dante, Nero, and more! Flash forward to this year and fans of the series will get another friend to cause chaos with as Vergil is finally entering the fray. Join Jeff Cork, Joe Juba, and me as we show off how the PlayStation 5 enhances Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition and discuss why Vergil is a fun new addition that fans should be excited for!

Players looking to dive back into the world of angels and demons don't have long to wait, as the game launches on November 10 for Xbox Series X and November 12 for the PlayStation 5. If you're sticking with the current-gen machines, fear not, as Vergil will become available to you in the form of DLC on December 15!

Bethesda revealed its new IP Starfield back in 2018 as a small tease to prove to fans that the company wasn't abandoning single-player adventures following Fallout 76 concerns. While the teaser had many intrigued, it was the barest of teasers that left so many wanting more. While we still don't have a concrete account of what Starfield will have to offer, director Todd Howard did recently share a few more details about the new game. 

In a recent interview with GameIndustry.biz (via Reddit) during the Brighton Digital Conference, Howard teased a few more details about the new IP. For those concerned, the Bethesda exec confirmed that there will be no multiplayer aspects to this singleplayer adventure. He also revealed that this, like The Elder Scrolls VI, will focus on procedural generation as well to help create life within the game's settings, and that the universe of Starfield will be so much larger than Fallout 76. That's no small feat, given that Fallout 76 is four times the size of Skyrim. 

Halloween’s over. The pumpkins are packed away, the witches hats back in the wardrobe, but that doesn’t mean the scares should end, right? This weekend, the indie spooksters working under the Haunted PS1 movement released their latest compilation, C.H.A.I.N. – a compilation of 20 wildly varied haunt ’em ups from over 20 developers, Frankenstein’d together for free into a single winding narrative anthology.

(more…)

Apex Legends places a lot of emphasis on its wide array of guns and attachments, but just as much on its selection of Armor and Gear. Helmets, Body Shields, Backpacks, and Knockdown Shields are essential items to find across the map; and each type of Gear gives you a distinct and significant advantage for the rest of the game. Our Apex Legends Gear and Armor guide will walk you through the stats, effects, and little-known quirks surrounding each piece of Gear you can find in a match.

(more…)

Given how much Respawn like to change around their repository of Apex Legends attachments, it can be difficult to keep track of which attachments are in the game, which are gone, and which to prioritise while looting up. But fear not – our Season 7 Apex Legends attachments guide will walk you through every single attachment in Apex Legends, with up-to-date descriptions and stats on each one.

(more…)

Our Apex Legends guns & weapons guide will walk you through all 24 weapons in Respawn’s phenomenal battle royale one by one, along with detailed stats and opinions, and even a tier list ranking all of the best guns within their respective classes. All up to date as of Season 7! Ain’t that swell?

(more…)

Your Apex Legends loadout should be something you’re constantly thinking about over the course of a match. Out of over 20 unique guns in Apex Legends, you can only hold two at any given time. It’s a design choice that forces you to constantly reassess your needs, and make sure you pick the right tools for the task ahead. Our Apex Legends loadout guide will walk you through some of the top loadouts that’ll allow you to kick off Season 7 with a bang.

(more…)

In a new virtual ‘fireside chat’, Blizzard head honcho J. Allen Brack has given an update on the success of their anti-toxicity systems. They’ve been using machine learning to help combat abusive chat and bad behaviour in Overwatch and Heroes Of The Storm for a while, and recently brought the system to World Of Warcraft’s public channels. It sounds like a success there too. Brack also announced that the next BlizzCon, which is online-only, will be free for everyone to watch.

(more…)

While next year’s Awesome Games Done Quick won’t be held in-person, the charity speedrunning event is still going ahead, and it looks like it has some brilliant runs in store. AGDQ 2021’s game list was revealed over the weekend, and oooh January can’t come soon enough. From the new mythological roguelike Hades and charmingly difficult platformer Celeste, to old favourites like Half-Life and Left 4 Dead 2; there are some absolute belters in the lineup.

(more…)

Once upon a time, seven dwarves set out into the jungle with the simple dream of constructing an underground chimp jail. You can’t write sentences like that about most games. But in the context of Dwarf Fortress, the legendary world simulator under permanent construction by programmer Tarn Adams and his brother Zach, it is a perfectly reasonable statement.

Dwarf Fortress is my favourite game. And since it’s essentially a machine for generating weird fantasy stories, it’s even more fun to narrate than it is to actually play. Hence my previous diary series – The Basement Of Curiosity – which concerned the aforementioned chimp zoo. After a lengthy 25-episode run, the Basement finally came to an end on camera, at this year’s EGX Digital event. And while I won’t spoil its conclusion, I strongly recommend you watch it for yourself, right here. The ending will… surprise you.

My favorite part of Genshin Impact isn’t the exploration, or the combat, or the characters. It’s the food. I love entering new areas in the fictionalized world of Teyvat and discovering ingredients and recipes.

Read more...

Most families looking for a distraction from all the chaos of 2020 have brought a new pet into their lives. Little did my family know that we’d be taking a different route when Sideshow Collectibles sent its new Mandalorian life-sized the Child (aka Baby Yoda) replica to join our brood. Life with a Force-wielding…

Read more...

The Fujifilm X-T200 camera and Ulta Caboodles beauty boxes lead Tuesday’s best deals.

Read more...

When the music video ruled the world, it seemed like everything wanted to be one: movies, TV intros, commercials, and eventually voting PSAs. In 1990, a voter-registration campaign called Rock the Vote began sexifying the concept of voting to MTV viewers. The initiative lifted off with the help of two cultural rocket…

Read more...

Baby Yoda Design-a-Planter | $9 | Amazon

Read more...

Rayne will be back this month, as she'll be fighting otherworldly evil in enhanced BloodRayne Terminal Cut editions on PCs.

The post BloodRayne Terminal Cut Steam Pages Appear appeared first on Siliconera.

With embargoes lifted, looks at Devil May Cry 5 Vergil gameplay on PS5s are beginning to trickle in, showing off new modes and 4K footage.

The post Here’s What Devil May Cry 5 Vergil Gameplay Looks Like on a PS5 appeared first on Siliconera.

Devil May Cry 5 is already a special game in the hearts of many, but the next-gen version is about to get even more special thanks to the addition of everyone’s favorite blue-clad brooding son of Sparda, Vergil. I got to play the PlayStation 5 version of DMC5 Special Edition to give him a test drive, and while he feels very similar to previous iterations, Vergil’s got more than a few tricks up his sleeves.

If you’ve played as Vergil in previous Devil May Cry special editions, especially his iteration from Devil May Cry 4, you’ll feel right at home with DMC 5’s version. For those unfamiliar, he uses three weapons: his trusty Yamato sword, the Beowulf gauntlets introduced in Devil May Cry 3, and the Mirage Edge, which is virtually the same as the Force Edge that he used in Devil May Cry 4. He also has a unique mechanic called Concentration, which rewards the player for playing Vergil in a way that suits his confident, stoic, and elitist personality.

[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=devil-may-cry-5-special-edition-playstation-5-showcase-screenshots&captions=true"]

You see, Vergil is not the kind of character that would just rush head into action like Dante or Nero would. He’s calm, collected, and above all else, precise in his movements and strikes. As such, if you’re standing still or walking slowly towards your enemies, the concentration meter will start to fill. If you start running around, missing wildly, or get hit, the gauge will plummet. The higher your concentration, the more effective each of your weapons become: the range and damage of Yamato will increase, Beowulf will be able to charge up an additional level to deal massive damage, and the Mirage Edge will take on multi-hit properties.

Bloober Team's mysterious psychological horror title The Medium has seemingly fallen foul of Australia's notoriously stringent ratings system. A listing on the Australian government's classification database shows that The Medium received a "Refused Classification" rating when submitted to the board back in July.

According to a report by Kotaku, Neither Bloober Team nor the Classification Board has come forward with a reason as to why The Medium did not make the grade. While it could be that a simple admin error was made in the title's submission, Australia is notoriously strict on video game ratings, often censoring or outright banning adult video games for minor infractions, particularly the use of drugs. Over the years, many titles have been troubled by Australian censors, including South Park: The Stick of Truth, Hotline Miami 2, Silent Hill: Homecoming, The Witcher 2, and DayZ.

The Medium is definitely one of the most interesting early releases on the new Xbox platform. So here's hoping that this is merely a small submission error, and that Australian horror fans will have the opportunity to enjoy The Medium in all of its mind-warping glory when it launches, December 10, on PC and Xbox Series X.

An Xbox Series X console exclusive has been refused classification [Kotaku]

Happy Godzilla Day, Destructoid! And what better way to celebrate the King of the Monsters than by stomping all over your fellow competitiors in Mediatonic's battle royale phenomenon Fall Guys...

...Well, you could always replay Destroy All Monsters, but just humor me.

A costume representing building-bashing lizard is now available to purchase in the Fall Guys in-game store, costing a pretty meaty 10 crowns. It looks great. He's even carrying a little car, which is a nice touch. Sadly, you can't blast opposing beans out of the way with radioactive breath, so you'll just have to keep pushing them off The Whirlygig instead.

Devolver Digital released a new trailer showcasing the Shinjuku Cultural Ambassador (no, really) in full effect. According to the publisher, the video also contains a few sneak peeks at other content coming to Fall Guys in the future, so be sure to keep those eagle eyes peeled.

2020 is Pokémon Go's most lucrative year yet, with more than $1bn in player spending notched up over its first 10 months alone.

That's according to data from Sensor Tower, which tracks mobile spending across the iOS App Store and Google Play.

This year's revenues are already up 11 per cent on 2019 with two months still to go, and up 30 per cent when comparing this year's first 10 months alone.

Read more

Microsoft is phasing out peer-to-peer (P2P) voice connections for Xbox party chat to beef up security.

Xbox engineer Bill Ridmann took to the Xbox One subreddit (thanks, PureXbox) to respond to a user who issued a warning to the new wave of Rainbow Six Siege Xbox players sparked by the competitive multiplayer shooter's arrival on Game Pass.

"With Rainbow Six Siege now on GamePass, here's a reminder to not accept random party invites!" redditor KinoTheMystic wrote.

Read more

Today Sony’s Bend Studio revealed what you can expect if you run its latest game Days Gone on PS5.

According to the announcement made on Twitter, the game will run at “up to” 60 FPS with dynamic 4K resolution.

We also learn that saves will transfer to PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5.

You can check out the announcement below.

If you’re unfamiliar with Days Gone, which is currently available exclusively for PS4, you can read our review.

Below you can read an official description directly from Sony.

Developer Gun Media has today announced that three years after the game first launched, Friday the 13th’s servers are shutting down for good later in November.

Thankfully for the players, the Database Servers will remain online, which means peer-to-peer functionality and player progression will continue on.

A forum post from lead community developer Matt Shotcha explains:

All things must come to an end, eventually. And while that statement might sound ominous, there is a lot to cover and a lot of news to highlight, so please read on.

Dedicated Servers for Friday the 13th: The Game will be decommissioned in the upcoming patch, set to roll out this month, November 2020. What this means is that the game will revert back to peer to peer matchmaking for Quick Play lobbies. The Database Servers, however, will stay active and continue to house all player progression and unlocks, so users can continue to play Friday the 13th: The Game via peer to peer Quick Play and Private Matches.

The patch that will go live in November will also be the final patch for Friday the 13th: The Game. The team has been hard at work completing fixes for a long list of player issues to include in that final patch, and the community can expect finalized patch notes to be released in the week prior to the patch going live.

The official forums will be archived in a locked state, so that players can still reference the information that lives on the various boards. As for the online presence of the game and official channels, we will be switching to a more minimal approach, keeping our social media channels active for any necessary announcements only.

Today Bandai Namco released a new trailer of Dontnod Entertainment’s upcoming adventure Twin Mirror.

The trailer celebrates the opening of pre-orders on consoles, which are rolling out today for PS4 and Xbox One (The PS4 version still isn’t up at the moment of this writing, but should be soon).

You can watch it below.

If you’re unfamiliar with Twin Mirror, you can enjoy an official description below.

“Sam Higgs was done with Basswood, West Virginia, but it seems it wasn’t done with him. When the former investigative journalist returns to his hometown to say a final farewell to his best friend, it soon becomes clear that there are more chapters to be written in his troubled history.

Forced to confront his past, Sam finds himself torn between reconnecting with his loved ones and using his unique intellectual abilities to uncover the town’s dark secrets. But how do you know who to trust when you’re not even sure you can trust yourself?

The award-winning storytellers at DONTNOD invite you on another twisting adventure.

Early 2000’s third-person action-RPG franchise BloodRayne will receive enhanced versions of its first two games for PC later this month, publisher Ziggurat Interactive announced today.

The enhanced versions will be coming to Steam and GOG.com on Nov. 20, titled as BloodRayne: Terminal Cut and BloodRayne 2: Terminal Cut, and owners of the original games will receive the new versions for free.

According to the press release, the Terminal Cut versions will offer these improvements:

• Support for higher display resolutions (up to 4K / 3840×2160)
• Improved rendering with up to 4x anti-aliasing
• Upscaled cinematic videos
• Support for modern gamepads (XInput controller support)
• Improvements to lighting at engine level, plus fully reprocessed lighting data
• Engine improvements to support uncompressed original textures
• Improvements to effects such as reflections, water, fog, and shadows
• Localizations include:
  • BloodRayne: Fully voiced with localized interfaces in English, French, Italian, Spanish
  • BloodRayne 2: Localized interface and subtitles for English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
• Optimized for Windows 10

The two games originally released in 2002 and 2004 across PC, PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox. The games feature “Rayne, a brutal half-vampire femme fatale traveling the world to foil Nazi plans, battle supernatural threats, and uncover more about her vampiric heritage.”

Pokemon is extremely popular in Japan, so much that cities install special manhole covers called “Poke-Lids” representing the pokemon associated with their prefecture.

This time around, it’s time for the northern island of Hokkaido to receive four brand new Poke-lids featuring Vulpix and Alolan Vulpix in the cities of Mikasa, Tomakomai, Kamifurano, and Kenbuchi.

Vulpix and Alolan Vulpix are the specific Pokemon associated with the Hokkaido prefecture and you can see the new manholes below, alongside a picture from the unveiling presentation with the two critters in mascot form posing in front of Sapporo City Hall.

Plus, how to pop the collar side panels off

Continue reading…