September 2021

Just in time for Halloween, Dead by Daylight is getting a new survivor next month in October with the Hour of the Witch content drop. Mikaela Reid joins the ranks of the survivors as a witch! Reid writes horror stories and, not surprisingly, loves Halloween. What perks will she bring to the table? Good question. A better question – will her perks help her survive against Pinhead? Like all other survivors, Reid can be slotted with any perks to play – unlike killers that come with core signature abilities tied to their character. 

Check out the Hour of the Witch Mikaela Reid trailer below to get a look at the latest addition to the asymmetrical survivor horror game. While I enjoy playing characters with the gaudiest outfits when I play survivor, it’s often not the smartest idea. I tend to attract a lot of killer attention, and I’m a much better killer than I am a survivor. Reid has some serious style to bring to the game and is likely to get some super cool skin cosmetics as time goes on, as well.

Obviously, holidays like Halloween are likely to come with all kinds of cool things for games like Dead by Daylight. What do you expect?

Night School Studio is the team behind the beloved adventures games Oxenfree and Afterparty. But after seven years of working as an independent studio, the developer is being acquired by streaming giant Netflix. This is surprising but not a complete shock. Netflix has been working to break into the gaming industry for some time. However, this is the first time Netflix has outright acquired a game studio. 

Ghostrunner is a fun, albeit difficult, first-person action-platformer but didn’t run great on consoles when it first launched a year ago. Though patches have improved its performance on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, some non-PC players have been holding out for native PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions. The wait ends today.

What is Ghostrunner? It’s a slick cyberpunk action game that gives you a katana, sweet parkour moves, and tasks you with quickly running/leaping across cityscapes and other areas while seamlessly cutting down any foe in your way. Death can arrive as swiftly as you do, meaning you’ll need the timing and reflexes to survive increasingly elaborate platforming gauntlets filled with enemies. Being such a performance-based title, Ghostrunner’s entertainment value has always been tied to the hardware that can run it at its best, which has been PC. Now new-gen console players can enjoy a comparable experience. 

Night School Studio are "joining the Netflix team." The developers of Oxenfree and Afterparty are the first games studio to be bought by Netflix, with founder and creative director Sean Krankel writing in a blog post that they'll continue working on the in-development Oxenfree 2.

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Streaming giant Netflix has acquired Night School Studio, a developer founded by former Telltale Games employees that released Oxenfree, an intriguing supernatural mystery game, and Afterparty, a barhopping comedy journey through Hell. Though now a Netflix subsidiary, Night School Studio confirmed that Oxenfree 2‘s…

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Amazon’s new massively multiplayer online role-playing game New World opened its doors earlier today, reaching a peak of over 700,000 players. That said, not even Jeff Bezos’ piggy bank has kept the MMO’s grand debut from being plagued with the usual launch day woes, including ridiculous wait times to just play the…

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Earlier today, it was revealed that Netflix is starting to dip its toes into the water of acquiring video game development studios beginning with the acquisition of Night School Studio. The team behind critically acclaimed games like Oxenfree and Afterparty is the first to join Netflix on its journey into the gaming space.

Here’s what Night School Studio co-founder, Sean Krankel, said about joining Netflix:

Night School wants to stretch our narrative and design aspirations across distinctive, original games with heart. Netflix gives film, TV, and now game makers an unprecedented canvas to create and deliver excellent entertainment to millions of people. Our explorations in narrative gameplay and Netflix’s track record of supporting diverse storytellers was such a natural pairing. It felt like both teams came to this conclusion instinctively.

The studio behind Oxenfree and Afterparty is the first of potentially a few other studios that Netflix may want to acquire. Netflix’s VP of game development, Mike Verdu, made it clear that the gaming segment of Netflix is still in its infancy, “We’re in the early stages of creating a great gaming experience for our members around the world.” As favorably as Night School Studio’s games have been reviewed, the purchase of a single indie studio doesn’t seem to be the limits of what Netflix has planned.

Night School Studio, the developer behind acclaimed narrative adventure Oxenfree and its highly anticipated sequel, has been acquired by Netflix.

Night School has gained a reputation for creating engaging, sharply written adventures with a strong focus on narrative across the four games it's launched since its founding in 2014. After 2016's critically lauded Oxenfree, the developer released a well-received Mr. Robot tie-in, 1.51exfiltrati0n, followed by pub-crawl-through-hell adventure Afterparty and the Apple-exclusive space escapade Next Stop Nowhere. Notably, given the acquisition news, the studio was also reported to have been developing an unannounced Stranger Things project in conjunction with Telltale Games at one time, before the latter company's collapse.

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Microsoft says it will soon allow third-party storefront apps, including those of Amazon and Epic Games, to be discoverable via is Windows store.

"Just like any other app," Microsoft writes in a post announcing the new measures, "third-party storefront apps will have a product detail page that can be found via search or by browsing - so that users can easily find and install it with the same confidence as any other app in the Microsoft Store on Windows."

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Fate/Grand Order the Movie's Blu-ray will release in December and will come with an artbook, soundtrack, a rigid box, and more.

The post Fate/Grand Order the Movie Releasing on Blu-ray in December appeared first on Siliconera.

You know what my grandmother used to say? “That blasted Game Boy of yours, it’s too damn big!” She was right, the old woman was wise. And if this fictional gram were alive today maybe she’d smile upon hearing word of Thumby, a very, very small Game Boy-like device that launched a Kickstarter today. (Of course, she’d…

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Atlus is continuing to release its infinite series of trailers focusing on the over 200+ demons of its upcoming JRPG Shin Megami Tensei V.

This time around we get to see the gameplay of Take-Minakata, which has been part of the series since its debut in Shin Megami Tensei in 1992.

You can watch it below.

The Wax Artist will be able to shoot wax onto Survivors to either stop their movement or deal damage.

The post New Identity V Hunter Wax Artist Essentially Splatoons Survivors appeared first on Siliconera.

Trying to figure out how to respec in Diablo 2? A quick initiation for those who aren’t RPG diehards - respec simply refers to the process of refunding and reallocating things like skill and attribute points that are common to the genre. Respecing in many modern RPGs is a simple, repeatable process, but things aren’t quite so easy in Diablo 2: Resurrected. While you will earn a few easy respec opportunities, once you’ve used them getting another will be a fittingly grindy process. To make sure you don’t waste your chances and cripple your build, we’ll walk you through all the ways to respec your character in Diablo 2: Resurrected.

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Want to learn about RTX ray tracing in Minecraft? When you think of gorgeous graphics, Minecraft might not be the first thing that comes to mind. Sure, it has a charming aesthetic, and texture packs can make your worlds look really unique, but it isn’t very realistic. However, Nvidia have now created ray traced RTX worlds in Minecraft that will completely transform your experience.

This guide will explain everything that you need to know to get RTX ray tracing in Minecraft, including the minimum requirements for ray tracing.

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Marvel has described Insomniac's upcoming Spider-Man 2 as a "darker" follow-up to the original game.

Speaking on the latest This Week In Marvel podcast, the comics maker's creative vice president Bill Rosemann briefly discussed Insomniac's current slate of projects.

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Amazon will offer New World players free server transfers in the next two weeks, with lengthy queue times blighting the MMO's hugely popular launch.

New World launched yesterday and peaked at 707,230 concurrent players - the fifth-highest concurrents figure ever seen on Valve's platform. At one point it was the most popular game on Steam, ahead of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

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He burns his belongings.

It's hard to imagine what has happened for a man to think there are no options left other than to take a box of his stuff - a box of cherished memories, I think, although we're never formally told - and shove it into a bonfire. It's harder still to imagine how it must feel to keep doing it, over and over and over again. Does it get easier, do you think? After the second time - the tenth time, the fiftieth time, the hundredth time - does it stop hurting? Do you stop feeling it? Or does every box stuffed into the flames make your heart ache just that little bit more?

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On Wednesday, the editorial department of Big Comic announced that Takao Saito passed away on September 24 from pancreatic cancer. He was 84.

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While the PS Vita was a critical success thanks to some innovative design features and forward-thinking compatibility with the PS4, it wasn't the financial blockbuster that Sony was hoping for. Selling 18 million units through its run, the PS Vita had an OLED screen long before Nintendo upgraded its Switch console with the better display technology, it paired well with the PS4 for remote play, and it had a gaming library to be proud of.

With the PS Vita's online store almost being shut down this year, it's another reminder to grab some titles from that console's digital market before it's too late. Sony's pocket gaming machine had a terrific variety on offer, and if you're pondering which games to grab with one of those devices for a recently-retro collection of classics, our top 10 list of the best PlayStation Vita games should help sway your opinion. We've arranged these in alphabetical order and excluded some of the Vita's (admittedly awesome) collections from consideration. But yes, it's still very cool that Ratchet & Clank, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, and Metal Gear games could be played on the go.

As with the other Shattered Realm locations we've visited in the Season of the Lost in Destiny 2, the Ruins of Wrath hides some strange secrets. These Ascendant Mysteries are longer, more involved story beats hidden within the Ascendant Plane that demonstrate what's going on this season and why the Ascendant Realm is so important. In the Ruins of Wrath, the Hive-focused Shattered Realm area modeled after the moon, the Hive god of war, Xivu Arath, is up to something, and you need to uncover it and stop it.

There are two Ascendant Mysteries to uncover in the Ruins of Wrath, each tied to one of the beacons you need to align as you're working your way through the area. Here's where you can find both Ascendant Mysteries and what you need to do to solve them.

Lord Of The Undercroft

Netflix announced it has acquired Night School Studio, the developer behind Oxenfree, Afterparty, and Next Stop Nowhere.

"Night School wants to stretch our narrative and design aspirations across distinctive, original games with heart. Netflix gives film, TV, and now game makers an unprecedented canvas to create and deliver excellent entertainment to millions of people," wrote Sean Krankel, co-founder and studio director in a statement. The developer is the first game studio bought by Netflix, which earlier this year announced its plans to expand into the video games industry.

In the statement, Krankel wrote that Netflix has a track record for supporting diverse storytellers, which felt like a natural fit for Night School Studio. "The Netflix team has shown the utmost care for protecting our studio culture and creative vision. We’ll keep making Oxenfree II. We’ll keep cooking up new game worlds," he wrote.

Call of Duty: Warzone is already a frustrating experience with so many cheaters, but players are also fed up with teammates who quit matches early. Warzone duos, trios, or quads matches with random players can quickly devolve into a solo experience, and players are asking developer Raven Software to add a penalty for those quitters.

Warzone player Binarycold's Reddit post about frustration with random quitters sparked quite a conversation, as many other players left comments of similar frustrations. Random players don't often stick around and spectate the match long enough to give their teammates a chance to bring them back.

Warzone's standard battle royale mode offers three different ways for players to rejoin the match. Players can fight for a second chance in Verdansk with the Gulag, where "dead" players go to face off in a 1v1 match to see who will earn the opportunity to drop back into the fight. There are also Buy Stations that allow teammates to revive their fallen squadmates for $4,500. Lastly, there's even a chance of a random Warzone event called a Jailbreak that returns all spectating players back to the match.

Unfortunately, some teammates seem to be too impatient to wait for another opportunity in the match, as Binarycold says, "I mean these dudes are quitting before gulag, minute they die, boom! They’re out."

Apex Legends Mobile is currently being tested in Mexico, Columbia, and Peru, and new images from the mobile version of Respawn's free-to-play battle royale are making console and PC players envious.

Included in Apex Legends Mobile are detailed stat breakdowns for each of the game's weapons. The stats page for each weapon includes information on recoil, rate of fire, reload speeds, damage distribution models, effective range, and more. It's a lot of great information to have at one's fingertips, which is exactly why Apex Legends players on console and PC on the game's subreddit are wishing a similar feature would come to the core version of the game.

It's currently unclear if weapons in the mobile game are balanced identically to that of its console and PC counterpart, but regardless, having more in-game information about how Apex Legends' weapons perform wouldn't be a bad thing.

With numerous expansions, seasons, and campaigns, Destiny 2 can be daunting for new players. While Bungie has put in features to try to solve this problem, like the free-to-play New Light campaign, it's something that the developer still struggles with. In an interview with GameSpot, game director Joe Blackburn and general manager Justin Truman talked about how Bungie is thinking about onboarding in the upcoming Witch Queen expansion.

In essence, Blackburn and Truman explained that Bungie consistently rethinks the array of content available in Destiny 2 and how it's presented when players come into the game. This gets difficult when launching an expansion, as the new content is the first thing the player will likely jump into after finishing New Light, but Bungie thinks that the story of The Witch Queen makes a logical jumping-off point.

Blackburn stated, "So we really want to start attacking all of our systems that are sprawled out in the complexity and find out, 'Okay, this is the stuff that's working for us. What's the stuff that feels like corruption now? How can we get rid of that?'... And then that the really good thing for us with our big beats is that that question becomes really easy to answer when you start talking about the Witch Queen. And that we really think about that a lot as the Witch Queen as a great place to come back into Destiny or get into it because if you're into it for the first time, it's like, 'Okay, I should do this thing.' And then you're going to get dumped into the first mission of the Witch Queen."

Red Dead Online has sorely been in need of some new content, and while this week's update doesn't introduce anything as big as the Blood Money update did this summer, it's at least something. Starting today, players can participate in three new Telegram missions, although they're not like any others that have been released so far. Of course, players can also just make more money this week by trading in either furs or moonshine.

This week's Red Dead Online update was announced via the Rockstar Newswire, but the most important details can be found below.

Hardcore solo missions

The three telegram missions introduced in this week's Red Dead Online update aren't just brand-new; they're potentially some of the game's hardest content. Players that take on any of these hardcore telegram missions won't be able to see enemies on their minimap and won't have any aim assist.

Even though the Nintendo Switch is a hybrid console, there's no harm in owning multiple versions of the device, especially with the upcoming OLED model on the horizon. If you do already own more than one Nintendo Switch and you have the same profile logged into them, it's worth noting that the first system to do so will be designated as your primary Switch console.

While your primary console can access all downloaded games without needing to go through DRM checks, your secondary Switch will need to be connected to the Internet in order to access those titles.

For those Nintendo fans planning to add to their gaming console library with a second Switch such as the OLED or Switch Lite and don't want to go through the hassle of finding a Wi-Fi spot to connect to just for a quick gaming session, changing your primary console thankfully isn't a chore. Here's how it works.

How to change the Primary Nintendo Switch To Secondary

Activate your Switch that you want to change from Primary, and log into the Nintendo Switch eShop using your main profile that your purchase games from.

Access Account Settings by clicking on the profile icon in the top right corner of the eShop.

In your account settings, scroll down and select the Deactivate console option.

One of the best features of the Nintendo Switch is that you can get a AAA gaming experience and access to hundreds of incredible indie games no matter where you are. Thanks to its portable nature and Nintendo's rich handheld legacy, you're able to start a game of Pokemon or Smash Bros. when you're on a park bench, a bus, or even in an airplane.

There are going to be times when you want to sit down at home and play games on your television set though, and that's where the Switch shows its strength as a home console.

Going from portable to docked is easy, and we've got a handy guide to show you how to do it. It's worth noting that this guide is only for the regular Switch model and the new Switch OLED Model, as the Switch lite is strictly a handheld gaming device.

How to connect your Nintendo Switch to a TV

Set up your Switch dock

As the cradle for your Switch console, you're going to want to make certain that your dock is set up properly. Make sure that the dock is in a position where you can easily store and retrieve your Switch, and that the cables are neatly inserted. You also don't want to lose it, as an official replacement costs $60 (and is often sold out). There are also third-party Nintendo Switch docks that will do the trick if you need a new one (or just a secondary option).

Open the back cover and plug in the right cables

Call of Duty Season 6 is starting on October 7, and Treyarch's blog post revealed the details for Black Ops Cold War's final Zombies map that arrives with the launch of the new season. The map is called Forsaken, and this round-based Zombies experience will conclude the Cold War storyline of the CIA Requiem research team's efforts to stop the Omega Group, who are responsible for all the Dark Aether portals and zombie outbreaks.

Requiem and Omega Group are now both fighting to extract Sergeant Kazimir Zykov from the Dark Aether. Both teams believe this Soviet soldier who closed the portal at Die Maschine's Projekt Endstation will be the key to dealing with the Forsaken, a powerful force that exists in the Dark Aether.

The Nintendo Switch is an impressive hybrid handheld and home console, but internal storage is one of its weak points. The original Switch and the Switch Lite model only have 32 GB of internal storage, while this year's new OLED model doubles up and offers 64 GB of space to house your digital game purchases. That's a decent amount of space for small games, but you'll quickly find yourself running out of room when you start installing more demanding titles.

There's three solutions to this problem: Buy the physical version of games whenever possible, or invest in a microSD card that has sufficient storage capacity. The third fix is more drastic though, as you can free up space by simply deleting games and save data, freeing up some room on your Switch for new purchases. If that's the only option available to you, here's how you can do it.

How to delete Nintendo Switch games

On the Switch home screen or All Software menu, highlight the game you want to delete and press the + button on the right-hand controller. This also applies to the Switch Pro controller.

Select the Data Management option.

The Xbox series of consoles happen to have a few features similar to that of computers, including a cache that the hardware can dig into when it needs quick access to storage. If the cache ever gets full, it can mean reduced efficiency, performance, and speed on a console, slowing down operations to a noticeable degree. The good news is that you can clear your cache, with several methods available for doing so.

Clearing your cache will remove temporary data from your gaming activity, while leaving downloaded games, apps, and entertainment untouched, so you don't have to worry about accidentally deleting that data. Here's how it all works.

How To Clear Xbox Series X|S And Xbox One Cache

How to clear game cache on Xbox: Option 1

The first option is the easiest: A cold restart. Unplug your Xbox console, and leave it like this for at least two minutes before you reinsert the plug. While the console is in this powered down state, press and hold the power button several times.

Once you've plugged the console back in, your cache should be clear and you'll hopefully notice a performance increase.

Option 2

The second option requires clearing the cache through your Xbox menu. Follow these steps:

Fortnite Season 8 got off to a slow start in the eyes of many players, thanks largely to a faulty seasonal XP system that offered too few challenges for too little XP. Epic fielded complaints from players for weeks and promised a fix. Now that it's here, it's plain to see things are much improved. XP is now more generously awarded to players completing challenges.

Prior to the Fortnite 18.10 patch, players were kept from leveling up their battle pass quickly thanks to a dearth of both challenges and XP per each challenge. Today's patch addresses both of those complaints. For starters, the daily XP gains have increased from 17,000 XP per challenge to 30,000, and each player can unlock three dailies at this nearly doubled rate.

NPC quests have also vastly improved. The old system would award a growing number of XP with each subsequent quest in a character's five-part questline, totaling 80,000 XP by the end of any questline. Now each challenge offers the same number of XP at each stop along the way--30,000 a piece-- totaling 150,000 XP for completing a questline the first time through.

Overwatch has a new map, taking players to scenic Italy to battle it out in free-for-all or team deathmatches.

Called Malevento, it is the second map based in futuristic Italy, with the first being the Escort map Rialto. Malevento is now live on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch. Overwatch received cross-platform play earlier this year.

Originally set to debut weeks ago, the map's launch was delayed following a state of California lawsuit alleging widespread harassment and discrimination towards women at Activision Blizzard. The company is also currently being investigated by the SEC and recently reached a $18 million settlement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in regards to allegedly failing to address employee sexual harassment claims as well for discriminating against pregnant employees.

Many of Destiny 2's past changes have focused on Stasis powers, but Bungie is now turning its attention to Void subclasses. These will get significantly changed in the upcoming Witch Queen expansion to bring them more in line with Stasis, and GameSpot recently had the chance to speak with game director Joe Blackburn to get a few more details on what the subclass overhaul will entail.

Back in August, when Bungie first revealed The Witch Queen, it also announced that the expansion will include Void 3.0. This update will be a big rework of how Void subclasses currently operate, giving players the ability to apply three negative effects to enemies and three positive effects to teammates. It will also be overhauled to increase customization through the use of Aspects and Fragments.

Blackburn assuaged concerns that long-time players might have about these changes, saying that veterans won't have to completely re-earn their subclass abilities. "If they're a regular Destiny player, if they've put their time in, [they will find] that there's going to be a ton of aspects and fragments, all the supers you'd expect to be there," he explained.

Blackburn also stated that much of the philosophy behind the rework is to give every Void player more options through the use of class-agnostic fragments. These will allow Titans to use powers that may have previously been most similar to Warlock abilities, for instance. "You look at fragments and fragments are now generic across all the classes," Blackburn shared. "And so there's a ton of stuff there that you're like, "Oh, I couldn't do this on my Titan before." Right? Or, "I couldn't do this on my Warlock before." And some of those are pretty spicy and pretty exciting."

Contains all the bear necessities of life [Update: Nighthawk Interactive has announced that Disney fans that previously purchased 2019 release...

The post (Update) Disney Classic Games Collection announced for PC and consoles appeared first on Destructoid.

This 4K60 enhanced New-Gen Edition is free if you own the game on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One Pumpkin Jack...

The post Halloween-infused 3D platformer Pumpkin Jack hits PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on October 27 appeared first on Destructoid.