Activision is releasing new DLC for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, the publisher announced today. The Variety Map Pack, which is the same name that Activision gave to Modern Warfare DLC nine years ago, includes remastered versions of the maps that came with the original DLC.
The expansion pack comes out on March 21, first on PS4, with Xbox One and PC getting the expansion at a later date. Call of Duty DLC launches first on PlayStation as part of a timed-exclusivity deal between Activision and Sony.
The four maps are Broadcast, Chinatown, Creek, and Killhouse; click through the images in the gallery above to get a closer look at all of them. Full descriptions are available on Activison's blog.
The new Variety Map Pack sells for $15 and also comes with 10 "Rare" supply drops, which contain cosmetic items. These are normally unlocked through gameplay or by spending real money.
The next round of weekly PlayStation Store deals are now live for PS4, PS3, and Vita.
There's just a single themed sale this week, and it centers around Call of Duty. PlayStation Plus members on PS4 can pick up Infinite Warfare for $40 ($44 without Plus), Infinite Warfare's Legacy Edition with Modern Warfare Remastered for $54 ($70), or Black Ops III's Gold Edition for $35 ($40).
Actor Jason Isaacs, who played Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series, has been cast as the new captain for CBS' upcoming Star Trek: Discovery. Isaacs will play Captain Lorca, who leads the crew aboard the new spaceship, Starship Discovery, according to Deadline.
He's just the latest actor to play a Star Trek captain, following William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, and Scott Bakula, among others.
Discovery has been in the works for a long time and has been delayed on multiple occasions. It was penciled in to premiere in January 2017 but was then pushed to May and then again to an unspecified point in the future. It is currently without a premiere date.
The first episode will air on CBS, with all subsequent ones appearing on the company's All Access digital subscription service.
Discovery stars James Frain (True Blood), Sonequa Martin-Green (The Walking Dead), Anthony Rapp (Dazed & Confused), Doug Jones (Hellboy), and Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Showrunner Bryan Fuller stepped down last year, though he remains attached to the project as an executive producer.
Disclosure: CBS is owned by GameSpot parent company CBS Corp.
Starting with the new maps, these include Diner and Old Town. Diner is a smaller-sized map that will feel "intense and claustrophobic," developer The Coalition said in a blog post. The sniper spawns in the diner, so teams will likely fight to control this part of the map in particular. Outside, there is a parking lot where ranged combat is key. The Coalition made a point to say Diner was developed over the span of the past 18 months.
The other new map is Old Town, which isn't entirely new, as it is a reimagining of the map of the same name from Gears of War 3. It sports the same layout as the original, and features power weapons like the torque bow and sniper.
Diner and Old Town are available to Gears of War 4 season-pass owners in the game's Developer Playlist, which pays out double XP and 20 percent bonus credits. The maps will join the regular map rotation for all players starting on March 14. Watch the videos in this post to get a closer look.
The Gears of War 4 March update also introduces ranked lobbies for Core and Competitive playlists, a feature that fans had asked for, The Coalition said.
"When matchmaking for any Core or Competitive playlist, you will now be placed into a pre-game lobby complete with map voting, bounty selection, and customization options," the studio explained. "If a player quits prior to the match beginning, the pre-game countdown will cancel and continue searching to keep matches balanced."
When a match ends, players will return to the lobby for their specific playlist without needing to launch a new search.
Not included with the Gears of War 4 March update are tuning tweaks for the Core and Competitive playlists; these unspecified changes will arrive in "the next couple of weeks."
Also coming to Gears of War 4 sometime later this month is a new legacy character (a Locust creature teased in the image at left), as well as more weapons skins.
Additionally, The Coalition is rolling out monthly events, the first of which begins on March 24 and will be themed around Versus modes. A Horde-themed weekend event will kick off on March 31.
"We will continue to add Versus and Horde weekend events with every third Friday after an update featuring a Versus-themed event, followed by a Horde-themed event the weekend following that one," The Coalition said. "We'll reveal more about each weekend in the week leading up to the event, but we're pretty sure Versus Snipers are going to be particularly happy this month."
In other Gears of War 4 news, toy company Funko today announced a new line of Pop figures based on the game. Due out this spring, the toys include "older and more grizzled" versions of Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, Damon Baird, Augustus Cole, and Oscar Diaz. A Brumak figure is also being produced.
Click through the images in the gallery below to see all the new figures.
You can read more about the toys here on Funko's blog.
Since the backlash that ensued in the wake of its launch, No Man's Sky developer Hello Games has been mostly silent outside of when it has news to share regarding an update. That's the case again today, as Hello has announced the new Path Finder Update.
Due out sometime this week, its primary feature is the addition of a new vehicle that "will aid home planet exploration." It says this "build[s] on the Foundation Update to hint at a path ahead for the future."
Beyond that, it had no details to share about the update. Full patch notes will be released whenever the update itself arrives.
"Shortly after we launched the Foundation Update, we released a number of patches to address issues reported by players before beginning work on the Path Finder update. We were surprised and excited by the response to Foundation, and we have been listening carefully to community feedback since then," Hello said in a post on its website. "To those of you who have spent time sharing feedback, whether positive or negative, we are listening."
No images or other information regarding the vehicle or update were shared, but we'll report back as it's announced.
Mass Effect: Andromeda's multiplayer missions, which reward you with items and XP that carry over to the main game, are skippable--but you can still grab some rewards.
On Twitter, Andromeda producer Fernando Melo and lead designer Ian Frazier revealed some new information about the game's multiplayer missions.
On the 6th day of MP-mas, the MP dev team gave to you: Strike Teams. Don't want to play Missions in MP? Send STs out from either SP or MP. pic.twitter.com/s0LlO6pNLk
Melo said that, instead of playing missions in multiplayer, you can send out a Strike Team (an AI-controlled group of allies) to attempt the mission for you. This group, if successful, will still gain XP and can level up, increasing the chances of them finishing tougher missions. If you were to play these missions in multiplayer, it appears you would gain XP for yourself, as well as some in-game currency--though these details are a little unclear.
Lastly, the pair of developers says Strike Teams will have different traits, which will dictate which missions they're good or bad at. You won't get to choose the makeup of any one team, but you can decide which team tackles any one mission.
@TheRandomGamer Depending on the mission and if they succeed/fail, they may acquire traits that affect their performance in the future.
BioWare had planned to let a group of people play Andromeda's more traditional multiplayer modes through a beta, but those plans were scrapped. However, people who attend PAX East can play the modes this week. Some good news emerged recently that the game will receive free DLC multiplayer maps after launch.
An illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is on the way--and the cover has now been revealed. Posted by Scholastic on Twitter, the cover shows Harry Potter encountering the triple-decker Knight Bus and its driver, Ernie Prang, from the third entry in the magical series.
Jim Kay, the official illustrator of the Harry Potter series, is behind this new cover. Harry Potter is taking the Knight Bus from his aunt and uncle's home on Privet Drive to Diagon Alley.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: The Illustrated Edition arrives in bookstores in the US on October 3.
Illustrated versions of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets are already available. Their covers are incredible-looking as well--you can see them here. Those books featured a number of illustrations based on events from their stories.
Apart from the Knight Bus, there is no word on what illustrations may be in the Prisoner of Azkaban book, but, like all Harry Potter books, there are a lot of possibilities. I'm hoping to see an inflated Aunt Marge, Dementors, and Buckbeak.
Presumably, the four remaining Harry Potter books will receive illustrated editions as well.
EA has introduced a new game to its On the House promotion, letting you download it for free for a limited time.
This time around it's Syberia II, the 2004 adventure game follow-up to the acclaimed Syberia. Grabbing it while it's free will allow you to keep it forever, as with other On the House games. You will, however, need to use Origin in order to do so.
We don't know how long it will be available for, but you can claim it right now on Origin. It normally costs $13.
The system requirements, as you might expect for an older game, aren't especially demanding. They call for a 1.5 GHz CPU, 512 MB of RAM, and a 128 MB DirectX-compatible video card. How quaint.
In what's likely not a coincidence, Syberia II's release comes at an opportune time: A long-awaited sequel to it finally arrives next month. Syberia III launches for PC on April 20.
Right on schedule, Microsoft today announced the release date for Voodoo Vince: Remastered. The HD remake of the 2003 original will launch for Xbox One and PC on the Windows Store and Steam on April 15. The wacky puzzle-platformer is priced at $15 on all systems.
It's an Xbox Play Anywhere title for Xbox One and Windows 10, meaning buying it once on one platform gives you access to it on the other at no extra cost. Achievements and progress are shared between platforms. This does not apply to the Steam version.
Voodoo Vince is set in New Orleans, with players taking on the role of a voodoo doll named Vince. You'll travel through places like "crawfish-laded swamps," graveyards, and the French Quarter as part of a journey to find Vince's owner, Madam Charmaine.
The original was developed by Beep Industries, and that studio is also behind the remaster.
The remaster runs at 1080p/60fps with a 16:9 aspect ratio and "updated rendering and visual effects." Also new for the remaster is Xbox Live integration and achievements, as well as rumble support.
If you're attending PAX East this week in Boston, you can play Voodoo Vince: Remastered at the Xbox booth. Series creator Clayton Kauzlaric, who now works at Microsoft, will be at the show.
Kauzlaric said in an Xbox Wire post that he pitched Voodoo Vince to Microsoft twice and they rejected it each time before eventually agreeing to publish the game. Voodoo Vince was never made available on Xbox 360 through backwards compatibility because its game engine "used some convoluted custom code," Kauzlaric said.
A new update has been detailed for the Public Test Realm version of Overwatch, adjusting balance for a handful of characters--including the newest addition, Orisa.
Orisa has not yet been released in the live game, but she's been available to PTR players since last week. Blizzard has apparently deemed her too powerful as-is; her weapon's magazine size has decreased from 200 to 150, while the cost for her Ultimate, Supercharged, has increased by 15 percent.
Ana sees the other big changes in this patch, as her damage is taking a hit. Her Biotic Rifle now does 60 damage (down from 80), while Biotic Grenade's damage has dropped from 60 to 30. The grenade's healing is also now much less effective, going from 100 to 50.
Other changes include Junkrat's explosions no longer dealing self-damage, the cooldown on Winston's barrier starting when it's placed (rather than when it expires), and the range of Sombra's sound effects and voice lines when entering or exiting stealth has been reduced.
You can check out the full patch notes below; the update will be live on PTR servers today. There's still no date for when any of these, or Orisa, will arrive in the full game.
Overwatch PTR Update Patch Notes
Ana
Biotic Rifle
Damage decreased from 80 to 60
Biotic Grenade
Impact damage reduced from 60 to 30
Impact healing reduced from 100 to 50
Junkrat
No longer hurts himself from his own explosions. (Effect added to current passive: Total Mayhem)
Orisa
FusionDriver
Magazine size lowered from 200 to 150
Supercharger
Cost increased by 15%
Sombra
Stealth
Sound effects and VO distance for entering and exiting Stealth reduced to 15 meters.
Translocator
Cooldown reduced from 6s to 4s
Winston
Barrier Projector
Cooldown now starts when the barrier is placed, instead of when it ends
[UPDATE] The Nintendo Switch also did well in Europe over its launch weekend. According to MCV, the console sold "more units in its launch weekend than any other piece of Nintendo hardware in the company's history." Like in the Americas, Breath of the Wild is now the best-selling Nintendo launch title in Europe ever for Nintendo. It even outsold Wii Sports, MCV said.
[UPDATE 2] In France, the Switch sold 105,000 units at launch, outpacing the Wii, according to LeFigaro.
The original story is below.
The Nintendo Switch is off to a hot start, it seems. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told The New York Times reporter Nick Wingfield this week that initial sales (for March 3 and 4) in the Americas exceeded the first two-day sales in the region for any system in the company's history.
Fils-Aime added that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the best-selling standalone launch title for a Nintendo platform ever. He did not share a specific unit sales number, though it outperformed Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64.
Wii Sports for the Wii surely did better than Super Mario 64 or Breath of the Wild, as it was bundled with console, but this statistic is for non-bundled titles. The Switch has no bundled games.
According to Famitsu, as translated by Kotaku, the Switch sold 330,637 units in its first three days on sale in Japan. Breath of the Wild shifted 190,060 physical copies over the same period, the report said.
The bundle comes with a white system and a digital copy of Battlefield 1, as well as a one-month subscription to EA Access and a 14-day Xbox Live Gold membership.
Amazon has also discounted the $350 1 TB Battlefield 1 system, as it's now available for $293. This includes a military green console and a digital version of Battlefield 1 and other in-game bonuses, as well as the EA Access and Xbox Live Gold memberships mentioned above.
In other Xbox One news, Amazon has launched its own bundle for Ghost Recon: Wildlands, which comes out today. The $300 system comes with a white Xbox One S and a digital copy of the game's $100 Gold Edition (which includes the game and its DLC pass), as well as $10 credit for Amazon Music Unlimited and Amazon Video.
Ion, the game announced in 2015 by DayZ creator Dean Hall, has reportedly been canceled.
Neither Hall's company, RocketWerkz, nor co-developer Improbable are currently working on Ion, according to a report from Eurogamer.
"We're not actively working on Ion," Hall stated. "I am not involved in that. Nor is RocketWerkz."
For its part, Improbable declared, "We can definitely say that Improbable is not currently working on Ion."
"Ion was initially conceived as a project for co-development between Improbable and RocketWerkz," the former said. "A lot has changed since then. Dean Hall moved back to New Zealand from London, RocketWerkz has started work on a number of other games, and we have grown increasingly into a platform for games to be deployed on.
"We currently have no plans to develop or release a game ourself," the company concluded.
Since 2015, little has been said about the sci-fi experience. We know it was due to launch for Xbox One and PC first, but now it appears the title will not launch on any platform.
Elsewhere in the Eurogamer interview, Hall confirms active development ceased on Ion when he moved from London to New Zealand between August and October last year. He also gives a clue as to why the project is no longer being built upon.
"Ion could only happen with a company like Improbable, with the scale of technology like that, and that's not a game we could do alone," said Hall, who left DayZ publisher Bohemia Interactive in 2014 to set up RocketWerkz.
"Games get paused, cancelled, pulled back all the time in the industry," he added, before concluding that he wants RocketWerkz to have greater control over its future projects: "The whole idea of setting up RocketWerkz was to try a lot of different stuff. Part of what we were doing with RocketWerkz in the early days was experimenting around and saying, 'How do we want to make games?' Do we want to focus on partnering, do we want to look for other people to do technology? And the decision we've made is to very much focus on the projects we control in their entirety ourselves."
id Software hasn't said much about its upcoming PC shooter Quake Champions in recent weeks and months. But that changes today, as the studio released a new gameplay trailer and announced that sign-ups are now open for the upcoming closed beta.
To sign up, all you have to do is provide your email address here and confirm that you are at least 18 years old. The Quake Champions closed beta is set to begin "in the coming weeks."
In other news, id Software said it will release a new gameplay video for the character Nyx on Wednesday, March 8, with another video for the Blood Covenant map to follow on March 9.
If you're attending PAX East this weekend in Boston, you can play the game at Bethesda's booth.
"We want to make sure that we have as many people as we possibly can," id boss Tim Willits said previously. "You'll be able to turn down your specs and get a decent game at lower-end. But we want to shine on good systems."
For more on the series, be sure to check out GameSpot's feature, The History of Quake.
The newly announced Overwatch character Orisa did not receive an official short or a comic as previous DLC characters Sombra and Ana did, leading some to believe Blizzard was backing away from storytelling and exposition. This is not the case, according to Blizzard.
You can expect more story-focused content for the game this year, lead writer Michael Chu said in the official Overwatch forums recently (via Chris Puckett).
"We have a lot in the works, with Orisa and her story being the first release of the year," he explained. "One of our goals for 2017 is to try to have more frequent story-related updates and content, so we're very busy with that."
Chu went on to tease that Blizzard has "a little something else" for an Overwatch story update coming out very soon, though he did not get any more specific than that.
Blizzard did release an origin story of sorts for Orisa in video form (watch it above). However, based on what Chu said, it sounds like Blizzard is planning even more for her.
Orisa is currently available on Overwatch's Public Test Realm, with a wider release to come later. She is a Tank-class character whose "gameplay is engineered around protection." Her weapon is the Fusion Driver, an automatic cannon that deals constant damage but slows her movement speed. The alternate fire is Halt, which launches a charge that she can detonate to slow enemies and pull them towards the explosion.
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