Developer DICE has announced that Prise de Tahure--a Battlefield 1 map previously exclusive to owners of the Premium Pass or the They Shall Not Pass expansion--is going free for everyone. The map brings a tense, night-time urban setting and will be going free on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on January 16.
Starting the same day and ending January 22, base game owners will be able to sample some of the content from the They Shall Not Pass and In the Name of the Tsar expansions as part of the Turning Tides DLC's Gallipoli Trial. The event also grants access to some of the new content coming in Turning Tides, the second half of which launches this month.
Turning Tides is the third major DLC pack for Battlefield 1 to date, with the Apocalypse expansion coming "early" this year. EA and DICE say Apocalypse will include "the most infamous battles of WWI" and introduce the "brutal tools and unique weapons born out of desperation and deadlock."
AMC's zombie drama The Walking Dead is changing showrunners. It has been reported that Scott Gimple will leave the role he has occupied since 2013, and will be replaced by Angela Kang, who has previously worked on the show as a writer.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gimple will now serve as chief content officer for the Walking Dead media franchise, which also includes the spin-off show Fear the Walking Dead, as well as "gaming and future brand extensions on a variety of platforms." Kang has worked on the show since 2011, and has written over 20 episodes. She will take over at the start of Season 9, which is expected to premiere in the fall.
This change of personnel comes at a time of falling ratings for The Walking Dead. The 7.9 million broadcast viewers of the mid-season finale last month was the lowest number since Season 2's in 2011. This is in comparison to the 10.58 million viewers that watched the mid-season of Season 7 in 2016, and nearly half of what the equivalent episode achieved for Season 5 in 2014.
Last month, producer David Alpert defended the show in light of its decline in viewers. He explained that looking at the figures for the show's live broadcast was misleading as to how popular it really is. "I don't think in any way the brand has lost its relevance in general," he said. "I think we're just seeing a decline in urgency across all media to consume something at a specific time. I still get people coming up to me at conventions talking about, they're in the middle of season six. They can't believe what's going on."
You can see the full January 2018 Games With Gold lineup below. February's games have not been announced as of yet, but we'll report back as soon as they are.
January 2018 Games With Gold
Xbox One
Back to the Future: The Game - 30th Anniversary Edition (December 16 - January 15)
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III (January 1-31)
A number of former Motorstorm and Driveclub developers have established a studio in Liverpool, England to work on a new science fiction-themed game. Called Wushu Studios, the team is headed up by Alan McDermott, with Nigel Kershaw serving as design director, and Stuart Trevor taking up the position of art director. The three have each worked on Motorstorm and Driveclub titles for Sony, as well as other projects for Deep Silver and Revolution Software.
Wushu has also been working with former BioWare concept artist Alex Figini, who contributed to Mass Effect 3. The studio is currently made up of 11 people and is "expanding ... with a goal of moving away from the AAA grind to create games with interesting mechanics, unique concepts, and to deliver fun, refreshing gameplay experiences."
As of yet, Wushu hasn't revealed its first game, but it has said it began prototyping the project in September 2017 using Unreal Engine 4. It said the game will provide a "tantalizing and unexpected take" on the sci-fi genre.
"Our core team at Wushu have worked together closely on numerous projects over the years so there was no downtime in figuring out how to work together, we just fell straight into a groove kicking around game ideas that appealed to us as players and developers," explained McDermott.
"We firmly believed in the idea that our initial concepts needed to be gamepad experiences as quickly as possible, so we turned to Unreal Engine for its amazing, rapid prototyping capabilities. This approach has helped us figure out which of our concepts would allow us to flex our creative muscle most. It's definitely not what people will be expecting to see from us; it's absolutely not a racing game!"
Xbox One X promised to bring even more beautiful graphics to your favorite games, and it's been delivering. With over 100 titles and counting, Forza Horizon 3's update has joined the ranks, and is available now.
Microsoft says the update allows you to play Horizon 3 in "native 4K," including the Hot Wheels and Blizzard Mountain expansions. The patch contains a bunch of visual enhancements for Xbox One X, from "improved car reflections and shadow resolutions" to "improved texture detail for road and terrain surfaces" and more.
"These enhancements are all about the visuals," said developer Playground's creative director, Ralph Fulton. "We know that our fans really value great image quality, so we've taken this opportunity to deliver that to them with this update on Xbox One X. On top of the obvious enhancement to native 4K, there are a number of other improvements we've made which really take advantage of the added definition 4K brings. Reflections are sharper and clearer, environment shadows are crisper and better defined, the quality of motion blur has been increased to make the driving experience significantly smoother, and better anisotropic filtering improves the detail visible in environment textures, particularly on the roads themselves.
"For me, the biggest improvement is in the combination of 4K and HDR though, especially in Forza Horizon 3's dynamic time-lapse skies. The sky is such a huge part of nearly every scene in the game that it affects the feel of the game a great deal, and the improvements we've made to reflections and shadows really complement it."
For more on Xbox One X Enhanced updates, check out all the Xbox One X Enhanced games confirmed so far. This master list includes all the games with updates available right now, which ones are coming soon, and which titles have updates in development.
Although Marvel has traditionally announced release dates for its movies several years in advance, it has been more secretive about its plans for the Marvel Cinematic Universe after the current Phase 3 ends. Spider-Man: Homecoming 2 is the only movie with an official release date after Phase 3 closes with 2019's Avengers 4, but we now know that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 will be released in 2020.
The news comes via director James Gunn, who helmed the first two Guardians movies and will direct Vol. 3. Gunn was asked by a fan on Twitter about a third film in the space fantasy series, to which he replied "coming in 2020."
Gunn first confirmed that he would return for another Guardians movie in April last year. "There is a history in Hollywood of haphazard endings to trilogies, and I didn't want to become a part of that dishonorable tradition of pretending the third one doesn't exist," he explained. "I couldn't do it for the money, and I couldn't do it because it was what other people wanted me to do. I needed to do it because it was what I needed to do. So, yes, I'm returning to write and direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3."
In a subsequent Facebook Q&A Gunn hinted at what fans might see in Vol. 3, including the intergalactic police agent Nova. "Nova comes up occasionally as someone we might use," he said. "We're going to be setting up new characters. It's going to really expand the cosmic universe [and] will be the last movie of this version of Guardians of the Galaxy."
Rockstar Games' perennially popular Grand Theft Auto V takes the top spot on the UK sales chart for the week ending January 13. According to sales monitor Chart-Track, this is the first time GTA V has reached No.1 since June 2017.
In total, GTA V has spent 14 weeks at No.1 since its launch, bringing it a little closer to the 18 week all-time all formats No.1 record currently held by Square Enix's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Chart-Track also states that GTA V has never been out of the top 40 in the UK sales chart.
At No.2 is Call of Duty: WWII, which holds on to the runner-up spot from last week while FIFA 18 drops to No.3. Following it is Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Origins at No.4 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for Nintendo Switch at No.5.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, currently exclusive to Xbox One on consoles, spends its fifth week at No.6, ahead of EA's Star Wars Battlefront II at No.7. Rounding off the top 10 are The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Forza Motorsport 7, and Super Mario Odyssey at No.8, No.9, and No.10 respectively.
You can read the full top 10 sales chart below, courtesy of UKIE and Chart-Track. Note this table does not include digital sales data, and so should not be considered representative of all UK game sales.
Just a few months after the big 5.0 PlayStation 4 system update, Sony is preparing to release its next major firmware patch. Furthermore, you could get the included improvements early, as Sony has announced it is holding a beta for the update.
"You can register to be a beta tester anytime between today and the start of the beta expected in February," Sony stated. There's no word yet on what's included in the update, but the company did call it a "major" one. North American players can sign up here, while Europeans can click here to register. You can also opt in to automatically take part in future update betas, and those in North America will receive an exclusive avatar for doing so.
To be eligible you'll need to own a PS4, be connected to the internet, and hold a PSN master account, and those in North America must be at least 18 years old. Bear in mind registering doesn't guarantee you access, and if selected you can always roll back to the previous live system version at any point. Finally, this is the first time players from Canada are eligible to take part in a PS4 update beta.
The most recent PS4 update brought the console to version 5.03, while the most recent major update, 5.0, included new features based around the console's in-built streaming capabilities, as well as an enhanced Friends List, more versatile Quick Menu, and overhauled parental control features.
Although DC's live-action superhero universe has had some ups-and-downs over the past few years, the studio's stable of animated features is going strong. The latest title to be released will be Batman: Gotham By Gaslight. It arrives on home entertainment formats later this month, and a new clip has been released.
The feature is based on Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola's classic 1989 graphic novel, and is set in an alternative DC universe. In a Victorian-era Gotham City, Bruce Wayne has been falsely blamed for the crimes of Jack the Ripper, and, as Batman, hunts the real Ripper. In this clip, three young street thieves come to face-to-face with the Dark Knight. Check it out below:
This clip follows the first Gotham By Gaslight trailer, which was released in November. Like 2016's animated adaptation of Batman: The Killing Joke, it carries an R-rating. And as with The Killing Joke, this latest release takes some liberties with the source material. While the graphic novel only featured a few other characters from the Batman universe, the movie introduces a host of classic villains, including Selina Kyle, Poison Ivy, Harvey Dent, Harvey Bullock, Leslie Tompkins, Hugo Strange, and Solomon Grundy.
Bruce Greenwood (Gerald's Game) reprises his Young Justice role as Bruce Wayne. He's joined by Dexter alum Jennifer Carpenter, who voices Selina Kyle, Scott Patterson (Gilmore Girls) as James Gordon, and Anthony Head (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) as Alfred Pennyworth.
Gotham By Gaslight is released digitally on January 23, 2018, with Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Packs, Blu-ray Combo Packs, and DVDs hitting stores on February 6. Digital copies, as well as the combo packs, will include an audio commentary, along with a featurette that goes behind the scenes of creating a 19th century gothic-inspired Gotham City.
The eighth and final season of Game of Thrones is now confirmed for 2019, but HBO has no intention of saying goodbye to its hugely popular fantasy show. Last year it was reported that the channel was developing five spin-off shows simultaneously. Now programming president Casey Bloys has confirmed that they are all still in the works, but that fans shouldn't necessarily expect to see all of them reach the screen.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Bloys revealed that it would be 2020 at the earliest before we saw anything more from the Game of Thrones universe. "If we do a pilot and series, nothing is going to air on HBO until at least a year after the final season," he said. "We're not doing a final season and then, 'Following it at 11 pm...'"
"I've seen some exciting material," he continued. "We have really great writers working on these. But there's no timetable. Not everybody is on the same schedule, so I've seen different versions of different things. But there's no timetable about when a decision would be made about any of them. I'll do anywhere from zero to five, though probably more likely one. We'll see."
In November, it was reported that all five potential series would be prequels. Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin is writing one with the main show's co-executive producer Bryan Cogman, and updated fans about its progress on Tumblr.
"I can say that, like the other pilots, it will be a prequel rather than sequel, a successor rather than a spin-off," Martin said. "Bryan's series will be an adaptation, and one that will thrill most fans of the books, I think, set during a very exciting period of Westerosi history. And I'll be working with him every step of the way; we're going to be co-creating the show."
Earlier this month it was confirmed that the final season of Game of Thrones will be just six episodes long. Although we know it will arrive in 2019, a premiere date is yet to be announced. Seasons 1-6 all premiered in March or April on HBO, while Season 7 debuted this past July. If HBO follows either of those premiere windows, that will mark over a year-and-a-half since the previous season ended, which will be the longest gap between seasons in the show's entire run.
Sony's new Jumanji movie, Welcome to the Jungle, is still doing really well at the box office. Entertainment Weekly reports that the movie is expected to bring in $27 million this weekend at US and Canadia theatres, making it No. 1 for two weeks in a row.
Welcome to the Jungle has now made $283.2 million domestically after just four weeks. It has made around $383 million from international markets, pushing its total haul to about $666.2 million. That's quite impressive, given the movie had a reported budget of $90 million.
Welcome to the Jungle was directed by Jake Kasdan, the son of Star Wars writer/director Lawrence Kasdan. It was released some 22 years after the original Jumanji, which starred Robin Williams and Kirstin Dunst. For the new movie, Jumanji is a video game that teenagers get sucked into, becoming avatars in the game world. The film stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, and Nick Jonas.
Rounding out the top five movies at the US box office this week were Steven Spielberg's newest movie The Post ($18.6 million), Liam Neeson's next thriller The Commuter, the horror flick Insidious: The Last Key, and the Hugh Jackman musical The Greatest Showman.
You can see the full Top 10 report for the January 12-14 weekend below, while a full breakdown of the weekend's box office performance can be seen here at EW.
Somehow, it is already the middle of January, so that means now is your last chance to grab the first of January 2018's free Games With Gold titles.
On Xbox One, you have until the end of the day to pick up Telltale's Back to the Future: The Game, while time is running out to grab Tomb Raider: Underworld. Both games will be free for the rest of the day before they are replaced by others on January 16.
Also of note is that The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III is free on Xbox One all month long. Starting on January 16, Ubisoft's zombie game Zombi will go free, while Army of Two will drop to the low, low price of $0.00 on Xbox 360. Bear in mind that the Xbox 360 Games With Gold titles also play on Xbox One through backwards compatibility.
You can see the full January 2018 Games With Gold lineup below. February's games have not been announced as of yet, but we'll report back as soon as they are.
January 2018 Games With Gold
Xbox One
Back to the Future: The Game - 30th Anniversary Edition (December 16 - January 15)
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III (January 1-31)
The NPD Group will release its report for December 2017 video game hardware and game sales in the United States later this month. It appears Microsoft has already seen this report, as Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg shared some results on Twitter recently.
He announced on Twitter that the Xbox One had its "highest console share" ever in December in the US. The Xbox One outsold the PlayStation 4 in December, according to NPD's data, though it was the Nintendo Switch that sold the most units overall during the month.
Was trying to just thank folks for supporting us and the incredible success following the launch of Xbox One X. But yes Xbox outsold PS4 in December for Gen 8 consoles according to NPD data, while Nintendo also had a great month as Switch had most overall units.
The NPD Group's December US sales report is expected out later this month. The report is expected to include a list of the best-selling consoles of December along with the best-selling games. Because December closes out the year, the report should also cover the top-selling systems and games for all of 2017. We'll report back when the report is released.
The Entertainment Software Association, the group that organizes E3 every year and represents the video game industry's interests in Washington, has come out with a statement ripping President Trump's recent and controversial "sh*thole countries" comment. In a statement to Polygon, the ESA condemned Trump's comments, saying they run counter to the values of America.
"America's greatness is built on our diversity," the ESA said. "The president's repulsive comments undermine the fundamental values of who we are as a country. There is no place in our society for this type of backward thinking, and we condemn it in the strongest terms."
According to Illinois senator Dick Durbin, Trump said in a recent meeting discussing visas, "Why are we having all these people from sh*thole countries come here?" He reportedly added: "We should bring in more people from places like Norway."
The ESA is one of the video game industry's biggest and most important groups in the United States. Its members include some of the biggest and best known in gaming, including Activision, Bethesda, Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Ubisoft, and Warner Bros.
This is not the first time the ESA has responded to something Trump has done. In September last year, the ESA applauded Trump's big new plans to bolster science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs across the country.
Trump is of course a controversial president, and the ESA does not agree with everything he says and does, as evidenced by the new statement about his recent comments. Back at E3 last year, ESA president Michael Gallagher said Trump's eagerness to make tonally-off comments and when he does anything to impact the trust people might have for the highest office in the country, that can be bad for gaming too.
"Now we have a new administration in Washington that has brought some challenges. Everybody here is aware of them," Gallagher said at the time. "You're following them or feeling them. Gamers are feeling it both ways. Almost everyone in this country is a gamer, and almost 80 percent of gamers voted in the last election. Our job is to deliver the outputs and policy that extend and protect the frontiers of this industry."
Pokemon Go's first Gen 3 Legendary, Groudon, has been a regular presence in Raid Battles since it first began appearing last month, but it won't be available for much longer. The powerful Ground Pokemon is scheduled to leave the game tomorrow, January 15, making this your last opportunity to add it to your team.
Like most of Pokemon Go's other Legendaries thus far, Groudon is an exceptionally powerful Pokemon that can only be found at Gyms. Players will need to team up with other Trainers in order to battle it, and only after Groudon has been defeated will you earn a chance to capture it. Groudon is a Ground-type, which makes it susceptible to Water-, Ice-, and Grass-type Pokemon such as Vaporeon, Articuno, and Exeggutor.
Groudon will appear in Raid Battles until 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET on January 15. Meanwhile, its counterpart from Pokemon Sapphire, Kyogre, has just begun appearing in Pokemon Go. Kyogre likewise can be found in Raid Battles and will be available until February 14. Players can also still catch the Legendary Psychic-type Mewtwo, although that Pokemon is a bit more difficult to find. Unlike other Legendaries, Mewtwo only appears in EX Raids, which require an invitation to participate in.
Pokemon Go developer Niantic recently announced a new monthly event for the game called Community Days. These real-world events have players gather in local parks to meet other Trainers and capture Pokemon, including a special Pokemon that knows an exclusive move. For this month's Community Day, players will have a chance to encounter a Pikachu that can use Surf.
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