Ubisoft has announced it's acquired Blue Mammoth Games and has stated its commitment to hit free-to-play fighting game Brawlhalla. Blue Mammoth officially released Brawlhalla on PC and PlayStation 4 in October 2017. Since then, it's become the most-played fighting game on Steam and one of the most downloaded free-to-play titles on PS4.
Blue Mammoth Games is a 21-person studio based in Atlanta. With Brawlhalla, it has had big success in the esports market, with the number of players continuing to grow throughout its second and third seasons. "The team at Blue Mammoth Games is expert at developing and running scalable, competitive, multiplayer online games, and they'll be a great addition to Ubisoft's network of studios," said Laurent Detoc, president of Ubisoft NCSA.
Brawlhalla is a platform fighter where up to eight players can battle it out online or locally. There is a free-for-all game mode, ranked matches, and the ability to make custom rooms for your group of players. There are more than 30 playable characters to choose from, each with unique moves, abilities, stats, and weapon combinations.
Ubisoft is affirming its commitment to Brawlhalla with this acquisition and promising to expand the game's online reach. "We're looking forward to leveraging Ubisoft's expertise and resources to continue developing and supporting Brawlhalla for the long term, and to benefiting from their help in bringing the game to new players," said Matthew Woomer and Lincoln Hamilton, the founders of Blue Mammoth Games.
By Anonymous on Mar 02, 2018 11:04 pm Join Ben and Jean-luc play as Aloy while checking out some of the new weekly event quests including Wiggle Me This and the new Arena Challenge.
The Nintendo Switch is already celebrating its first anniversary in parts of the world, but some Switch owners are discovering an unpleasant surprise on the console's birthday. It appears the Switch only keeps track of your game play times for one year and has begun resetting many players' records.
As pointed out in a thread on video game forum ResetEra, play times for launch day titles are being reset on Switch profiles. GameSpot has verified the issue; as you can see in the screenshot below, our Switch now says that we first started playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild nine days ago.
This only appears to affect the play times listed in your user profile; save data for the titles in question remains unchanged, but you can no longer accurately see how many hours you've sunk into any games you first started playing on launch day. It's unclear if this is a permanent issue or if Nintendo will be able to restore the times via a system update. We have reached out to the company for comment and will report back with a response.
As the Nintendo Switch officially launched to the public on March 3, many early adopters in North America still haven't owned the console for exactly one year, so your play times should appear normally for the time being. If you care about preserving a record of your play times, now would be a good opportunity to take screenshots of your user profile before they are reset on the console.
Switch's first year has been a tremendous success for Nintendo and fans alike; the system was difficult to find in stores for much of 2017 and has already amassed an impressive library of acclaimed titles like Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and most recently, Bayonetta 2. Despite that, the console is still missing some basic features we are hoping to see, such as a proper Activity Log to keep track of your play times. This new issue only reinforces the need for one.
Captain Marvel is currently in production, but we are yet to see any official images of actress Brie Larson as the title character. Nevertheless, unofficial footage of Larson on the set of the Marvel movie did emerge last month, which caused some confusion amongst fans as the star was wearing a green costume rather than the character's distinctive red and gold outfit. One of the Marvel's conceptual artists has now spoken about the issue, and has assured fans that they shouldn't worry.
In an interview with comicbook.com, artist Andy Park said he was confident that fans would be "happy" with what Larson wears in the final movie. "I think it's always funny seeing people's reaction," Park explained. "People are so ready to jump on and to react and make decisions so quickly. I would just say I would hope that they would just know from the past that judging too quickly is... how do I word this? They're going to be happy. I think they're going to be happy.
"[Marvel boss] Kevin Feige said it in an interview. We revealed the concept art that I did, myself, and other artists did, of Captain Marvel at last year's San Diego Comic-Con. I think that alone should hopefully alleviate some of those fears that people have."
As Park notes, early concept art of Larson in costume was revealed at SDCC last year, and it was very much based on the look of Captain Marvel from the comic books. Captain Marvel hits screens in March 2019 and is directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. The cast also includes Ben Mendelsohn (Star Wars: Rogue One), Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes), and DeWanda Wise (She's Gotta Have It). Samuel L Jackson will also make a return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the role of SHIELD boss Nick Fury.
Earlier this week it was reported that Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them actress Gemma Chan was joining the cast as the villainous Doctor Minerva. In Marvel Comics lore, Doctor Minerva is a Kree geneticist and spy with similar powers to Captain Marvel.
The movie will reportedly take inspiration from the Kree-Skrull war, with the Skrulls serving as the film's villains. The character of Doctor Minerva has traditionally been at odds with Mar-Vell, who will be played by Jude Law in the film.
While the Far Cry series once focused on the high-octane exploits of westerners mingling with the locals of foreign lands, the shoe is now on the other foot with the US setting of Far Cry 5. This shake-up was intended to push some buttons, according to creative director Dan Hay. And it certainly has, although the creative forces behind the game were somewhat hesitant to say to GameSpot directly that it's a commentary on current times.
Though the game still revels in the over-the-top action and open-world hijinks the series is known for, the fifth entry's distortion of Americana--within the confines of an isolated mountain region of Hope County, Montana--feels all the more potent and timely. During a recent press event for Far Cry 5, we had the chance to talk to lead writer Drew Holmes (Saints Row: The Third, Red Faction: Guerilla, and BioShock Infinite) and lead actor Greg Bryk (Fargo and A History of Violence)--who portrays Eden's Gate cult leader and main antagonist Joseph Seed--about their work on the game.
Can you talk about how your experience working on past games prepared you for Far Cry 5? You've had experience on other open-world games, but this one is so tonally different from your past work.
Drew Holmes: Over the years you learn what works and what doesn't from the things you work on. So going from Saints Row to Red Faction to BioShock Infinite and to now this, it's like I'm bringing all that knowledge I've accumulated from all those people that I've worked with, and then taking that saying, "What is Far Cry 5 about?" Sitting down with Dan and Greg, we talked about who this character is and what he stands for, and what is he afraid of. What is the experience we want to give players--that is harrowing, dark, and even a bit frightening, but also big and bombastic and thrilling? All the things that encapsulate Far Cry, while also giving more ownership to the direction of the story for the player experience. It's along that path of trying to grow as a craftsman and as an artist, while trying to bring some humanity to really scary villains.
While the core concept of the game was planned out years ago, the game as it is now has some rather striking imagery and moments that resonate strongly in our present times. Particularly the ideals of American conservatism in isolated pockets of the country, and the concept of a cult of personality in power. With your performance as The Father in the game, did anything from real life and current events sort of inform your performance, and were you even a bit surprised by how closely the parallels were?
Greg Bryk: No. For me, it's a very personal journey [of this particular character]. This is a man who is broken, who has been deprived of love and even stripped of the insulation that love affords most of us. And then within that, [The Father] was given a message from God, and that it's the truth and that the end is coming. He believes that the end is coming, and he needs to save as many people as he can. And as a father in real-life, sometimes your kids want--sometimes you know what's right, and they don't. You have to correct them and put them on the right path.
I really believe the sense of longing Joseph had was the spark that created his world system and his world view. It also sparked a longing that a lot of people have. I think we really are alone, a lot. We really are lost in a lot of ways. Even though we have access to such vast information, how rare is it to sit across from another human being and hold their hand and just spend time with them. We've really lost the art of being human together, and I think to me was one of the captivating features of this character. For someone who has nothing, how do you build a family? So I came at it from that place.
But I understand that we live in chaotic times now, and I think people will project a whole bunch of narratives onto the story--and they will because this is what we do, we're storytellers and we want to take the meaning of that. It's a great conversation piece and it's great for the game, but I think from the player's experience of it will not be at the arms length of an ideology, but rather that someone is challenging me with their truth, and you are going to have to make a decision--and it's going to be an intensely personal one. One that you could take the hero's journey and take the cult down, or the message could resonate with you and strike a chord with you.
Holmes: One that will linger long after you put down the controller.
Bryk: And of course there's also some kick-ass moments throughout the game. That got super heavy for a minute. You can still shoot s***, dogs and bears attack people, and there's airplanes--but there's also the heart of the game, quietly beating underneath all of that.
Was it challenging trying to balance those tense and extremely dark moments with the sort of standard video-gamey action beats?
Holmes: I think that's Far Cry. When you look back at 3 and 4, it is that chaotic and dark story running through, but also fighting tigers and bears with a rocket-launcher. You can't separate that, that's a part of what the game is. For us on the narrative side of that, it was trying to figure out how to embrace more of that. How to check our egos at the door, to give up more authorship to the players, to say to players that you're running the show. We have all these little moments for you to discover and for you to meet these characters in the cult and across the county to progress in the game. But it's up to you to decide when that stuff is moving forward, and the tone that it takes. If you want to play it dark and brooding and serious, there are characters for you to seek out that offer experiences like that. But if you want a crazy open-world experience, that's there too.
We aren't dictating how the game unfolds. It's challenging from the sense that we all understand in terms of traditional storytelling how things unfold, we've been conditioned to that by watching and listening to stories to understand that flow, and now [in this game] to giving control to the player where you start to play through the game, where the cadence and the pace of it is really up to you where you can just go out and explore the world and not engage in things, that's still a part of your experience. Or you can seek out Hurk and have a ridiculous time, and that's gonna cause the cult to come after me and then I'm gonna have to dip into Jacob Seed's story and what that means for the Whitetail Militia. It changes the cadence of what unfolds.
But for me, it's really challenging to make it all feel cohesive, but at the end of the day when you can sit down with the controller in your hand play through it, it's just so enjoyable. It's fun, it's frightening, it's scary, but also really f***ing funny in places. But that is really the special sauce that makes it Far Cry.
It really says a lot when you're able to bounce between moments of philosophical introspection with gameplay scenes with Cheeseburger the Bear.
Bryk: But that's life, isn't it? How often does life follow a nice, tight tonally consistent narrative arc? It doesn't. It's absurd, it's profound. We go from the birth of a child, to something absurd happening, to other catastrophes happening. It's all like this [snaps fingers]. Life isn't polite in that way. It intrudes and delights and terrifies, quickly.
Holmes: The world isn't painted with one brush, and neither is this game. We wanted to offer as much content with differing tones.
Since you've been on this game for some time, is there anything from your experiences on this over years that stuck out?
Holmes: There's a lot. But for me, a lot of it starts with the performance that Greg has given us. Having an idea for a character, a spark of where it's going to go, and then putting that on a page is another. But until you can find someone that can embody that, make it believable and honest, where you care about the things that the "bad guy" believes in--and can make you see where they're coming from--that's super tough. When we started to work together, we were on the same page as far as a villain who doesn't see himself as villain. It's the choices that he makes and the lengths he's willing to go, in his view, that people see him as a villain. He believes wholeheartedly in what he does, and he believes that others will thank him after he saves them. It gives Joseph a different flavor as villain than the previous Far Cry games.
Bryk: This is has been one of the happiest adventures of my life, creatively. It was also very dark and challenging, but in the best kind of way. Like you have a problem you want to wrestle with and it exhausts you, and it takes the best and the worst of you, and then says "here it is." It ended up being the last scene we ever shot for a key moment in the game. When I first read it, we were shooting the short-film in Montana, and Drew sent me the pages of the script. At the time, Montana was on fire [during the 2017 wildfires]. So I could literally see the state burning around me and the air was thick with smoke and I'm reading this almost Book of Revelations-type narrative. I could feel this sort of rage within me--that is animalistic and nihilistic--where love is gone and can never be. It f***ing destroyed me, but in the best possible way. And we got it.
As an actor, there are honest moments, and then there's moments where you understand a fundamental truth of your darkest fear realized. And he wrote it, and it was just one of those magic moments where it all worked out. I think when the player is forced to confront someone in that state, they'll have a moment of pause. Because that's someone who's been stripped of nicety.
Over the years, Far Cry has evolved from a punishing battle for survival into a playground of explosions, huge guns, and over-the-top villains. With Far Cry 5, that pattern appears to continue: we've already seen Boomer the dog and other outrageous characters, and now an even more ridiculous sidekick has been revealed.
Cheeseburger is the name of a grizzly bear who you can hire to go around and kill enemies for you. He's incredibly powerful, capable of killing bad guys with ease, and unlike other guns for hire he's also able to take quite a beating himself. Take a look at some footage of Cheeseburger in action above.
Fortnite's 3.1.0 update only dropped just recently, but already it's been superseded by another patch. Update 3.1.1 is out now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but it doesn't do a huge amount.
Developer Epic said on Twitter that the patch is designed to "fix client crashes some players are experiencing." Nothing else is included in the patch, since all the new content--such as a new point of interest and a new gun--was included in the previous update.
The new point of interest is called Lucky Landing, located on the southern edge of the island. Elsewhere the drop rates of various guns were adjusted: you're 20% less likely to find a common burst assault rifle, for example, but 150% more likely to find a rare one than before. Some loot drops were tweaked too; fewer chests will appear in Snobby Shores, Tilted Towers, and Industrial Plot from now on. The patch was supposed to see the introduction of jetpacks, but those have been delayed to an unknown date due to a design issue that developer Epic discovered very late on.
Update: The ESA says it has still not been invited to any meeting with Trump. "The ESA and our member companies have not received an invitation to meet with President Trump," the organization told GamesBeat on Thursday evening US time. Original story follows.
President Trump will meet with "members of the video game industry" to discuss what can be done about video games in the wake of the Parkland, Florida shooting in February. After the shooting, Trump hosted a meeting at the White House to discuss school safety, and among the subjects that came up were the level of violence in video games and movies.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump will be "meeting with members of the video game industry to see what they can do on that front as well."
That wasn't the first time he's pointed a finger at violent video games. Following the shooting at Sandy Hook in 2012, he tweeted, "Video game violence and glorification must be stopped--it is creating monsters!" Matt Bevin, the Republican governor of Kentucky, also pointed to video games in the wake of Parkland just recently.
Going back to the recent White House briefing, Sanders said, "This is going to be an ongoing process and something that we don't expect to happen overnight, but something that we expect to continue be engaged in and continue to look for the best ways possible to make sure we're doing everything we can to schools across the country." You can see the video game-related segment in the briefing starting at around 6:30 in the video above.
There is no word yet about who Trump will meet with. Kotaku's Jason Schreier said on Twitter that the ESA and its members have not been invited to a meeting with Trump at this time. The ESA is the organization that puts on E3 every year and lobbies on behalf of the video game industry in Washington D.C. Some of its members include huge, powerful companies such as Activision, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Electronic Arts, among many others.
In 2013, then-vice president Joe Biden met with members of the video game industry executives such as then-EA CEO John Riccitiello to discuss the link between violent video games and gun violence as part of a wider task force into gun control measures. ESA president Michael Gallagher was also at this meeting.
There have been calls from legislators over the years to impose various restrictions on, among things, the sale of violent video games to minors. In a landmark 2011 case, the Supreme Court sided with the gaming industry in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, striking down a bill that would have fined retailers for each violent game sold to minors.
We will report back with more details from Trump's video game meeting in the days ahead.
[UPDATE] Xbox Live is back up and running normally, according to the Xbox Live Status page, though as always, your experience may differ depending on where you live and what you're trying to access.
The original story is below.
Xbox Live is facing some big issues right now. The service is facing "Social and Gaming" issues currently, which means that in-game matchmaking, cloud storage, finding friends, Game DVR, leaderboards, avatar editing, and more services are not working normally.
Additionally, while the Xbox Live Status page says Xbox Live Core Services like signing in is working normally, your mileage may vary. At GameSpot Australia, we have been unable to sign into the network for more than 30 minutes now. Looking at Twitter shows that many other people around the world are having issues logging into Xbox Live right now. The issues appear to be affecting Xbox One and Xbox 360.
Hey everyone! We're aware that some of you are having trouble signing into Xbox Live - the right teams are hard at work to get everything working again. Thanks so much for all your patience!
A number of games are affected by this newest Xbox Live outage, including Rainbow Six Siege, Street Fighter IV, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, and Super Street Fighter IV.
We'll report back with more details on the Xbox Live issues as they come to light. If you're running into problems right now, let us know what you're facing in the comments below.
Final Fantasy XV is launching on PC on March 6. If you want to play right away, the good news is that the game is available right now to pre-load ahead of launch. Square Enix announced this on Twitter today, alerting fans that they can now pre-load the game, which is good news considering the game weighs in at between 100 GB and 155 GB.
Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition, as it's called, will be available next week on digital platforms such as Steam and Origin, among others. Ahead of launch, you can play the game's free PC demo--here's how to download it.
You can pre-load #FFXV Windows Edition right now so you'll be able to jump straight into the world of Eos as soon as the game launches next week on Tuesday 6th March! pic.twitter.com/N4FgBxBb3c
The PC version of Final Fantasy XV includes the base game and its various DLC expansions, including those themed around each of your party members and the one adding the Comrades multiplayer mode. Additionally, if you purchase the game by May 1, you'll be entitled to Half-Life/Final Fantasy XV and The Sims 4 crossover content.
A short film inspired by Far Cry 5 is on the way--and it looks pretty great. Far Cry 5 Inside Eden's Gate is an original short film based on Ubisoft's action game and launching this week on Amazon Prime Video for subscribers. Like the game, the film is set in fictional Hope County, Montana, USA, and its man antagonist is the cult leader Joseph Seed.
Unlike the game, the movie follows three "vloggers" head to Hope County in search of answers about the cult, Eden's Gate, and of course they end up getting more than what they bargained for. "As the vloggers follow the leads of missing locals and other strange events, they come face-to-face with Joseph Seed ... and the rest of the fanatical doomsday cult."
Greg Bryk (A History of Violence) plays Joseph Seed in the movie and the game. American Sniper actor Kyle Gallner also appears in Inside Eden's Gate. Ubisoft worked with Legendary Entertainment's Asylum division on this movie, which premieres March 5 on Amazon.
You can see some stills and the movie's poster in the gallery embedded below.
Blizzard has released cryptic teaser that some are taking as a signal that the Diablo franchise might be heading to the Nintendo Switch. A six-second video posted on Twitter shows the famous Diablo demon as a nightlight that someone is...switching on.
"Sweet dreams," says the video's caption.
Many people in the replies on Twitter believe this could be a reference to some version of Diablo coming to Nintendo's hybrid console. Among those who replied, many said they are enthusiastic about such a prospect and would by Diablo for Switch right away.
2012's Diablo III is the latest entry in the series. The dungeon-crawler was originally released on PC exclusively before coming to consoles later. Could Nintendo Switch be the game's next destination? It's too soon to say, but it's an exciting prospect to think about.
The real March madness is how much binging you'll be doing with everything new coming to Netflix. The streaming service is going all out with its March additions, including a ton of new originals, along with more movies, TV shows, and specials.
While there are over 50 originals being added to the streamer in March, there are two you need to pay very special attention to. Firstly, the new season of Marvel's Jessica Jones. Krysten Ritter is back as the whiskey-drinking hero, along with co-stars Rachael Taylor (Trish) and Carrie-Anne Moss (Jeri Hogarth). Notably, David Tennant will also reprise his role as the evil Killgrave in a guest appearance. The new season of Jessica Jones arrives on March 8--International Women's Day.
The other major original to keep an eye out for is the return of Santa Clarita Diet--the horror comedy zombie series starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. The first photos from the new season were released recently, showing new characters moving into the neighborhood and more undead insanity. New episodes of Santa Clarita Diet arrive on March 23.
As for movies, the Cruel Intentions trilogy--yes, it's actually a trilogy--will begin streaming in March. Other new titles include Adventureland, Jackass: Number Two, Wet Hot American Summer, and Let Me In.
It's not all good news, though. With the arrivals come the departures. March will see all four Jaws films leave Netflix, as well as three seasons of Brickleberry and the Santa Clause trilogy.
Ubisoft's multiplayer Destiny-like shooter The Division has been out for just about two years, and today the company announced that the game has passed a significant milestone: it has just crossed the 20 million player mark across PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Although this number probably includes the people who took advantage of the free trials Ubisoft's offered, it's still an impressive number. The Division has amassed a player base the size of the state of New York, and to celebrate, Ubisoft is beginning a series of events. During March, there will be four Global Events--one per week--and each will bring its own special modifiers and rewards. In addition, you can snag a free sneeze emote right now.
Two years, and 20 million players. Thank you to all the Agents who have joined The Division so far. pic.twitter.com/EpvU8wwNFE
As a part of its announcement for crossing the 20 million milestone, Ubisoft also revealed some other notable statistics for the game. Among other things, 66 billion NPCs have been killed, and players average 3 hours of playtime a day. You can see the full stat sheet above.
Ubisoft has routinely released new content for The Division, including three big expansions called Underground, Survival, and Last Stand. The latest big content drop came in December, when a new area and two game modes were added. You can read more about The Division's 1.8 update here.
Join Ben and Jean-luc play as Aloy while checking out some of the new weekly event quests including Wiggle Me This and the new Arena Challenge.
Out of the 5 nominees for Best Director at the 90th Academy Awards, who deserves to win?
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