If you've ever played Diablo, you know the name Deckard Cain. The weathered old man generally serves as an adviser, rather than any sort of combatant, yet he's set to become just that in Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm.
Yes, Deckard is set to become a playable hero in HotS, and Blizzard seems to have had a lot of fun with his design. He's capable of healing and generally supporting his team, though he's susceptible to being Silenced and doesn't offer much in the way of mobility. His abilities include one that throws a healing potion on the ground for a teammate to collect, another that uses the Horadric Cube to deal damage and slow enemies, and a scroll that roots and damages.
As is often the case, it's the Heroic abilities that are best. Lorenado summons a tornado made of his books that moves in a target direction and pushes back enemies that it touches. Best of all is Stay A While And Listen, which casts a large cone in front of him. Those inside are subjected to a story he tells, which makes them fall asleep.
Deckard launches "soon" on the public test realm and will be released to the full game sometime after that. Blizzard has also announced it plans to release a comic, Rise of the Raven Lord, that will explore Heroes of the Storm lore sometime later in April.
A new poster for Avengers: Infinity War has been released and it's a bit of a treasure hunt. As with most of the posters for the movie, the new image is jam-packed with Marvel Cinematic Universe superheroes, as this is the MCU's biggest movie to date.
This poster, however, comes complete with Easter eggs, care of IMAX. In a tweet, the company writes, "There are 4 hidden IMAX logos somewhere on this poster. Can you find them all?" Given how busy a college of heroes it is, you'd expect finding the hidden IMAX mentions a difficult task. Of course, with the internet all things are possible.
It took almost no time at all for fans to not only track down the hidden IMAX logos, but also find some possible significance in the image. One user even believes the size of the characters in the poster is a hint at who will play the biggest roles in Avengers: Infinity War.
Each section, has a character that's enlarged more than the others. That's most likely signifying their larger roles. Iron Man, Steve Rogers, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Bucky, Star-Lord and Thanos!
This poster is just the latest peek at what MCU movie fans will see when they finally get to see what Thanos (Josh Brolin) has in store for the assembled Marvel Universe in Infinity War. Make sure to check out GameSpot's complete coverage for the upcoming movie, including a guide to the Infinity Stones and the latest tease at where Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is in the film. Avengers: Infinity War is in theaters on April 27.
The acclaimed strategy game Crusader Kings II is currently free on Steam for a limited time. And to be clear, this isn't a "free play weekend" kind of thing. If you download it now, you get to keep and play it forever.
This is a good thing, because Crusader Kings II happens to be terrific. Released in 2012, this colorful game puts you in charge of a European kingdom in the Middle Ages and asks you to expand your power in any way you choose. You can advance your position using war tactics, diplomacy, scheming, or a combination of all three.
From our Crusader Kings II review: "After you choose a starting point somewhere between 1066 and 1337, you play as any head of state from the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire to the king of a tiny territory long since absorbed by a larger nation. Each has its advantages and disadvantages: picking a powerful empire grants you more military and financial resources, but it also saddles you with a collection of barons, dukes, and counts whose ambitions aren't always aligned with your own."
You also have to pay attention to your family members, because this is a multigenerational affair. Once one leader kicks the bucket, you take control of the heir to the throne. With so many things to keep in mind, Crusader Kings II is a complicated game that can take some time to wrap your head around. "But," as our reviewer concludes, "if you allow that fact to scare you off, you'd be doing yourself a grave disservice. Crusader Kings II makes it an absolute delight to rewrite history one small step at a time."
A number of expansions have been released over the years, but they're not included with the free download. You can even find some Game of Thrones mods if you dig around. Regardless, you can't beat getting a good game for free. It's unclear when the deal will end, so grab Crusader Kings II for free on Steam now.
According to THR, the huge price tag is due to the fact that Amazon is required to make five seasons of the show. It is very unusual for a series of this scale and cost to have an upfront commitment of this size, but these were the terms of the deal with the Tolkien Estate and publishers HarperColllins. In addition, Amazon must have the first season in production within two years.
New Line Cinema, who produced Peter Jackson's hugely successful Lord of the Rings movies, do do not own any of the TV rights to Tolkien's work, so the show could technically stand apart from the films. However, New Line were included in the talks, and THR reveals that Jackson has already started "a dialogue" with Amazon, and that the studio "may use material from the films." Another intriguing aspect of the deal is that it also includes the rights to make "a potential spinoff," indicating that, if successful, we'll be watching a lot of Tolkien on our screens for many years to come.
Jackson's first Lord of the Rings trilogy collectively made more than $2.9 billion, with the final instalment, 2003's The Return of the King, making more than $1 billion alone. It won 11 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Jackson followed this with three Hobbit films, which also made $2.9 billion worldwide.
We finally know that Insomniac's new Spider-Man game for PlayStation 4 is coming out in September. But that's not all we learned about the anticipated Sony exclusive this week.
Game Informer asked creative director Bryan Intihar 114 rapid-fire questions, and among the things he revealed is that there are no microtransactions and that the game is locked at 30 FPS on PS4 and PS4 Pro. Additionally, he confirmed that Mary Jane is a playable character.
The game will look and run a little better on PS4 Pro
But it's locked at 30 FPS on both systems
Mary Jane is a playable character, and she will "surprise a lot of people." At this point in the story, she knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
The game's open world is "several times" bigger than that of Insomniac's last big game, Sunset Overdrive.
Will there be microtransactions? "Hell no."
Will we see Uncle Ben's death? "Hell no."
DLC is planned for after launch.
There is a crafting system.
You can take selfies with civilians and high-five them.
In other news, Insomniac has announced premium versions of Spider-Man, along with some DLC. The $150 Collector's Edition comes with a statue, artbook, and in-game content. Check out GameSpot's further coverage here to see all the available versions.
Ubisoft has announced plans to combat toxicity in the Rainbow Six Siege community. The ambitious plan has already identified some key changes coming relatively soon, but the announcement notes it will be focusing on this problem over the span of years. The ultimate goal is to track and manage negative behavior while also implementing features to encourage positive behavior.
For starters, Ubisoft says it is already tracking its chat for racial and homophobic slurs, with different tiers of bans based on severity: 2 days, 7 days, 15 days, or permanent. These aren't necessarily a progressive system, though. A particularly egregious player could go straight to the perma-ban without having earned the others as warnings first.
In the near future, the team plans to implement better methods of detecting team-killing. The details are scant, since the company doesn't want to reveal too much about the current shortcomings of the current kill detection system, but that change is planned for Season 2 of Year 3, likely placing it sometime this summer.
Further out, Ubisoft plans to let you mute text chat, voice, both, or neither on a per-player basis. It is also working on a chat filtering tool that will automatically censor offensive words and provide a notification that they had crossed a line. It will be tracking the players who trip the censor excessively. Both of those changes are planned for Season 3.
"These short-term changes will begin to address toxicity, but we do not plan to stop there," the announcement read. "We are serious about tackling the issues surrounding the potential for negative player experience, and we will share any further changes with you prior to their implementation."
The years-long commitment reaffirms that Ubisoft is looking at Siege as a live game. After a rocky start, it has developed into a huge mainstay with a devoted following. Like any game with a large community, though, it's bound to attract some troublemakers. Overwatch similarly announced new measures recently. If you'd like to hear a more good-natured and friendly type of arguing about it, check out our new debate series Versus. In the debut episode we pit Siege against Overwatch for multiplayer shooter supremacy.
A new set of Fortnite challenges means a new batch of optional objectives to complete in Battle Royale, provided you own the Battle Pass. Week 7 challenges include two in particular that will require either some legwork on your part or a guide to specific locations--which is where we come in.
The first of these trickier challenges asks you to follow the treasure map found in Retail Row, something that is labeled as a "Hard" objective (meaning you get 10 Battle Stars for completing it). This works identically to other treasure map challenges: You hunt down a map randomly located in the stated area, and it directs you to another location on the map, where you have to collect an item. However, if you know where to go, you can skip the treasure map altogether and go directly to the treasure location.
For Week 7, that means going to the Wailing Woods. If you look at the map, you'll see a part of it that is less densely populated with trees, which is home to a hedge maze. Navigate to the southwestern corner, and you'll find the treasure hidden in a dead end. Walk up and activate it (by holding the same button or key you'd use to open a chest), and the challenge is complete.
More time-consuming is the challenge that wants you to search the Hidden Gnome in different named locations. You'll have to search a total of seven of these gnomes, though you thankfully don't have to do all of this in a single match. There are far more than seven gnomes on the map, so you don't necessarily have to head to specific locations to do this. Anywhere you see a name on the map--Retail Row, Loot Lake, Tilted Towers, et al--you'll find a gnome hiding inside of a building.
As with the treasure, you'll have to hold a button or key (again, the same as opening a chest) to "search" a gnome once you find one. In some cases, such as the one in Junk Junction, you may need to destroy some of the surrounding objects in order to easily access it. Others can be searched without physically seeing it, as is the case with one hiding in a bathroom stall in Greasy Grove. We've assembled the map below and verified it with locations discovered by Reddit user thesquatingdog to help you identify the locations where you can find a gnome.
Check out our complete guide for the remainder of Week 7's challenges. They primarily deal with doing things in specific locations or getting access to the right types of weapons (shotguns and suppressed weapons, in the case of this week). It's also not too late to go back and complete those from previous weeks; Battle Pass owners have the remainder of April to finish all of Season 3's Fortnite: Battle Royale challenges. Earn the Battle Stars for completing challenges, and you'll more quickly level up the Battle Pass and earn its various rewards.
After the amazing gaming year that was 2017, you have to wonder how 2018 will compare. But if 2018's current roster of releases is anything to go by, we might be in for another fantastic year. It seems primed to impress with a slew of hotly anticipated new games, including big-budget games like Super Smash Bros., Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War, Crackdown 3, and a whole lot more. To help you keep track of all the games coming out, we've compiled a list of all the noteworthy release dates for the biggest ones confirmed to come out in 2018 so far.
Be sure to check back often as we update this article with more release dates or any potential changes to any of the dates below. And if you're eager to figure out the release dates from games last year, you can also reference our feature on the game release dates of 2017.
Below you can find a list of the biggest games that don't have explicit release dates but are confirmed to release sometime this year. There are also games listed that we expect to launch in 2018. We'll be moving each of these games into the release date sections above as soon as official dates are announced.
Far Cry 5 offers quite a bit to do in its open world, but its Arcade mode arguably offers even more to keep you occupied. The map editor is quite robust and gives you a ton of tools to create both cooperative and competitive multiplayer maps and modes. However, making a map is the easy part. Making a good map is more difficult and will take a lot of practice.
Luckily, the GameSpot team has identified some common pitfalls and mistakes that can contribute to a custom scenario or arena less than enjoyable. In the video above, we outline seven things that you should avoid doing while building the next great Far Cry map.
Ultimately, success in Arcade comes from a combination of being varied while also keeping the map to a manageable scale. You have be patient and determined to put in the work necessary to sufficiently terraform so that the map has interesting terrain. But you also want to keep the dimensions fairly low, as it's easy to get overwhelmed by larger maps. We discuss these tips and more in the video.
If you're interested in learning about which guns to place on your custom map, be sure to check out our ranking of the 9 best weapons in Far Cry 5. Further, if you're just starting out with Arcade, you can watch our beginner's guide to the map editor here. Finally, players have already made some impressive (and not-so-impressive) creations in Arcade, and we've rounded up a bunch of them here.
Hearthstone's next expansion is inching ever closer. Blizzard announced today that The Witchwood will launch next Thursday, April 12. It will add another 135 cards to the game, as well as mark the start of the Year of the Raven. The annual change will cycle some older sets out of Standard play to make room for this year's expansions.
The company is still slowly revealing the full set, but that will all come to a head on Monday, April 9, at 11 AM PT. That's when Blizzard will host a live stream with game director Ben Brode and Hearthstone streamer Sean "Day9" Plott to show off the remaining cards. That will also likely mark your last chance to pre-order the Witchwood bundle, which grants 70 packs for $50. After the expansion launches, of course, packs will be available at their regular price.
If you're looking to score some free cards and packs, though, Blizzard has arranged a few methods. You can take part in daily quests now, as all of them are granting randomized card packs as rewards in addition to the regular gold rewards. You can also log-in to Hearthstone anytime between the Witchwood launch and July 10 to claim three free packs and one class legendary card.
Witchwood will introduce one new Hero Card, the Shaman Hagatha, as a central character. A new single-player mode, called Monster Hunt, will follow shortly after launch. If you want to get inside the design philosophy of Hearthstone, check out what the devs told us recently about making everything feel overpowered.
While there are still many months before Halloween rolls around, it's never too early to get excited about it, right? Universal Studios has announced the first maze in the works for 2018's Halloween Horror Nights celebration, and it's a big one.
For the first time ever, Stranger Things will get its own haunted maze at the annual haunt. The Netflix series will have mazes at three Universal Studios parks--Hollywood, Orlando, and Singapore--that will take guests to locations from the series like the Hawkins National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Byers home, and, of course, the Upside Down.
A press release says visitors will experience an "oozing a shower of floating orb-like spores" in the Upside Down, which sounds wonderful and gross all at the same time. Naturally, the Demogorgon will also play a role in the maze, as it stalks fans during their journey.
To bring Stranger Things to life, the Horror Nights team is collaborating with creators the Duffer brothers, as well as producer Shaun Levy and Netflix. Given the impressive treatment the attraction has given to properties like Ash vs. Evil Dead, Saw, The Shining, and The Purge in recent years, this particular maze should be a sight to see.
Halloween Horror Nights will kick off in Hollywood and Orlando on September 14, with Singapore's event launching on September 28. If you've somehow missed Stranger Things thus far, you have plenty of time to catch up before visiting the Upside Down yourself.
One day before Wrestlemania 34, NXT Takeover: New Orleans will feature a six-way ladder match to determine the very first NXT North American Champion. The new title will become the fourth active championship in NXT--fifth if you include the WWE United Kingdom Championship.
Now, thanks to a tweet from Triple H, the championship belt has been revealed. In the accompanying video, he says, "There is a saying that there can only be one first ever." The only question is who that first ever will be. Competing in the match are Richochet, Killian Dain, Lars Sullivan, Velveteen Dream, EC3, and Adam Cole. Those six names being loaded into a single match should tell you a lot about how packed with talent the NXT roster is at the moment.
Does the show need a North American Championship, though? Honestly, it depends on how the title is treated on NXT programming. With a single one-hour show airing weekly, five titles might seem like overkill. However, the NXT Championship is mostly defended on Takeover specials, while the UK title is not exclusive to the brand.
If positioned as a title regularly defended on NXT's weekly TV shows, it could provide a great boost for the series. Beyond that, with so much talent in NXT at this point, it gives another prize for the growing roster to go after.
The inaugural NXT North American Champion will be determined at NXT Takeover: New Orleans on April 7, the day before Wrestlemania 34. It will air live on the WWE Network.
As she's strong with the Force, maybe her parents were Jedi--perhaps even Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) himself. In the end, though, they were nothing. "Filthy junk traders," as Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) put it. For director Rian Johnson, this was the only possible answer. "We're not here to give Rey an easy time; we're here to put her on the hard path so that she has to," he previously explained. "Because that's the path of a hero."
However, it seems there was another plan at one point. After directing The Force Awakens, Abrams had his own ideas about Rey's parentage and how it would play out in the Star Wars universe. Simon Pegg, who appeared in the film in a minor role of Jakku junk trader Unkar Plutt, claims as much on an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
"Well, I know what JJ kind of intended, or at least what was sort of being chucked around. I think that's kind of been undone slightly by [The Last Jedi]," the actor says. "There was some talk about, you know, a kind of relevant lineage for her. But I honestly don't know, and I don't know if anybody knows. We shall see."
Given that Abrams could retcon Rey's parents when he returns to direct Episode IX, it will be interesting to see if his vision for that particular story ever comes to the forefront. Don't expect to find out any time soon, though. There's still almost two years before Star Wars: Episode IX arrives in theaters on December 20, 2019. Then, get ready for a new trilogy of movies in the franchise from Johnson.
Even though it seems like the in-fighting between the cast of the Fast & Furious franchise had come to an end, the situation could be more troubling than fans realize. Is it possible the next movie, Fast & Furious 9, will be missing Dwayne Johnson? Say it isn't so!
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Johnson admits he may not appear in the franchise's ninth installment. "I'm not quite sure," he says. "Right now I'm concentrating on making the spin-off as good as it can be." That spin-off, which was previously announced, will see his Luke Hobbs team with Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) on their own adventure, without Dom (Vin Diesel) and the rest of the family.
So why has Johnson considered sitting out the next movie? It sounds as if his rift with Diesel may be deeper than some believed. After the wrestler-turned-actor ranted on social media about one of his Fate of the Furious co-stars, many assumed it was Diesel. That was only compounded when the film released and the two actors didn't share much screen time. "That is correct," Johnson says. "We were not in any scenes together."
However, he maintains that the two of them came to an understanding during production. "Vin and I had a few discussions, including an important face-to-face in my trailer. And what I came to realize is that we have a fundamental difference in philosophies on how we approach moviemaking and collaborating," he says. "It took me some time, but I'm grateful for that clarity. Whether we work together again or not."
While it remains to be seen what Johnson's future in the Fast and Furious movies is, here's hoping Luke Hobbs will ride again after the upcoming spin-off--which is scheduled to hit theaters on July 26, 2019. Regardless, there will be plenty of chances to see the actor on the big screen. Both Rampage and Skyscraper will arrive this year and he's going to star in a movie based on Disneyland's Jungle Cruise attraction.
Best Buy is running a pair of sales on 4K Ultra HD Blu-Rays. One of them gets you two select movies for $30, and the other gets you three select movies for $50. To take advantage of the deals, visit the links above, check the "add to offer" boxes next to the movies you want, and click the "Add to Cart" button at the bottom of the page. The discounted prices will appear during checkout.
What kind of movies are we talking? They're mostly blockbusters that are dripping with special effects--the kinds of movies that really shine on a 4K display. In the "two for $30" category, you can choose from films like Alien: Covenant, The Martian, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and X-Men: Apocalypse. If movies based on video games are more your style, you can go for Assassin's Creed and the 2015 version of Hitman.
The "three for $50" offer contains movies that originally retail for higher prices, like Wonder Woman, It, Kong: Skull Island, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Best Picture nominee Dunkirk. For DC comic fans, you can select movies like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Watchmen, and Suicide Squad. And if you want to explore some gritty classics in 4K, you can go for Blade Runner: The Final Cut or Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.
Even if you're not interested in enough movies to take advantage of the offers, each movie is on sale for $20. That gives you a savings of between a $3 and $15, depending on the movie. Here are those links again.
It's been widely reported that current WWE Universal Champion Brock Lesnar's contract with the company is up after Wrestlemania 34. With that in mind, practically everyone who's ever watched professional wrestling expects Roman Reigns to walk out of the WWE's biggest annual show as the new champion. Now, it's possible UFC president Dana White has confirmed Lesnar's exit from the wrestling company.
Appearing on UFC Today (via CBS Sports), White had no hesitation when asked about Lesnar's future in the MMA organization. "Yeah, Brock Lesnar's coming back," he reveals. "I don't know when, but yes he is."
While this shouldn't come as a surprise, the timing of White making the statement days before Wrestlemania is interesting. As much as Lesnar losing the Universal Championship is a foregone conclusion at this point, wrestling fans like to believe that anything could happen--especially at Wrestlemania.
Still, White's comment that he doesn't know when Lesnar will be back is interesting. After his 2016 win over Mark Hunt, Lesnar was found to have failed a performance-enhancing drug test. His win was turned into a no contest and he was suspended from UFC. Before his return, it was stipulated that he would have to spend six months in the USADA testing pool to determine he was keeping his system clean from PEDs.
That's a subject that came up last July when it was rumored Lesnar was considering a jump back to the UFC. At that time, a UFC official confirmed Lesnar had yet to re-enter the testing pool. Whether he's begun drug testing since then remains a mystery.
While it seems the outcome of Lesnar vs. Reigns is all but set in stone, there is still plenty to look forward to at Wrestlemania 34. Take a look at GameSpot comprehensive coverage of the granddaddy of them all, from all the latest news and rumors to when the ideal time to take a pee break during the show will be.
Epic Games has launched the next set of weekly challenges in Fortnite: Battle Royale. Following the release of a new content update, players on mobile, PC, PS4, and Xbox One who own the Season 3 Battle Pass can now tackle Week 7's challenges. These involve the usual mixture of tricky objectives and those that will simply take some playtime and luck to complete.
Nothing this week deals with the newly added Vending Machines. In terms of the more straightforward challenges, you'll need to head to Lonely Lodge to search a total of seven chests. You'll also want to hang onto any shotguns you come across, as another challenge has you deal a total of 1,000 damage with them. Two of this week's "Hard" challenges also require some specific circumstance: one asks you to get three eliminations using a suppressed weapon, while another tasks you with eliminating three enemies in the vicinity of Shifty Shafts. All of the aforementioned objectives can be completed across a series of matches, so feel free to slowly whittle away at them.
One objective that is more challenging asks you to search a chest, ammo box, and supply drop in a single match. For the former two, you'll want to head indoors and check out attics in particular. As for the supply drop--the special chests that are periodically dropped onto the map--you'll need to keep an eye out for when one comes in. There's a specific sound effect that plays when one is dropped. Battles often ensue around supply drops due to their desirable contents, and that's only likely to be intensified because of this challenge. As such, this is one you may want to consider waiting some time to complete.
The remaining two challenges are the trickiest of the week without any help. One is deemed a Hard objective and asks you to follow the treasure map in Retail Row. As always with these treasure maps, you don't actually have to find the map--you can simply go right to where they would direct you, which in this case is in the hedge maze in Wailing Woods.
Your other more involved challenges asks you to search the Hidden Gnome in different named locations around the map. You'll have to inspect a total of seven, although there are quite a few more than that on the map. Every named location is home to one, and you can tell you're closing in on it when you hear its laughter. We'll have a video guide to help you find these soon.
As with all weekly challenges, you have the full season--through the end of April--to complete these. That means it's not too late to purchase the Battle Pass and go back to take on all of the Season 3 challenges so far. Doing so allows you to rank up the Battle Pass more quickly, which in turn allows you to get your hands on its many rewards.
Fortnite Week 7 Challenges
Search Chests in Lonely Lodge (7) -- 5 Battle Stars
Deal damage with Shotguns to opponents (1,000) -- 5 Battle Stars
Search a Chest, Ammo Box, & Supply Drop in a single match -- 5 Battle Stars
Search the Hidden Gnome in different Named Locations (7) -- 5 Battle Stars
Hard: Follow the treasure map found in Retail Row -- 10 Battle Stars
A new Fortnite update has added yet another wrinkle to Battle Royale: Vending Machines. By finding one, you can trade in the materials you've collected during the match in exchange for a variety of items. You'll tend to see these machines in the same spots, but they are not fixtures. Below, we've detailed the common locations and where to find them, as well as exactly how they function and what prices are like.
You'll find Vending Machines all around the map--typically indoors, if our experience is any indication, though we've also found one that was outdoors. Each one has three items for sale and will gradually rotate through them. You can wait for it to change to the item you want to purchase, or you can hit the machine with your pickaxe to make it jump to the next of the three.
Vending Machines are each randomly assigned a rarity level at the start of a match, as the patch notes explain. They then sell items at that specific rarity--one for each material type (wood, stone, and metal). You'll need a specific amount of that material to buy the corresponding item, though you're free to buy as many items as you wish, provided you can afford it. That may put a renewed emphasis on collecting materials with the pickaxe, even for players who don't care about building. Here's how much items will cost at each rarity:
Common (white) items -- 100 materials
Uncommon (green) items -- 200 materials
Rare (blue) -- 300 materials
Epic (purple) -- 400 materials
Legendary (gold) -- 500 materials
In terms of finding the Vending Machines, they're scattered all across the map, but they don't always appear in the same spots. You can see what it's like to interact with some in the video above, and we've also compiled the map you see above, which combines the discoveries of Reddit user clizzythegod with those we've found ourselves. As you'd expect, you'll most easily find Vending Machines in high-density areas like Pleasant Park, Tilted Towers, Salty Springs, and Retail Row, but there are others in unnamed parts of the map.
Vending Machines were added as part of Fortnite's 3.4 content update for mobile, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. This is part of developer Epic Games' new plan to roll out new content every other week. These content updates won't individually require you to download anything, as it seems the additions will be included as part of earlier patches. The 3.4 content update has also kicked off a new limited-time mode, High Explosives v2, and made weapon balance changes.
We've been seeing teases for Live Events in Far Cry 5's menus since launch, and now the first of these activities is finally available. Well Done provides a specific objective to complete while playing and offers unique rewards for completing it during the allotted time; here's how to access Live Events and what awaits you.
You'll want to first boot up the game and load up your save. From there, bring up the in-game menu (the one with your map, inventory, and so on) and tab over to the Online area. From here, you can select Live Events, which takes you to a screen that informs you of the current event. You'll be informed of the objective and be able to accept the quest, which you can then complete as you play normally.
Well Done, as this first Live Event is called, tasks you with killing animals using fire. Provided you don't have any moral qualms with that, there's one other wrinkle that stands in your way: You can't use the two most obvious means for doing this, the flamethrower and molotovs. As a result, you'll need to rely on things like flame arrows to secure the required number of kills.
The Live Events screen tracks both your personal progression and the community's progression. A special reward awaits for meeting the threshold with each. Personally, you'll rack up some Silver Bars once you've made some progress; rack up all 20 kills and you'll get a Prestige flamethrower called Flamebearer. You'll also earn some Silver Bars as the Far Cry 5 community makes progress on the event; at 150,000 total kills, participants will receive a Flamebearer outfit to wear--and this threshold was passed in less than a day. You'll have to complete your portion by the time the event ends on Tuesday, April 10.
Live Events are another piece of the long-term content Far Cry 5 promises to offer. Outside of the campaign itself, which is playable in single-player or co-op, there's also the Far Cry Arcade, where you can create levels or download and play those created by other players. Beyond that, Ubisoft itself also has quite a bit of DLC on the way, and it sounds pretty out there. For more on what to expect from the game, check out our Far Cry 5 review.
Far Cry 5 has become the fastest-selling game in franchise history in its opening week, according to Ubisoft. The company claimed $310M USD in its first week, double the opening sales of previous franchise record-holder Far Cry 4. That also makes it the second-biggest launch ever for Ubisoft, behind The Division.
The announcement also mentions a few other launch week stats. Far Cry 5 was streamed for more than 55,000 hours. Players were were ambushed by 8,651 skunks, caught 5.1 million fish, and spent 1.1 million hours with Cheeseburger the bear. The most popular gun for hire was the pilot Nick Rye, while the most popular animal companion was Boomer the dog–which makes sense, given that he's a very good boy.
We heard just this week that Far Cry 5 had hit the top spot on the UK sales charts, so this announcement isn't too surprising. This is the first time the open-world series has taken place in America. It's set in the fictional Hope County, Montana after an attempt to arrest the leader of a doomsday cult goes awry.
In GameSpot's Far Cry 5 review, Edmond Tran praised the vast open-world exploration and precise gunplay, though he found some story missions to be a chore. Fortunately there appears to be lots to see and do, including some clever Easter eggs to find. Currently the first live event has you burning animals to a crisp. If you're thinking of picking it up, make sure to check out our tips for beginners.
Despite proving to be an enjoyable arena shooter, LawBreakers has not turned out to be the success its developer hoped for. With the game struggling to attract players, developer Boss Key Productions has finally commented on what both it and the game's future holds.
In a message on its official website, Boss Key admitted that it hasn't spoken about the game in some time, describing the last four months as "especially trying, as we pride ourselves at being communicative and transparent."
"So here is the very real truth, which may not come as a surprise," it said. "The fact is LawBreakers failed to find enough of an audience to generate the funds necessary to keep it sustained in the manner we had originally planned for and anticipated. And while a pivot to free-to-play may seem like [the] easiest change to make, a change of this magnitude takes publishing planning and resources to do it."
While this sounds like the preface for Boss Key announcing that it is ending support for the game, the studio says it's "determined to give this game the second life it deserves." Due to the need to keep the company afloat, though, this won't be its sole focus moving forward.
"[B]etween now and then, we cannot sit idle," the message said. "We will continue to support the game in its current state, but we also need to focus on other projects with fresh creative leaders. We have been working on something new and we can't wait to share more about it! It's a passion project that we're in complete control of.
LawBreakers is an arena shooter in the mold of something like Unreal Tournament or Quake but with a class-based system. It was the first game released by Boss Key, the studio founded by Cliff Bleszinski, the ex-Epic Games developer best known for his work on Unreal Tournament and Gears of War. The game debuted on PC and PS4 last August and immediately struggled to grab much of audience, with its playerbase quickly dwindling. Bleszinski has spoken out on his desire to save the game, though fellow co-founder Arjan Brussee left the studio to return to Epic.
Arena shooters are a sub-genre that hasn't seen many games released in recent years, which seemingly left open a niche for LawBreakers to exploit. However, its struggles may have been at least partially due to the overwhelming success of PUBG, according to publisher Nexon. In an earnings report, the company said, "The timing of its launch turned out to be unfortunate, specifically the blockbuster PC online game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds came out right about the same time, making the market environment very tough for first-person shooters in general and for LawBreakers."
The Road to Wrestlemania is long, tough, and tiring, and not just for WWE superstars. GameSpot has been keeping you up to date with everything revolving around WWE's biggest event in 2018, Wrestlemania 34. This year's edition is coming to you from the Superdome in New Orleans on Sunday, April at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT. Believe it or not, there are still tickets available for the event, with the cheapest going for $50 and the most expensive costing $7,350.
This year's card is extremely stacked, with 14 matches--including Cena/Undertaker--happening over the course of seven hours. One of the biggest pieces of news to come out of the lead-up to Mania is Daniel Bryan being cleared to return to wrestling, which led to him teaming with Shane McMahon to take on Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. In addition, John Cena has been begging Undertaker for a match at Wrestlemania 34 for the past month, and no match has been confirmed yet, but it's totally still going to happen, right?
Here's a collection of our biggest stories revolving around Wrestlemania to get you pumped up for the April 8 event. Make sure to come back to GameSpot for live coverage of Wrestlemania and individual full match recaps right after they air on Sunday.
Acclaimed PC role-playing title Divinity: Original Sin II is coming to Xbox One and PS4. The console release will be published by Bandai Namco and will launch in August 2018. According to the publisher, it will have "a user interface tailored for console," and four-player online co-op, which proved to be popular in the PC version, will be included. There will also be two-player split-screen co-op support.
"It was very important to us to have Divinity: Original Sin II distributed by a team that understands how to bring RPGs to a broad audience," added Swen Vincke, CEO of developer Larian Studios. "With Dark Souls and The Witcher, Bandai Namco demonstrated they know how to do exactly that and so I'm very happy we'll have their support."
In GameSpot's Divinity: Original Sin II review the game was awarded a 10/10, with critic Brett Todd praised its "immaculately conceived and emotion-wrought fantasy world," alongside "brilliant tactical combat" that makes it "one of the finest games of the year."
Divinity: Original Sin II was No.5 in GameSpot's Best Games of 2017 list. Reflecting on the title, Jess McDonell said it "exceeds the accomplishments of its predecessor as a spectacularly crafted RPG that ranks among the greats of the genre."
With Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy having been a huge success, Activision is launching another new remaster package soon involving another popular PS1 series, Spyro. The company today announced Spyro: Reignited Trilogy, which features updated versions of the first three Spyro games: 1998's Spyro the Dragon, 1999's Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage (Gateway to Glimmer in Europe and Australia), and 2000's Spyro: Year of the Dragon. Reignited releases on September 21, priced at $40 in the United States.
The included games were originally developed by Insomniac Games, but the Activision subsidiary Toys for Bob is handling the remasters. They are being made "from the ground up" for PS4 and Xbox One. Toys for Bob has a long history with the Spyro franchise, as the studio released the first Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure game and other installments in the toys-to-life series. The news comes after previous rumors and a very recent retailer leak.
All of the levels from the original three games are "mapped faithfully," Activision says; you can see a screenshot comparison here. As for what's new, Activision said there are "enhanced reward sequences," better-looking environments, updated controls, new lighting effects, and "recreated" cinematics. Additionally, the characters have been "creatively re-imagined with additional flair." The game will feature a "re-imagining" of Stewart Copeland's original soundtracks.
Voice actor Tom Kenny, who originally voiced Spyro in Spyro 2 and Year of the Dragon, is coming back to voice the dragon yet again. Carlos Alazraqui voiced Spyro in the first game. It's not immediately clear if Kenny is taking over in the remaster package. Kenny is perhaps best known for voicing SpongeBob Squarepants.
To celebrate this announcement, Activision tucked a cool Easter egg into the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. Gamers in North America can now enter the famous video game code ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → Square at the Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped title screen to queue up the Reignited trailer (which you can see in the embed above).
Even though World of Warcraft is approaching fourteen years old, Blizzard shows no sign of stopping development on new content. The next expansion, called Battle for Azeroth, releases this summer, and recently Blizzard gave a glimpse of what you can expect from the next chapter of WoW.
With Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard is focusing on making WoW more accessible to new players while also bringing the story back to Warcraft's roots. You'll be a witness to and participant in a reignited conflict between the Horde and Alliance, and both factions must mobilize their naval might. Further, Blizzard is introducing numerous new mechanics and modes such as Warfronts, which are 20-player cooperative experiences meant to evoke missions from the RTS Warcraft games.
In the video embedded above, the GameSpot team takes a look at Battle for Azeroth in action. You'll see some of the new Island Expeditions, which involve three players working together on a rotating set of objectives. The team will compete against another group of three--either AI or real players--from the opposing faction to be the first to complete everything.
Battle for Azeroth launches on August 14 on PC; you can pre-purchase it now for $50 and get immediate access to several quests that unlock four new playable character races. You need WoW and the previous expansion, Legion, to access Battle for Azeroth, but a bundle of all WoW content including BfA costs $90. You can also read about the Battle for Azeroth Digital Deluxe Edition and Collector's Edition here.
With the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War likely to be packed with shocks and surprises, directors Joe and Anthony Russo this week attempted to head off spoilers by appealing to fans to keep the movie's secrets. A note they released asked viewers not to "spoil it for others, the same way you wouldn't want it spoiled for you." Following this, Spider-Man actor Tom Holland has released his own excellent response.
Avengers: Infinity War stars Robert Downey Jr., Chadwick Boseman, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Pratt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, plus pretty much every major actor from the last decade of Marvel movies. It hits theaters on April 27.
Following last month's trailer, a new TV spot was recently revealed, alongside some new posters for the movie. The posters are all themed around the color scheme of the Infinity Stones, and while they don't reveal new information, they do provide a look at many of the cast members and how their characters look going into Infinity War. However, Ant-Man and Hawkeye remain absent, just as they have from all the trailers so far.
In related news, the Russos recently teased fans about the still-unknown title of next year's Avengers 4. Last year, Marvel boss Kevin Feige explained that the reason that the title hadn't been revealed was because it will spoil the events of Infinity War, and last week, the directors confirmed this. "The fact that the Russo brothers won't give us the Avengers 4 title because it spoils Infinity War scares the s**t outta me," a fan tweeted, to which the brothers replied, "It should."
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has spent a decade building up to Avengers: Infinity War, and the movie finally arrives this month. The third Avengers movie will bring together every major hero from the MCU, who team up to stop the evil Thanos getting hold of the Infinity Stones. Following the most recent trailer, a new TV spot has been released.
Whereas the trailer featured plenty of the expected humor, this latest promo is very serious indeed. It opens with a voiceover from Gamora (Zoe Saldana) explaining that her adopted dad Thanos has only one goal: "To wipe out the entire universe." That's followed moody shots of Marvel's greatest heroes, including Peter Parker, Black Panther, Tony Stark, Rocket Raccoon, and the Vision, who tells Scarlet Witch, "we are out of time." Given he has one of the Infinity Stones buried in his forehand, he could be right. Check it out below:
Last week, Vision actor Paul Bettany spoke about his role in Infinity War, and his character's relationship with Scarlet Witch. "Vision's been on this quest to understand what being human is and I think Scarlet Witch [has], in a large degree, helped him figure that out and what love is," he said. "These bad guys are trying to get the stone out of my head and so Wanda and I fought them off, and then we've ended up here for surgery. I just found out what it means to be human and now this Thanos guy [arrives]. I think he's a real d***."
In addition, some new posters for the movie were also revealed recently. They are all themed around the color scheme of the Infinity Stones, and while they don't reveal new information, they do provide a look at many of the cast members and how their characters look going into Infinity War. However, Ant-Man and Hawkeye remain absent, just as they have from all the trailers so far.
Avengers: Infinity War stars Robert Downey Jr., Chadwick Boseman, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Pratt, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Tom Holland. It hits theaters on April 27. It is directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, who helmed the last two Captain America movies, and will follow it up with next year's currently untitled Avengers 4.
Alien creatures are an essential part of the Star Wars universe--from the shady denizens of the original movie's Mos Eisley cantina to the gambling creatures of Canto Bight in The Last Jedi, every new movie in the franchise introduces a host of weird alien creations. The upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story looks to be no different, and a new commercial gives fans a look at what to expect when it arrives next month.
It's an ad for Denny's restaurant, and it appears to recreate a scene from the movie that was hinted at in the previous trailer. Two kids--looking very much like Han Solo and Lando Calrissian--are playing a tense game of Sabacc in a seedy bar, and there are many shots of aliens watching (plus Chewbacca). It's very possible that these are shots from the movie--or at the very least, some of the aliens that will feature in it. Check the commercial out below:
Solo: A Star Wars Story stars Alden Ehrenreich as Han, Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca, and Donald Glover as Lando, plus Woody Harrelson, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Emilia Clarke. It hits theaters on May 25, 2018. The first trailer was released in February, and you can check out a full Solo trailer breakdown here.
Howard also took to social media recently to update fans on the film's progress. The director posted an image on Twitter of him watching it, and wrote: "Final stages of post on #Solo. It's gratifying to see everybody's dedication to this story--going back to 2012--adding up in such a fun and satisfying way. So much talent involved."
It's unlikely that many Marvel fans will feel shortchanged by the number of superheroes in the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War, but there have been a couple of notable absences from the trailers and posters so far. Ant-Man and Hawkeye are nowhere to be seen, and as was reported last month, the actor's names don't even feature on the latest poster. While we still don't know whether Ant-Man will appear, co-director Anthony Russo has spoken about Hawkeye's role in the movie.
Unsurprisingly, Russo didn't provide any specific details, but he did confirm that there was a reason we hadn't seen anything of actor Jeremy Renner yet. "All will be explained when people see the movie," he told Total Film (via Gamesradar). "It's all tied into the story."
"Hawkeye, coming out of Civil War, is in the same position that Cap and Falcon are at the end of that movie," he said. "[They] were on Cap's side coming out of the Civil War. Some made certain decisions and others made other decisions that led to different paths in them dealing with oversight in this movie in a different way. So Hawkeye's on his own journey in this movie."
Anthony Russo also revealed that we won't learn much about the back story of Infinity War's big villain Thanos. "We were considering showing [Thanos'] backstory," he said. "But ultimately felt it wasn't necessary for the movie." Nevertheless, the director did explain that the movie will be "told from Thanos' point of view," which is something the directors spoke about last year.
Earlier this week, the Russos released an appeal for fans not to spoil any of the movie's big surprises through a note they posted on Twitter. They said of the April 27 film not to "spoil it for others, the same way you wouldn't want it spoiled for you." Following this, Spider-Man actor Tom Holland released his own excellent response.
Detective Pikachu is certainly one of the stranger Pokemon games in some time, between its point-and-click inspirations and its gruff-talking title character. If you're not quite sure but still Detective-Pikachu-curious, you can try the game for free now.
The "special demo version" is available now through the 3DS Eshop. It covers a portion of the first chapter, and save data is transferable to the full game. In addition, Nintendo is still offering a Detective Pikachu 3DS theme for those who purchase Detective Pikachu on the eShop or through select retailers by April 22.
Detective Pikachu is a departure from the usual catch-em-all pitch of most Pokemon games. Instead, it partners a human boy with a self-proclaimed (and English-speaking) Pikachu to solve mysteries around Ryme City. The result is a Pokemon game that harkens back to old-school adventure games. Nintendo also produced an extra-large Detective Pikachu Amiibo for the event, which retails for almost as much as the game itself at $30.
In GameSpot's Detective Pikachu review, Kallie Plagge praised the game's quirky humor and unique setting, but found the mysteries, twists, and evidence-gathering less novel.
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