The creator of The Simpsons and Futurama is at it again with his newest show, Disenchantment, which is coming to Netflix August 17. It's another adult animation series created by Matt Groening, and given the success of his two most well-known projects, people are getting pretty excited about this one. A teaser trailer for the project was released on social media platforms and the animation style seems to be be pretty similar to the style of his other work, just in a different setting.
As the trailer itself states, the Groening has already set shows in the present and the future, so the natural next step is to set their newest show in the past. It looks like Disenchantment will be set in a fantasy world called Dreamland. The setting is reminiscent of a medieval European feudal society, complete with a castle, a king, knights, and a princess. Given the title of the show and the town, we can infer that magic will factor in somewhere.
The teaser trailer is very short so it doesn't give much of a look into what the plot might entail other than a complicated father daughter relationship. What we do know is that the first season will be 10 episodes long and will follow the adventures of the rebellious princess and her zany friends in the rapidly deteriorating kingdom of Dreamland.
This is the first time Matt Groening has released a new show in 19 years, and you can only see it on Netflix. The first season of Disenchantment will be released August 17.
After much teasing and speculation, Blizzard has revealed the next character--Hero 28--for Overwatch. The brief teaser shows off a mechanized rolling ball of death, before out pops an adorable little hamster. He's so cute! And deadly! [Update: Beyond the simple look below, we now have gotten a full look at Wrecking Ball's abilities. He's live now on the PC version's PTR.]
This reveal confirms the speculation that the next character would be another sentient animal, similar to Winston. Previous teases have seen his little apparent hamster ball rolling around in the background of other shots. It also seems to confirm that a Reddit user's speculation was right on the money, having suggested that the next character would be Hammond the Hamster.
Blizzard hasn't released details on Hammond, so we're waiting to hear more about his exact power set, Ultimate, and class. A recent patch unified the Offense and Defense classes into one, called Damage, and sorted Symmetra into that role. Hammond may be a Damage class member too.
Meanwhile, we could be getting big changes to Sombra soon. Lead designer Geoff Goodman recently revealed some internal test changes to the character that could make a massive difference to her power level, if implemented throughout the full game.
During a visit to Ubisoft Quebec, we had the opportunity to play the upcoming Assassin's Creed Odyssey for about five hours. It was a small slice of the huge open world of Ancient Greece, set in 431 BC during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. We spent that time on the Delos Islands completing side quests, leading a rebellion, and engaging in many of the RPG elements that are new to the franchise. Dialogue options aren't the only thing that are new, as facing the consequences of your choices was very much part of the demo. You can read about our experience in an in-depth preview of Assassin's Creed Odyssey and how RPG elements seem to make it a better game.
In addition to getting our hands on an early build, we had the chance to talk with Assassin's Creed Odyssey's director Scott Phillips. The following interview digs into the inspiration for the new direction, what players can expect throughout the story, and how the team is working in the rich history of this time period.
For more on Assassin's Creed Odyssey, be sure to check out our breakdown of the six biggest changes for this entry. If you want to see more of the game in action, we have a bunch of gameplay videos that show off ship combat, dialogue sequences, and large-scale battles.
GameSpot: The first thing that struck me when playing the game is the heavier RPG elements. How was that decision made and what other games did you draw inspiration from? Where did that start?
Scott Phillips: It was early on, three years ago, we were coming to the end of Syndicate. When talking about what Assassin's Creed Odyssey should be, we asked where do we want Assassin's Creed to go, what does it need to evolve into? We talked with the Assassin's Creed Origins team to see what they were doing. We both had the same sort of idea of where the series should go--RPG choice, we wanted to push it forward. We knew Origins was doing some of those things, but for us, we had the time to really go even further to focus on the two characters, Alexios and Kassandra, to focus on choice within the stories and within the dialogue, to give you special abilities, to build your own play style.
In terms of inspiration, I play a lot of RPGs and I would say open-world is my favorite genre. The RPG is something [that] fits together super, super well. And I play everything that comes out; games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and obviously Assassin's Creed Origins. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout, those two are probably some of my favorite[s]. And if you look at those games, they give players a lot of options. For us, that was what we wanted to push Assassin's Creed as a franchise into: more choice for the player.
This is the first Assassin's Creed that's moved into branching dialogue and consequences for your choices. In the playable demo, decisions were made, side quests were completed, and two hours down the line, the consequences play out. The end product of the decision wasn't clear right away. How hard is it to keep it cohesive?
It's super hard, I've got to say. There's no other way to put it. We try to think of every consequence that can happen. We write all those, we move forward with structuring the quests and all of the quests that could be impacted in a way that'll work. Then we play it a lot and ask ourselves, what did we miss? What doesn't connect? What doesn't pay off well enough?
Something we had a while ago and tried was including a sort of the Telltale-style "your choice will have an impact" notification afterward. Ultimately we felt that the player is better off making those connections themselves and we didn't want to put too much in their face. We wanted the feeling of, "Oh, wow, that thing I did back then..." or when they talk to someone else and say, "Oh, I had no idea that those connections were made." We felt after play tests that it was the stronger way to go rather than being in the player's face with the decisions being made.
Male protagonist Alexios speaking with Socrates, one of the many ways Odyssey incorporates Greek history.
Assassin's Creed always told a contained story within history. But choices seem to play out in the larger, main narrative. Is there going to be bigger payoffs or consequences of larger scale, maybe multiple endings? How much can you change the world and how much will it be reflected in the world as the game goes on?
We have to make decisions about how big are we going to go with certain choices. Obviously, we want some to have massive changes to the story, but we have mid-scale changes and small changes. Some parts of side quests can impact the main quest: who appears, who's around you, who's dead, who's alive, who you're friends with, who hates you. Those sorts of things all sort of feed into both the main story, and all of the side stories, and in the world itself because the world is constantly changing. The mercenaries that are alive in your playthrough, I may never see in mine or maybe I killed them in my playthrough. The leaders can also be different. So, there's a lot of activity and change and when players talk to each other about what their experience was, or some great fight they had with this mercenary, or the choice they made in that quest, it's going to be a very different experience for each player.
I love the Mass Effect series, but with Paragon/Renegade, I know straight up if my decision is good or bad. But we've also had games like The Witcher 3 that just give you options, and who knows how they'll pay off in the end. From the slice we played, it seems Odyssey is going the latter route.
Making the game morally gray and not black-and-white was important to us. We didn't want it to be like past games where you're not forced to not kill civilians, as a simple example. The Creed doesn't exist for your player character in terms of restricting you from doing that. That's your choice. But we're going to impact the player, we're going to show you that it means something in the game world. And it's going to give you feedback, you're going to feel those choices you've made in small-scale and in these large-scale choices across the game.
Do you want to encourage players to do more side stuff, especially those who tend to mainline games? Do you kind of accept that they might be missing out on some really good story bits and narrative arcs?
Yeah, I think the easiest example is if you look at our E3 demo, you don't have to play any of that. That's all side content in the main game, and that's true throughout huge parts of the game. We want you to do that, we think you will enjoy it. And as balance between players that want to rush the game and players that want to complete every single piece is a challenge for us, because we want both play styles to be valid and work well. In an RPG, making sure that the player who does 100% of the content and that player who does only what they want, we want both to have a good experience. Balance for both player types is something that RPGs have struggled with quite a bit. I think we have a very good progression system, a very good way of balancing the game that makes it so everyone, no matter what they do, is going to have a great time.
Character relationships are a new thing, along with choice-based dialogue, of course. For example, I tried romancing Kyra but it didn't work out. How deep are relationships going to go and how impactful are those relationships?
It depends on the character. I would say Kyra is a mid-level romance to put it in a weird way. There are some side characters, and other characters where it's a shorter thing, but you can still recruit people to be on your ship crew. And with some of these romanceable characters, you can recruit them to be on your ship and with you for the rest of your journey, or you can never see them again. It's sort of your choice. There's also family relationships which you'll make decisions about, and will impact, ultimately, who's around or who's there for help as you get further in the game. You'll see a lot of variation based on the way you've played the game.
With choice-based dialogue, there are many directions it can go. But it's all contained in Greek mythology and the Ancient Greek historical time period. How do you balance between using history and creative freedom? Are we still going to have that rich, historical backdrop along with the story that you're trying to tell as well?
It's fun. It's always a back-and-forth of how far can we push it: when do we need to focus more on Greek history, when do we need to focus more on Assassin's Creed lore, and when do we need to just give the player something really cool to do? We're constantly making those choices. On a small scale, it's things like how buildings and structures look. We maintain historical accuracy, but some of our statues are way bigger than they would've been in this time period. Or the look of Sparta in our game is more grandiose than what Sparta actually was, because the Spartans, the Laconians, were very minimalistic. They focused solely on war; they didn't try to build big statues. But we wanted Sparta to be this awesome, amazing, epic-looking Greek location, and we had to push it forward.
Skyrim, Fallout, those two are probably some of my favorite[s]. And if you look at those games, they give players a lot of options. For us, that was what we wanted to push Assassin's Creed as a franchise into: more choice for the player.
When it comes to ships, there are simple things about how the triremes would have to be pulled out of the water to avoid getting waterlogged and sinking. Obviously, we're not going to do that. But we also need to make decisions about ramming, shooting javelins, and firing arrows; how far are we going to push it? Did they have catapults? Did catapults exist at that time? Well, sort of. It's always a fine line, and we're pushing and pulling, and trying to make sure that we're true to both the vision we want to have for a game in 2018 and what this period of time would've looked like.
When you meet with Socrates, you have discussions of philosophy. You meet with Hippocrates, who's the father of medicine. You talk to Herodotus, who's the father of modern history. You engage with these characters and develop details about what their thought processes were, and you affect it as well. But then you also argue with Socrates even as you have him as an ally. So, it's a constant battle between too little and too much. And I think we found a really good balance, especially with the mythology of Ancient Greece. It's a super deep, awesome mythology of legends and gods with the mixture of history. And it's also Assassin's Creed, which has a ton of characters with names from the first civilization that come from Ancient Greece, and they're coming from that sort of lore. We had a good backdrop to sort of mix the two. I don't want to spoil stuff, but there are a lot of really cool ways that pays off. If you really engage in the game, there's some really amazing stuff that ties it all together.
As for the modern day storyline, are any of the RPG elements going to play into the modern day storytelling?
So, there is definitely modern day gameplay with Layla Hassan, but I don't want to go into that just yet.
Origins was big in terms of scope, and this game seems big, too. How do you answer those worried about series fatigue? Even though there's a lot of new stuff, they might just not be in the mood for another huge open world.
We've worked on the game for three years, and in terms of what we've done, we put in a huge amount of effort. We had a big team for that period of time. We focused on making this huge, huge game. I think fans will really see, when they play it, that what we brought is something new and fresh to Assassin's Creed with choice, with RPG elements. And I think it is and will be one of the favorite Assassin's Creed games.
Marvel Powers United VR is an Oculus Rift-exclusive game that puts you in the shoes of some of the most popular Marvel superheroes and has you battle against supervillains and their minions. This PC game launches on July 26, but you can pre-order a copy now for $40 at the Oculus Store.
Developed by Sanzaru Games, Marvel Games, and Oculus Studios, Marvel Powers United VR is a first-person co-op action game. It will ship with 18 superheroes, eight villains, and 10 locations from various Marvel comics. Eight heroes have been revealed so far: Captain Marvel, The Hulk, Rocket Raccoon, Deadpool, Black Bolt, Crystal, Thor, and Black Panther. Considering those characters' abilities, that should make for a good variety of play styles. More characters will be announced in the lead-up to the game's launch.
The chief selling point about this game is the first-person perspective. In virtual reality, you play as your choice of hero, using the required Oculus Touch controllers to shoot weapons, throw punches, or unleash your superpowers, depending on the hero in question. In addition to the single-player mode is a co-op mode that lets you team up with others online to take on the supervillain threats.
Playing the game will unlock rewards like alternate outfits for the heroes and other additional content. The game supports sitting, standing, and room scale play modes and is labeled with a Moderate comfort level. An internet connection is required to play.
If you're ready to lock in your Marvel Powers United VR pre-order, the only place you can do so right now is at the Oculus Store for $40.
Shortly after Blizzard teased Hero 28 for Overwatch and revealed his identity as a cute, chubby hamster, the company has released him on the Public Test Realm and detailed his full suite of abilities. The new hero is indeed Hammond, as suspected, though his name in-game is Wrecking Ball.
As seen in the teaser trailer, Wrecking Ball has the ability to transform into a ball and roll around to increase his movement speed, and his automatic weapons are known as Quad Cannons. Grappling Claw allows him to send out a grappling hook that lets him swing around the nearby area, which Blizzard said allows for "high-speed collisions to damage and knockback enemies."
Adaptive Shield provides shields for Wrecking Ball that increase in effectiveness depending on the number of nearby enemies. Piledriver causes Wrecking Ball to slam into the ground, dealing damage and knocking enemies up into the air. His Ultimate is Minefield, which lays out a "massive" field of mines that detonate when enemies come near to them. His backstory is detailed on Blizzard's website.
As noted above, you can try out Wrecking Ball for yourself right now if you own Overwatch on PC. A new update has been released on the PTR, which you can access through the Battle.net app's Region/Account drop-down menu. There's no word on how long the PTR will be available or when Wrecking Ball will be released in the live game on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
This PTR update also does a number of other things. There are hero updates to multiple characters, making "major changes" to damage falloff for the likes of McCree, Bastion, Mei, Soldier 76, and Widowmaker. Hanzo's new Storm Arrows see a small nerf, Assault maps now provide one less minute for each control point objective, and various bug fixes have been implemented. You can see all of these changes in the full patch notes.
Some players will soon have an opportunity to try Battlefield V, as EA is set to kick off a special invite-only closed alpha for the game on PC this Thursday, June 28. Ahead of the test, the publisher has shared all the details fans will need to know in order to participate, including what type of rig they'll need to run the alpha.
On the official Battlefield website, EA has laid out the minimum and recommended specs for the Battlefield V closed alpha. The publisher notes that these specs are strictly for the alpha and won't necessarily apply to the final game, but they give some indication of the kind of hardware players can expect to need in order to run the game on PC. You can find the specs below.
What's notable is that the minimum specs are very similar to the ones that popped up on Origin. EA would later issue a statement that the specs were incorrect, but the only real difference between them is the type of AMD processor players will need to run the test. However, as EA said, these specs aren't necessarily indicative of the hardware that will be needed to play the full game when it launches later this year.
As previously mentioned, the Battlefield V closed alpha is only open to those who receive an invitation, which are being distributed to a "small group" of Battlefield players. The closed alpha includes daily challenges and gives players a chance to try out two modes, Conquest and Grand Operation Fall of Norway--although it doesn't feature the game's announced battle royale mode.
Battlefield V releases for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 19. Those who purchase the Deluxe edition, however, will get access to it several days early, on October 16. You can find more details about the game's various editions in our Battlefield V pre-order guide.
Battlefield V Closed Alpha Specs
Minimum
Operating System: 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10
EA has shared details on Battlefield V's first closed alpha. The limited-time test is scheduled to begin Thursday, June 28, and will allow certain players to try out the upcoming World War II shooter ahead of its release later this fall, including a portion of one Grand Operation.
According to Battlefield's official website, the closed alpha will be available on PC and can only be joined by invitation, which EA says will be distributed to a "small group" of Battlefield players. The invitations will contain a code to download the alpha client, which must be redeemed via Origin in order to get in.
Those who do get invited to participate in the closed alpha will be able to try two of Battlefield V's modes: Conquest and Grand Operation Fall of Norway. The former is the classic Battlefield multiplayer mode that pits two teams against each other in a struggle to seize control of key points on the map, while Grand Operation is a narrative-driven multiplayer experience that encompasses different maps and gametypes.
Fall of Norway, the Grand Operation featured in the closed alpha, is set on the Arctic Fjord map. Players will be able to try two of its modes: Airborne and Breakthrough. Depending on your side, Airborne will have players either drop onto the map to combat enemy artillery or stop the incoming troops, while Breakthrough tasks them with capturing sectors or defending against the attacking side.
EA also says that participants will be able to undertake one Special Assignment and several Daily Orders during the closed alpha. The Special Assignment is made up of several in-game tasks, and completing it rewards players with a special Battlefield V dog tag that will appear in their profile when the full game launches.
Daily Orders, on the other hand, are smaller objectives that players can complete while playing, such as damaging enemy vehicles or killing a certain class of enemy. EA says that no rewards will be offered for completing Daily Orders during the closed alpha, but players will be able to earn them in the full game.
You can read more details about the closed alpha on the game's website. Battlefield V is slated to launch for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 19, but those who purchase the Deluxe edition will get access to it three days early, on October 16. For more details on the game's various editions, check out our Battlefield V pre-order guide.
If you're still looking to get your hands on an NES Classic Edition, you'll have a few opportunities to pick one up later this week. In addition to GameStop, electronics retailer Best Buy has announced it is receiving a restock of the plug-and-play consoles this Friday, June 29, but you'll need to act fast if you're hoping to snag one.
On its official blog, Best Buy confirmed that it will have a new stock of NES Classic systems both in-store and on its website. As before, the console will cost $60. Best Buy hasn't revealed how many units it will have in stock, but it notes that the system will be available in limited quantities and will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.
If you're planning to head to a brick-and-mortar location before it opens and a line has already formed, Best Buy says it will sell the NES Classic using the same ticketing process it employs on Black Friday. Regardless of whether you buy the system in-store or online, consoles will be limited to one per customer.
As previously mentioned, GameStop will also have a new stock of NES Classic systems on June 29. Like Best Buy, the console will be available both at GameStop's physical stores and online, as well as at its subsidiary, ThinkGeek. However, supplies will be limited, and GameStop warns it is expecting the same level of demand for the restock as for the initial run of the NES and SNES Classic.
The NES Classic first released back in November 2016, but due to supply constraints, the console was exceedingly difficult to find in stores following its launch. After the release of Nintendo's follow-up plug-and-play system, the SNES Classic, the company announced that it would release a new stock of the NES Classic systems in Summer 2018.
The NES Classic comes pre-loaded with 30 iconic titles, including Super Mario Bros. 3, The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Castlevania. "The NES Classic is an affordable solution for playing NES games, and the fact that it outperforms existing Virtual Console efforts from a technical standpoint makes it the most attractive option to boot," we wrote in our NES Classic review.
If you weren't able to get your hands on an NES Classic during its initial run, you'll soon have an opportunity to pick one up at GameStop. The video game retailer announced that it is receiving a new stock of NES Classic consoles next week, on June 29, but they'll be in short supply.
According to GameStop, the retailer will have "at least 10 units per store," although some locations may have a larger stock. As before, the console will retail for $60, but it will only be available in limited quantities, which will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.
If you aren't able to visit a physical location, GameStop says it will have a stock of NES Classic systems on its website in addition to its brick-and-mortar stores. The console will also be available at ThinkGeek's physical and online stores on June 29. It will go on sale on ThinkGeek.com beginning at 9 AM ET / 6 AM PT. The system won't be sold in bundles, but it will be limited to one per customer.
GameStop notes that it is expecting the same level of demand it witnessed for the initial run of the NES and SNES Classic for this restock, so if you're hoping to add one to your collection, your best bet will be to show up early to ensure you beat the crowd.
The NES Classic first released back in November 2016 and was very difficult to find, selling out almost immediately upon its launch. Following the release of its follow-up, the SNES Classic, Nintendo announced that it would release a new stock of the NES Classic in Summer 2018.
Update: Playground mode remains unavailable following Fortnite's new update due to technical issues. Those involving matchmaking across all modes have been resolved, but Epic has yet to bring Playground back online. It said it's hoping to bring it back Thursday (US time), though we don't yet have an exact time table for when that will happen. The original story follows.
Epic Games' Fortnite: Battle Royale continues to change week-by-week, and now the game has changed again with the release of its latest patch. Update 4.5 adds the Playground LTM (limited-time mode), Dual Pistols, and more to PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and mobile.
Epic says Playground is a "low-pressure environment where friends can let their creativity run wild." It acts as a private server of sorts, and allows you and up to three friends to mess around and practise strategies in the Battle Royale world without the risk of other players killing you. The storm will still close in, but not for 55 minutes after you drop into the world. There's also lots more loot and ammo available than in a standard Battle Royale match.
Another LTM, Final Fight: Teams of 12, has also been added. As you might expect, this pits teams of 12 players each against each other in Battle Royale's Final Fight variant, in which storm circles stop closing in part-way through matches. After they stop compressing the game area, a countdown will begin, and the team with the most players left at the end of the timer wins.
Update 4.5 adds a new weapon to Battle Royale and changes a bunch more. Dual Pistols, which deal 41-43 base damage, give you "two times the fun and firepower" with their introduction. The pair both shoot medium ammo with one pull of the trigger, and can be found in floor loot, chests, and supply drops in Epic and Legendary variants.
Grenade Launchers are temporarily called Fireworks Launchers, as they will shoot out firework explosions rather than standard ones while Epic Games celebrates summer. Shotguns, meanwhile, have had the amount of damage dealt to structures significantly reduced, and SMGs have seen their accuracy and damage tweaked. Finally, map markers will now give you visual indicators of teammates' highlighted areas of interest. Read the full patch notes below, via Epic Games, for the full details.
Celebrate summer with the Fireworks Launcher, which has been added as a seasonal item that has firework explosions and replaces the Grenade Launcher for a limited time. (cosmetic change only).
Blocks that are removed while in edit mode are now opaque rather than clear. Blue, white, and red colors still indicate build status.
Adjusted to limit player's ability to peek through structures while editing.
Save the World and Battle Royale keybindings are now separated. Settings in one mode will not affect the settings of the other.
Changed the button that lets you re-roll one daily quest or challenge from 'Abandon Quest' to 'Replace Quest', to make the behavior more obvious.
Battle Royale
Limited Time Modes
Playground
Playground is a low-pressure environment where friends can let their creativity run wild. Build massive structures. Practice with the weapons and items. Fight against your friends. Have fun!
You'll have one hour to create, play and train as you wish. Hop in and try out version 1 of Playground!
Drop into the Battle Royale map with a squad of friends for an hour
Friendly Fire is on
Players respawn on death unless killed by the storm
The storm doesn't start closing in for 55m, and takes 5 minutes to close in
Resources gathered grant 10x the normal rate.
100 Llamas will be spawned on the map
Chests & Ammo Boxes spawn 100% of the time
Final Fight: Teams Of 12
Make it to the final circle and then fight for the Victory Royale!
Final Fight plays similar to standard Battle Royale, but instead of the storm circles closing all the way in, they stop part way through the match.
When the circles have finished closing in, the Final Countdown timer will begin.
The remaining teams will battle it out until the timer expires.
The team with the most players remaining at the end of the timer wins!
In the event of a tie, the two (or more) teams tied for the lead win the match.
Weapons And Items
Dual Pistols Added
Available in Epic and Legendary variants.
41-43 base damage.
Uses Medium Ammo.
Shoots both pistols with one pull of the trigger.
Can be found from floor loot, chests, and Supply Drops.
Does not use first shot accuracy.
Significant jumps that are landed with the Shopping Cart now appear in the elimination feed (height, distance, and time).
Weapon damage to structures now correctly scales with rarity.
Shotgun damage to structures has been reduced by 50% for Pump Shotgun, and 25% for both Tactical Shotgun and Heavy Shotgun.
Explosions now damage all structures within range, whether or not they are visible from the explosion center.
We're making the following changes to further solidify the identities and strengths of Tactical and Silenced SMGs.
Tactical SMG
Removed first shot accuracy.
Increased base accuracy by 25%.
Lowered the sprinting accuracy penalty by 15%.
Lowered the ADS bonus by 10 %.
Increased damage by +2.
Silenced SMG
Increased base accuracy by 10%.
Increased ADS accuracy bonus by 20%.
Increased damage by +2.
Shotgun ammo now drops in stacks of 4 instead of 5.
Grenade Launcher visuals have been temporarily changed to shoot fireworks instead. This is a cosmetic change only.
Bug Fixes
Boogie Bomb explosions are no longer blocked by vehicles.
Thermal Scoped Rifle will now consistently exhibit intended accuracy while in scoped in.
Clingers can no longer stick to players through the ceiling or floor.
Spike traps placed on a ceiling no longer damage players on the floor above.
The Thermal Scoped Rifle no longer highlights opened chests.
Weapons will no longer appear to fire while switching weapons under certain network conditions.
Gameplay
Progress for elimination quests will now be granted if you down an enemy with the required weapon rather than needing to actually eliminate them with it.
In Build Mode, walls will now try to build at a closer location when placement is blocked due to lack of structural support. Stairs, Floors, and Roofs are not affected.
Auto-open doors no longer functions while in the Down-But-Not-Out state.
Pickaxes will no longer hit the Shopping Cart if you are riding as the passenger.
Players in the Down-But-Not-Out state can no longer enter Shopping Carts.
Improvements made to the auto pickup weapons feature to better handle picking up large groups of weapons.
Bug Fixes
Items dropped in water now stay above the water's surface.
Excessive fall damage is no longer applied when under certain network conditions.
Supply Drop crates no longer briefly persist in the world after being opened if it was shot down.
Smoothed out the location of all soccer balls and basketballs while under varying network conditions.
Players are no longer able to hit building weak spots through other buildings.
Having the Sprint Cancels While Running setting turned on will no longer prevent players from auto-reloading their weapon after sprinting.
Fixed an issue that applied a constant force to players if they were hit by a Shopping Cart.
Doors that are interacted with multiple times rapidly no longer get out of sync with their state on the server.
Fixed an issue where if a player was using a consumable and then exchanged it for a different pickup, it would select the pickaxe instead of the new item.
Chests no longer create invalid pickups, such as a 2x Chug Jug instead of 2 individual Chug Jug pickups.
This created an issue that caused players to be unable to pick up building materials.
Players are now awarded an elimination if the opposing player bounced off terrain and took fall damage before taking enough damage to be eliminated.
Fixed a small number of accounts that had incorrect Week 5 Challenges.
Mushrooms no longer spawn on trees in Moisty Mire.
Fixed an issue that prevented the ability to open chests by preemptively holding the interact button while approaching the chest.
Fixed a gap in the terrain that was caused by the sporting goods store in Greasy Grove being slightly moved by accident.
Performance
Improved performance of skydiving on all platforms (especially Switch), by reducing rendering related CPU hitches
Fixed a source of hitching on Xbox one. In rare instances, this was causing up to 2-second hitches for some players
Improved framerate around swing-sets by adjusting physics.
Improved performance by doing less work when players are moving outside of your view.
Improved performance for moving ammo and weapon pickups.
Improved player movement updates in large team games. This should make the movement of other players appear smoother.
Fixed skydiving rings ticking the entire match.
Audio
Changes to enemy building audio (friendly building audio remains the same).
Increased volume of enemy building audio.
Increased range of enemy building audio by 2 building tiles.
Added variation to water footsteps on mobile and Nintendo Switch platforms.
Re-balanced bass content for surround sound mix.
Bug Fixes
Reallowed the first few milliseconds of audio to play if an emote is triggered while jumping.
Suspension audio on cars is no longer spammed when jumping or sliding off of them.
Shopping Carts no longer spam their collision audio if flipped upside down.
Fixed issue that caused doors to play an open and a close sound when opened.
Fixed the slowed audio for the Step it Up emote.
UI
The switch seat icon is now hidden when you can't switch seats.
The minimap now draws the whole map and bus paths instead of nothing when on the Starter Island.
Existing map markers are removed when landing after jumping from the Battle Bus to reduce map clutter.
Custom voice chat output devices can be selected on PC.
Removed damage numbers from Shopping Carts and added a health bar.
HUD Elimination and Down-But-Not-Out notifications have received updated animations.
Bug Fixes
Damage numbers no longer overlap if damage is done to both shield and health.
Object stacks no longer appear as 0 ammo when looted.
Map marker icons now properly appear even while on the Starter Island.
Fixed an issue where sometimes map markers wouldn't be removed when pressing right click and moving the mouse slightly.
Fixed an issue where the player was unable to drop or split an item after dropping a full stack of items.
Art And Animation
The cape on the Battlehound* Outfit is now available as Back Bling.
Added capes to the Ventura* and Venturion* Outfits.
*Anyone who purchased these Outfits has been granted the Back Bling to be used on any other Outfit.
Bug Fixes
Visual effects for the Oracle Axe Pickaxe and Ominous Orb Back Bling now appear correctly on consoles.
Back Bling no longer appears in low detail while spectating players.
Replay System
Removed ProAm replays from the Replay Browser.
Replay Browser entries will now scroll if text doesn't fit.
Bug Fixes
The Replay Browser no longer loses gamepad focus if chat window is opened.
Spectating
Bug Fixes
The shield bar no longer incorrectly fills and empties when switching between players in spectator mode.
Storm effects no longer get stuck on players that were in the Storm while being spectated even after leaving the Storm or after switching to a new player.
Mobile
Added settings on mobile for low power mode and scalability.
Improved touch interaction logic to be more consistent and reliable.
Touch rotation sensitivity in the locker has been reset.
Bug Fixes
Vibration setting no longer resets to the wrong value on mobile devices.
Fixed a bug where lower end mobile devices weren't displaying the whole island while on the bus.
Volume on mobile devices will no longer occasionally become muted.
Save The World
Missions And Systems
Blockbuster Part 4: The Finale is now available!
Complete the questline and choose a Shadow Ops hero.
Heroes, Trap Schematics, and Weapon Schematics can now be acquired directly from the Collection Book through Recruitment and Research.
Select the item you wish to create in the Collection Book. This can be an item you do not have yet, or one that you have already collected.
If the item can be created a Recruit or Research button will appear.
Event Items, Survivors, and Defenders CANNOT be obtained using this feature.
This costs Flux, and either Training Manuals, Weapon Designs, or Trap Designs.
The resulting item will be level 1, and schematics will have randomized perks.
Items can now be unslotted from the Collection Book at a cost of 20 V-Bucks.
This will return the same item that you slotted, with the same level and perks.
This will remove the Collection Book XP that the item had granted, but will not reduce the level of your Collection Book or change what rewards you have earned.
This XP debt will have to be paid back before you can continue to advance the Collection Book's level.
Adding new quest called Independence Day to grant players two Fourth of July themed Soldiers. Part of Blockbuster Part 4.
Stars and Stripes Jonesy*.
Stars and Stripes Headhunter*.
*Hats and Backpacks will not be in this patch but will be released in an upcoming patch. Players that own these heroes will automatically get corresponding hats and backpacks once released, at the appropriate and usual evolution levels.
Changed the way reward rolls work on Group Missions so that players get a larger amount of a single resource:
These missions would reward Gold, plus a standard amount of 4 different resource types.
They now reward Gold plus 4x the usual amount of a single resource type.
This allows players to better target specific resources they are trying to acquire.
For missions rewarding RE-Perk and Perk-UP, the rewards can still be split between multiple types of Perk Recombobulator resources.
Increased the chance for Mini Llamas to upgrade.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where all 2-star Evolution Skill Nodes were required in order to upgrade the rarity of schematics. You now only require the node that matches the item type.
Heroes
Stars and Stripes Soldiers
Stars and Stripes Jonesy - Legendary Survivalist
Stars and Stripes Headhunter - Legendary Survivalist
These can be acquired by completing the new Independence Day side quest.
Bug Fixes
Players will no longer stop moving mid air if they use Crescent Kick after using a Player Jump Pad Trap.
Bull Rush no longer abruptly stops when falling down ledges.
Weapons And Items
Bobcat Assault Rifle added to the Weekly Store.
Available Wednesday, June 27 at 8 PM EST until Wednesday, July 4 at 8 PM EST.
Fast firing weapon with excellent damage output and magazine size, but lower range than most assault weapons.
Maintains most of its accuracy while moving and firing from the hip, excelling at close range mobile skirmishes.
Cozy Campfire now heals through walls, as long as the player is within its range.
Increased maximum ammo limit for Light Bullets, Medium Bullets, and Shells & Slugs.
Light from 5000 to 6000
Medium from 3000 to 4000
Shells from 1000 to 1200
Added several schematic perks, allowing for more creative stacking of certain perks:
For Melee Weapons, we added Life Leech and Fire Rate to the first and third perk slots respectively, and Heavy Attack Stamina Cost Reduction to the second slot.
For Ranged Weapons, we added Reload Speed and Magazine Size to the first and third slots, respectively.
Increased Lifesteal Perk effectiveness by 50%.
Increased the effectiveness of pistols that fire explosive projectiles:
Reduced in-air fuse time of the grenade launcher from 8 seconds to 2.75 seconds.
Bug Fixes
Increased the environment damage dealt by Remote Explosives so it can reliably destroy walls at higher difficulty levels.
It is no longer possible for Floor Spikes or Flame Grill traps to hit enemies through floor pieces above the trap.
Fixed issue where ice formed by the Freeze Trap was blocking damage to enemies.
The Floor Spike Traps given in the tutorial are now able to be placed on ramps.
Fixed crosshairs expanding when aiming down sights with Rocket Launchers.
Replaced the headshot-based perks from the Zap Zapp Pistol Schematic with more relevant damage perks.
Headshot Damage was replaced with Damage.
Headshot Explosion was replaced with Snare On Hit.
Headshot Streak Damage Bonus was replaced with Affliction.
Fixed the Whisper .45 not properly displaying a minimap icon when dropped.
Gameplay
Introducing a new enemy, the Super Shielder!
The Super Shielder attaches to other enemies like regular Shielders, but extends its shield much further, protecting all enemies inside the bubble.
This shield also protects the Super Shielder itself!
Standing inside the shield lets you attack enemies inside it without penalty.
Implemented Builder Pro controller scheme for Save the World.
This control layout matches the Builder Pro scheme from Battle Royale.
Using gadgets and abilities work the same way as the Combat Pro control scheme (which is the same in Combat mode as the Builder Pro scheme).
Auto-open doors game option now affects doors in Save The World.
Changed loot drops for specialized grenade items (Impulse Grenades, Port-A-Fort, etc) so that new players won't encounter these items during the tutorial.
Most of these items will begin dropping halfway through Stonewood.
Port-A-Fort will become available toward the end of Stonewood.
M80 and Bottle Rocket remain unchanged, and can still drop during the start of the game.
Bug Fixes
Build quickbar remains focused after entering menu and re-assigning weapons while in build mode.
The Teleporter can no longer be placed under Lars' Van in Ride the Lightning mission.
Fixed bug when cancelling a gadget or hero ability by pressing Toggle Harvest Tool or Next/Previous Weapon.
In each case previously, the button would act as though the gadget/ability in question were not selected. For example, if you had your Pickaxe selected and brought out the TEDDY placement tool, pressing the Toggle Harvesting Tool button would switch the player to their last selected weapon rather than their pickaxe. Now it will switch you to the pickaxe.
UI
HUD Scaling option now also applies to the Save the World HUD.
Players can select each node on the quest maps to see details and rewards.
Removed Copy to Clipboard button(s) in the Options menu on consoles.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where the gamepad mapping screen showed the wrong mappings for a number of controls on the left side of the controller for Combat Pro.
Damage numbers are once again visible when hitting destructible objects.
Fixed a problem where storage transfer was prevented from filling unused space due to a bug with M80s and Bottle Rockets.
Exiting and rejoining global chat room no longer occurs after changing certain game options.
Fixed an issue allowing non-leader party members to select a mission on PC.
Fixed an issue with the Mission Select menu when switching between keyboard and mouse or gamepad inputs.
Headshot Damage now correctly updates when updating the perk in the Recombobulator.
Fixed quest announcements not properly clearing after updating.
The Play Now button for the Jack of All Trades quest has been disabled because the button was sending players to zone types where the quest objective isn't likely to spawn.
Art And Animation
Clothing cosmetics now properly simulate in the lobby.
Performance
Bug Fixes
Optimized Hover Turret latency during combat.
Audio
Bug Fixes
Updated SEE-bot launch animation sounds.
Audio impact sounds now properly play for Elemental Husks.
With the end of Season 4 of Fortnite: Battle Royale in sight, Epic has begun laying the groundwork for the game's next season. The developer confirmed that Season 5 will kick off on July 12, and it's started to drop more cryptic hints that some big changes are in store for the game.
Following the arrival of Fortnite's recent 4.5 update, players have begun noticing an ominous sound wailing in the distance in a certain area of the game's map. Specifically, a siren can now be heard near the Evil Lair in Snobby Shores. Twitch streamer OpTic CouRage shared a clip of the sound on Twitter (via Comicbook.com), which you can see for yourself below:
This is only the latest hint that something big is in store for Season 5 of Fortnite. Earlier this month, a mysterious countdown clock suddenly appeared on screens across the map. Fans speculate that the countdown clock and siren may signal the impending launch of a missile, although Epic hasn't publicly acknowledged either yet.
This wouldn't be the first time the developer dropped teases in the lead-up to a new season, however. In the weeks before Season 4, players began to notice a large comet looming in the stratosphere over Fortnite's map. As the season approached, more comets would appear in the sky. The large comet would eventually collide with the map to start Season 4, and it made some significant changes to the landscape, such as turning Dusty Depot into Dusty Divot.
Whether or not any of this turns out to be true will be seen in a few short weeks. Season 5 of Fortnite begins on July 12 at 1 AM PDT / 4 AM EDT / 9 AM BST / 6 PM AET. In the meantime, Epic will offer double XP for Battle Royale matches this weekend, from June 29 to July 2, to help players unlock their remaining Battle Pass rewards. If you need further help, be sure to check out our complete Season 4 challenge guide.
Daybreak Games' H1Z1: Battle Royale just got an update on PS4. It adds a revive mechanic to the game, as well as aim acceleration adjustments and a new weapon. The weapon, called the Airstrike Signal, allows players to target an area for aerial bombardment.
Daybreak Games announced H1Z1: Battle Royale also recently surpassed a milestone. There are now more than 10 million players playing the battle royale on PS4, and they've invested more than 102 million hours in the first month of its open beta.
To celebrate, Daybreak Games is awarding a Darkfire Pickup Truck and Sunrise Parachute in-game skin to every player who's downloaded H1Z1. The rewards are free, and available to anyone who logged into H1Z1 prior to 11:59pm PT on June 27. Both in-game items will download directly into players' inventory this weekend.
H1Z1 is available for free on PC, while its console counterpart H1Z1: Battle Royale is in open beta on PS4. The game offers the same fast-paced, competitive battle royale gameplay found in both PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite. H1Z1 differentiates itself from its competitors with a wider assortment of vehicles and a more arcade-like style of play. H1Z1 has larger battlefields and players aren't damaged when they jump from vehicles, putting an emphasis on quickly moving around and leaping into massive firefights.
Update 3: The latest from Epic doesn't change the expected return of Fortnite's Playground, but it also doesn't sound as if its release is imminent. An update to the same Reddit post states: "We're continuing to test improvements made to our matchmaking services for the Playground LTM. We want to get you out there and let you unleash your creativity but also want to ensure a positive experience once we enable this game mode again. We'll give you more updates and a timeline as soon as we have one."
Update 2: Epic has provided another update on the status of Fortnite: Battle Royale's new Playground mode. In another Reddit post, it stated, "Yesterday we launched the Playground LTM. So many of you rushed in to create and play that our matchmaking service fell over. We've since separated the Playground matchmaker from the one that affects the default modes and made large improvements to assist with the number of players. We plan to push these changes and improvements live later today to bring the Playground LTM back online. We'll give you more updates and a timeline as soon as we have one."
We'll report back as more details are shared, but that means we can expect to get into Playground mode today, June 28, presumably during US time. For now, you can check out the new Week 9 challenges that are now live.
Update: Following its launch, Playground mode remains unavailable in Fortnite. The launch of the 4.5 update saw some serious technical issues plague Battle Royale, preventing matchmaking from working across all modes for a period of time. Those have since been resolved, but Epic quickly removed Playground from the rotation and has yet to say exactly when it will be back.
The company's latest statement came on Wednesday evening US time. In a post on the Fortnite Reddit, it said, "We know you want to get back out to the Playground LTM. We've got multiple teams working to get this mode back into your hands so you can let your imaginations run wild. We want to inform you that the Playground LTM will remain closed for repairs for the night. We'll have more information available [Thursday]." We'll report back with any details about when Playground will come back. The original story follows.
Fortnite's latest update, v4.5, is now available on all platforms. On top of introducing a new weapon and other features to both Battle Royale and Save the World, it marks the start of the game's latest limited-time mode, Playground--although as of this writing, the mode has been temporarily taken offline.
Unlike previous limited-time modes, Playground is intended to be a "low-pressure environment" that acts much like a private server. It allows players to explore the map, devise strategies, and play around freely with up to three friends without the risk of being eliminated by other players.
Each round in Playground lasts for one hour, and the storm circle won't begin closing in on the map until 55 minutes into the match. Friendly fire is enabled, although players will respawn immediately unless eliminated by the storm. There's also considerably more loot to find. 100 Llamas will spawn across the map, and players will receive 10 times the normal amount of any resources gathered during the match.
Playground isn't the only limited-time mode available in Fortnite this week. Final Fight Teams of 12 is also now underway in Battle Royale. This mode unfolds like a standard game of Battle Royale; however, the storm circles stop closing partway through a match. Once the circles have finished closing, a Final Countdown timer will begin, with the remaining teams competing to have the most surviving players when the time expires.
Epic hasn't announced an end date for either Playground or Final Fight Teams of 12. Fortnite's limited-time modes are typically only available for about a week, although it remains to be seen if Playground will remain in the rotation a little longer than usual to make up for its downtime. You can read more details about each mode--courtesy of the patch notes on the official Fortnite website--below.
Epic still hasn't provided a time table for when Playground mode will be enabled again. The mode was taken offline due to a matchmaking issue that cropped up following the rollout of update 4.5. That issue has since been resolved, but Epic says it is "continuing work" to bring Playground back online. The developer will provide further updates on Fortnite's status website.
Fortnite Update 4.5 Patch Notes
Playground
Summary
Playground is a low-pressure environment where friends can let their creativity run wild. Build massive structures. Practice with the weapons and items. Fight against your friends. Have fun!
Mode Details
You'll have one hour to create, play and train as you wish. Hop in and try out version 1 of Playground!
Drop into the Battle Royale map with a squad of friends for an hour
Friendly Fire is on
Players respawn on elimination unless downed by the storm
The storm doesn't start closing in for 55m, and takes 5 minutes to close in
Resources gathered grant 10x the normal rate.
100 Llamas will be spawned on the map
Chests & Ammo Boxes spawn 100% of the time
Final Fight Teams of 12
Summary
Make it to the final circle and then fight for the Victory Royale!
Mode Details
Final Fight plays similar to standard Battle Royale, but instead of the storm circles closing all the way in, they stop part way through the match.
When the circles have finished closing in, the Final Countdown timer will begin.
The remaining teams will battle it out until the timer expires.
The team with the most players remaining at the end of the timer wins!
In the event of a tie, the two (or more) teams tied for the lead win the match.
One of Xbox's most popular game franchises is getting an adaptation for television. A live-action Halo series is coming to Showtime, which will begin production in early 2019. The minds behind movies like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Awake will produce the show.
Halo, which is currently the working title, will be based on the Xbox video game franchise. Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) will serve as executive producer and direct multiple episodes. Kyle Killen (Awake) will serve as writer, showrunner, and executive producer. The series will be produced by Showtime, in association with Microsoft/343 Industries and Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television.
Showtime ordered a 10-episode season for its first run. Each episode of the sci-fi drama will be an hour long. Spielberg has been developing this series since 2013, and things were looking good this past January, when Showtime President David Nevins said it was in active development.
"Halo is our most ambitious series ever, and we expect audiences who have been anticipating it for years to be thoroughly rewarded," said Nevins. "In the history of television, there simply has never been enough great science fiction. Kyle Killen's scripts are thrilling, expansive and provocative, Rupert Wyatt is a wonderful, world-building director, and their vision of Halo will enthrall fans of the game while also drawing the uninitiated into a world of complex characters that populate this unique universe."
No release date has been set for the series, but the show will begin production in early 2019.
Disclosure: Showtime is a CBS subsidiary, GameSpot's parent company.
Last year's Stephen King adaptation It was a huge box office success, with a worldwide take of $700 million, and inevitably the sequel is on the way. Unlike many horror follow-ups, however, It: Chapter 2 was planned before the first movie had even been released and will complete King's story. The film has now started production, and we have a first behind-the-scenes image.
It: Chapter 2 is set 30 years after the first film, with the movie following adult versions of the kids in the original. Jessica Chastain is among the new cast members, and she will play Beverly Marsh, the sole female member of the Loser's Club. Chastain posted an image on Instagram that shows her transformation into the character--check it out below:
It: Chapter 2 also stars James McAvoy as Bill, Bill Hader as Richie, James Ransone as Eddie, Andy Bean as Stan, and Isaiah Mustafa as Mike, plus Bill Skarsgård as the terrifying clown Pennywise. It's directed by Andy Muschietti, who helmed the first movie, and hits theaters on September 6, 2019.
In an interview last year, Muschietti explained that while the movie would focus on the adult characters, the young cast will still play a part. In King's novel, the two timelines are told side-by-side, elements of which will remain in the sequel.
"In my opinion, it can't only be about adults," he told The Independent. "Something that I love about the book is the dialogue between the two timelines because, ultimately, it's a story about childhood. It's a love letter to childhood, but it's also a story of the death of childhood. It's symbolic, of course, because when Pennywise describes himself as the eater of worlds, he's not talking about a monster that eats planets; he's talking about eating the world of imagination and magic."
As mid-July approaches, you can bet Amazon Prime Day 2018 will be coming soon. Although the online retailer has yet to announce when Prime Day will be this year, it always tends to happen sometime in the middle of July. In fact, a banner that appeared on Amazon UK may have accidentally let slip Prime Day's date this year: July 17, with deals beginning the previous day.
Seeing as this pseudo-holiday is centered around a single online retailer, it isn't quite as big as Black Friday. But you can expect to see plenty of discounts on games, tech, movies, toys, and anything else you might want to buy from Amazon. Other retailers may also offer discounts that day to cash in on the commerce craze. Here's everything you need to know about Amazon Prime Day 2018.
What is Prime Day?
Prime Day is a massive sale Amazon puts on each year in July for Prime members. It all began in 2015, when Amazon had a sale to celebrate its 20th birthday. In the years since, Prime Day has grown into a shopping extravaganza in its own right, with deep discounts on all kinds of items.
When is Prime Day?
Last year's Prime Day lasted for 30 hours that spanned part of July 10 and all of July 11. If the Amazon UK leak is accurate, this year's sale will last 36 hours, with prices dropping midday July 16 and running through July 17.
For Prime Members Only
The catch is that you have to be an Amazon Prime member to take advantage of the deals. The company ruffled feathers earlier this year when it upped the annual price of a Prime membership from $99 to $119. (You can also get a one-month membership for $13). Having to buy a subscription is a bummer, but there are ways around dropping cash just to take part in Prime Day. If you've never been a Prime member before, you can get a free 30-day trial just by signing up. Students get an even better deal: their Prime membership begins with a free six-month trial.
Even if you're a lapsed Prime member and you can't get the free trial, signing up for a one-month membership may be worthwhile, depending on what Prime Day deals you want to take advantage of. There's also a good chance Amazon will offer a discount on Prime subscriptions in the run-up to Prime Day, so your best bet is to wait and see.
What kind of deals can we expect?
Amazon always drops prices on tons of items, with big discounts in particular on its own hardware: Echos, Kindles, Fire sticks, and tablets. Additionally, you can expect big savings on video games, consoles, gaming accessories, 4K TVs, other electronics, apparel, outdoor gear, baby products, and nearly anything else you can buy at the online retailer.
No deal announcements have been made yet, but we'll have lots of Prime Day deals coverage on all things gaming and media here at GameSpot when the event rolls around. Make sure to check back closer to the the big day.
July is fast approaching, which means Xbox Live Gold subscribers will soon get a new batch of Xbox One and Xbox 360 games to download for free. Microsoft has pulled the curtain back on July's offerings. The titles that will be available at various times throughout the next month include the Xbox One games Assault Android Cactus and Death Squared and the Xbox 360 games Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction. Thanks to backwards compatibility, those Xbox 360 titles are playable on Xbox One as well.
As for the Xbox One offerings, Assault Android Cactus is a fast-moving twin-stick shooter that's been well received as it's landed on various platforms since its initial release in 2015. It's available to download July 1-31. Death Squared is a colorful co-op puzzle game that can be played alone or with up to four players. You can download it between July 16 and August 15.
On the Xbox 360 side, Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown is a fighting game geared toward online competitive play. Thanks to a set of in-depth tutorials, it's more welcoming to newcomers than some other fighting games. It's available for free July 1-15. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction is a stealth-action game from 2010 that contains both a single-player campaign and a co-op campaign so you and a friend can sneak around and take down enemies together. You can grab it gratis July 16-31.
Uncharted creator Amy Hennig left EA earlier this year, and the Star Wars game she was previously heading up has been put on the shelf. That's according to recent comments she made at the Gamelab conference in Barcelona, which makes for the first update we've heard about the single-player game since EA shut down Visceral last October.
"I'm not doing anything Star Wars," Hennig told Eurogamer. "And, who knows what the future may hold, but that project is on the shelf now." When Visceral shut down, EA transferred the project to EA Vancouver. Hennig said the new open-world approach was much different than what her team had been working on. "Everybody loved what we were doing and I'd love to see us resurrect that somehow, but it's complicated."
She also said that following the shutdown of Visceral in October, her status as an EA employee was in flux and she never before had the opportunity to give a concrete answer.
"I have not worked at EA since January, technically, legally," she said. "I get along with all those people, I consider even the guys on the exec team friends. But it made it awkward because it was like, 'I never got the chance to announce that I'm not at EA so I need to just pull off that Band-aid at some point--but also had nothing to announce. It makes it sound like I just went home! But I'm doing all this stuff, working on all kinds of things."
As for what's keeping Hennig busy these days, she said she's started her own independent studio and she's been doing some consulting. She also expressed a desire to bring on staff of six to eight to explore some VR projects.
EA issued a statement to GameSpot regarding Hennig's departure. "Yes, Amy Hennig has moved on from Electronic Arts," a spokesperson said. "Amy is an amazing storyteller--a crafter and a creator. We have so much respect for her and the creative spirit she brought to the teams and projects she worked on at EA. We wish Amy all the best with what comes next, and we will all be watching with excitement."
When Hennig explained her Star Wars project, it characteristically sounded a lot like Uncharted with a light sense of humor. When EA made the call to shift the project to Vancouver, worldwide studios VP Patrick Soderlund said it was "shaping up to be a story-based, linear adventure game" and that the company's research convinced it to pivot to a game type that players could keep coming back to for a long time.
At E3 2018, Respawn's Vince Zampella revealed the title and some basic details about its own Star Wars game, Jedi Fallen Order. It is slated for 2019 and will take place between Episodes 3 and 4 during the Jedi purge.
Rare's high-seas adventure experiment Sea of Thieves for PC and Xbox One has gone through many changes since its launch. The game focuses on a pirate's life in a shared world, where players embark on missions, sail across the seas, find hidden treasure, and even take on the occasional Kraken lurking beneath the waters. While the game found a passionate audience, it received some notable criticisms for lack of content and a repetitive gameplay loop, which the developers have spent the last few months working to address in the many post-launch updates.
Sea of Thieves' executive producer Joe Neate, senior designer Shelley Preston, and design director Mike Chapman sat down with GameSpot during E3 2018 to talk about the online game's growth since its launch. With the upcoming Cursed Sails and Forsaken Shores expansions coming later this year, each adding several new ships, items, and entirely new areas to explore, they spoke about the feedback they've received from fans, and just how far the game has come since release.
The fans have been very vocal about what they want to see in Sea of Thieves, which has grown a lot since its release last March. Can you talk about what the general response has been like for you all at Rare?
Joe Neate: Yeah, it's been pretty intense and amazing. It really has. We built up a lot of awareness and excitement around the game, we launched it and we had a lot of players come in and play--those first couple of weeks was quite the adventure. With Sea of Thieves, our goal at launch was to create a new IP, create a community around it, and make a new type of multiplayer game that's a different experience. And success for us meant landing all of that, which would give us the right to go and build on it more.
I just love that we've managed to make something that's different, and had a bold ambition--we've all been on this project since the start. To see it land and then to now have the opportunity to just go wild adding stuff and doubling down on the vision because we've got this amazing player base with us, and they want more of it. The goal at launch was to create the opportunity, basically, to go and invest on top of what we started with. We exceeded all of our expectations, in terms of player numbers and everything else.
So, yeah, we've now got that opportunity, and it's all about how big can we make it. To see how far can we take this game, and how many people can we make fall in love with it as we add new content and the new ways to play. It blows my mind, I want be back here in a year's time talking more about the stats and the things that we've done. It's the most rewarding game I've ever worked on in my career, and honestly it's the biggest opportunity I think I've had in my career in terms of the game and the possibilities right now.
Mike Chapman: We were actually just commenting before you walked into the room about how different it is now compared to how it was at launch. It's now much easier to talk about the game because people understand what it is now, in terms of what the heart of the game is. Sea of Thieves has this social connectivity with players in a shared world where they're coming across each other, and what's gonna happen is emergent and unpredictable. We kind of break it down into there's always different ways to play. Like the brigantine ship that you saw briefly in the E3 teaser trailer, that's perfectly designed for three players to have this big ship experience. And then things like new goals for everyone, especially for players who've hit the Pirate Legend status.
These sort of things enrich your adventures while you're out there. So you're heading towards an island and you play musical instruments, drink grog, you've now got the speaking trumpet and the drum that we added in the Hungering Deep. It's more things like that that's gonna enrich your adventures. So you may have seen in the trailer we've got skeleton ships coming to the world. You could team up with another crew to take them down, board their ships and take a gunpowder keg downstairs and use that to destroy the ship. All of that emergent gameplay is all there.
Like the Hungering Deep, all the new content that will release in this update will come in with time limited quests with specific rewards. The Hungering Deep came in with that quest line around Merrick, which introduced a storyline that allowed us to showcase the new content. We also added a drum and the speaking trumpet at the same time, and you use the drum to summon the megalodon at the end of that quest line. The speaking trumpet was a way to broadcast your voice across a far distance, so you could hail another ship at distance to ask them if they want to work together with you. That's now in the world as well. That was our approach with Cursed Sails, and it will be with Forsaken Shores. And Shelley, your team is working on that, aren't they?
Shelley Preston: Yeah, Forsaken Shores is coming out this September. This expansion has a new world area. There's three seas, which are the different areas in the Sea of Thieves world. They have different visual styles, but they're all kind of the same in terms of difficulty and challenge. So what we really wanted to do with the new area was for this expansion was for it to be visually striking, and a different, newer experience. We wanted it to have a major impact on gameplay as well, as it's about a perilous voyage.
Part of the shroud that surrounded the Sea of Thieves [map] will recede and there'll be a new area that you can get to, but you'll never start in that area. It's up to players to opt in to go on that voyage, and think about when you want to take on these more challenging, but more rewarding voyages. And then when you sail out there, it's all kind of fire and ash. It's like a volcanic kind of area. We really felt excited about this idea of making the world, the islands themselves almost are turning against you while you're questing. So it's not just about other players or AI threats. It's actually the world itself. You might start feeling tremors and you're like, "What's going on, guys? Are we safe? Do we think this is gonna subside?" And then you're looking up at the peak of the volcano and you see smoke signs that churn out of that volcano and still you're making that decision, "We're gonna just carry on.
We've just got this one more x to dig up." We've been prototyping these elements of what we can do to make this environment turn against you and we're really excited about it. Everything that we add into the game will live beyond the expansion releases. The gameplay that we've given players will just live beyond to just enrich Sea of Thieves all up.
Since the game has been released, what would you say were some of the biggest lessons you took away from the game's launch, and the reaction from the community?
JN: We sat down as soon as the launch craziness ended, like the first week or so, we managed to get on top of any scale and stability issues that we had. And then we literally sat in a room for about a week with loads of post-it notes. Mike, the design team, and everyone else were going through all of the forums, looking at all the feedback. Broadly, the response from the community was that this game is great, we love what you're doing, but give us more things to do. Yeah, threats in the world, all of that stuff. And then we just started deciding which order did we want to grow this in based on feedback, based on what we want to see see.
Skeleton ships was one of the biggest things actually because for years now we've been saying to our community every sail on the horizon is another player and explaining why we didn't wanna do AI ships because we wanted every encounter to be emergent. But we've seen that...well, there's a few things that feed into it in terms of players' love for ship combat, and we love to drive different interactions between players. So ship combat is cool between players, but like in Hungering Deep, we love to see different crews team up and then go take down stuff together. With the AI ships coming into the world, it gives people that combat, the ship combat they can have with AI and stuff. They can have that experience more frequently and it doesn't necessarily impact the balance of the shared world. It's also something where we can encourage players to crew up, almost to form alliances with each other and then go and take down these fearsome skeleton ships in the world.
So it's all been about driving what we love about the game, that social interaction where you're encountering strangers and doing stuff together. It scratches that itch from the community. That was probably one of the biggest lessons for us. The E3 trailer was the first time our community would have seen that, and there's gonna be a lot of happy people. But of course they're gonna go and pick up Mike's forum post that he wrote ages ago explaining why we would never do it. We're listening, and we will change.
SP: I think that's a great example of that. We were adamant that we didn't want to add AI ships for all those reasons. But the most powerful things are our players, responding to that feedback, and making sure as long as it's right for Sea of Thieves, it enriches that experiences for everybody. So we're gonna listen to that feedback.
MC: It's a mix of giving players what they want, putting that Sea of Thieves spin on it, but also surprising them. It's the fact that a lot of players would ask, "I would really like an expanded world. I want more regions to explore." We haven't just given them that, we've actually gone and made the visuals a core part of the gameplay and added in a whole region with volcanoes that's geologically unstable. We want to surprise players, and there's things we do in the game that won't be expected and I think both of those aspects are at a healthy mix right now.
JN: And what's great is that because we're live, we're updating it, and we're adding new stuff, we're actually learning something new every time. After the Hungering Deep, one of the things I think we learned the most is that positive social interaction is great, and players love it when you give them reasons to engage in it. Because it was quite risky for us to go, look, the only way to take down this megalodon is if you find another crew in the world and communicate that to them. Whether it's through the speaking trumpet or the flat system we put in, you had to go and do this thing together.
But to see what it did to our player base, seeing everyone partying together on a beach after they'd taken the thing down--taking selfies and making friends--it was an amazing experience seeing how well our player base reacted to that. Again, it makes us want to double down on that and do more of that because it's so cool. It's so unique to Sea of Thieves. I think in most multiplayer games it's all about competition. And in this we want to drive much more interesting or varied, I guess, encounters. That's when it's most special. When you have an unexpected encounter with other players you meet new people and you have positive social interaction.
Do you have a favorite moment from your own time playing Sea of Thieves, where you just saw the many systems and the dynamic nature of the game come to life?
SP: There've been many, but my recent one was when I played the Hungering Deep, and we made it so that you needed to work together with another crew and I've had friendly and unfriendly encounters with other crews throughout playing Sea of Thieves, but turning up and seeing all these ships that are kind of waiting and there's this new hub of social activity--we made friends with a couple of crews who wanted to go and do the voyage with us.
And there was just this beautiful moment where I was on my ship with my crew and then I've turned around, looked out the back, the sun was setting and there were these two other galleons just following us on the waves and we were all going to do something together and it's like these are people that I don't know. These are people I've never played with before and this game has brought us together and we're about to go and have this amazing encounter. That was really cool.
MC: Yeah, I'd say anything to do with the speaking trumpet. And since we've added this tool we've seen so many cool videos of people rickrolling other ships, like the Rick Astley song. And there's people pretending to be, like they work at Wendy's, like, "Can I take your order, please?" People pretending to be air hostesses, like telling them where the exits are. I think that's the fun part of having players in a shared world. We've added this tool to the world and I think just the variety of encounters and the opportunities for humor and how you can bring players together and then form friendships. Just from adding that on the surface is a really simple tool, but in our shared world it comes to life.
JN: For me, it's the amount of people I've met. All I've seen on Twitter or wherever else who are like, "Me and my husband, or me and my wife, play this together and one of them doesn't play games normally or hasn't done for ages, but they've been enticed back in." It's bringing multiplayer to new players. People are playing with their sons. A lot of people in Xbox actually. A lot of our leadership team and execs have been playing with their kids and it's the first game they can really do that with apart with maybe like Minecraft and stuff. So just seeing that we created a different type of multiplayer game that took some risks in the progression system and in what we wanted to do and what our focus was. It wasn't for everyone and not everybody resonated with some of the decisions we made, but we purposely did that so that we could bring multiplayer to a new audience. A new experience and make this fun, welcoming game that broke down barriers.
And to continually get that feedback from new players or people that just came to this because it is that type of experience. The photos of literally husband and wife set up in the front room with two TVs and two sofas and the big thread on Twitter of everyone adding their photos to it and stuff, showing the kind of setups that they had made so they could game together. That, for me, is one of the most rewarding things. Again, because we took risks 'cause we wanted to do something different in multiplayer space.
And to just constantly get that feedback that that's landed with so many people is amazing. That's one of the things that I think that speaks to me the most and what makes me most passionate, as well as basically everything funny--like the Rick Astley thing. Anything like that is what we send around online through social media, we love that. We never thought of doing that. Player creativity is amazing. There's so many things like that, and that's what gets us going. It puts a spring in our step each morning.
Nintendo has been changing up its management structure across the board, and now Nintendo of Europe has announced a big shift at the top of its corporate structure. Satoru Shibata, who has been Nintendo's chief representative in Germany for 18 years, is heading back to the company's headquarters in Japan to run marketing and licensing.
In Shibata's place, Nintendo has appointed a new CEO and president in Europe. Koji Miyake is the former general manager of Nintendo's HR in Japan and will now take up the role of CEO/Chairman, while Stephan Bole, who used to run Nintendo France, will be the company's new European president.
Nintendo is going through a major shift in leadership right now; today is the last day for Nintendo's president in Japan, Tatsumi Kimishima. Kimishima has retired, and Shuntaro Furukawa has now taken over as representative director and president. He's held a series of high-level management positions (including outside director for The Pokemon Company).
All of this news comes amid Nintendo's huge continued success with Nintendo Switch. In its latest earnings report back in April, the company announced it had sold nearly 18 million Switch systems, and was on track to sell 20 million more by the end of the year. Nintendo also said it expects to sell 100 million more games this year, which sounds ambitious but is bolstered by its strong showing at E3 2018, which included the official reveal of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, due to release right before Christmas.
As part of ongoing changes to Overwatch, Blizzard is currently in the midst of reworking Sombra, the Damage class hero that specializes in infiltration and hacking. Although Blizzard hasn't finalized how they're changing the character, lead designer Geoff Goodman has revealed the direction they're taking her.
Posting on the Overwatch forums, Goodman said that Blizzard was currently "seeing how far we could push the duration of her Stealth and Translocator abilities." The former ability allows her to become invisible for a brief period and quickens her movement, making it useful for slipping behind enemy lines. The latter enables Sombra to throw out an item which she can teleport back to, which facilitates quick retreats to safety.
According to Goodman, the version of Sombra Blizzard is currently working on has no limit on the duration she can remain concealed using Stealth. However, the bonus her movement speed receives while in this mode has been reduced from a 75% increase to a 50% increase. Additionally, she cannot contest objectives while invisible. Currently, Sombra reveals her location if she fires her guns or is hit by an enemy, and this doesn't seem to have changed.
Your Translocator device, meanwhile, can now be destroyed from a distance. Previously, once you had thrown out there was no way to move or destroy it. With this ability, Sombra players can effectively keep her Translocator in an ideal spot to ensure it is always useful for her.
"These changes are really interesting for her as now she is in complete control over when she reveals herself, [allowing] her to time her hacks better for her team or go for a back line ambush during a critical moment in a team fight," Goodman explained.
These changes are currently only being explored internally at Blizzard, and are yet to go onto the public test realm, where they are tested further before being introduced to the live version of the game. It could be that, following the various testing phases, these changes are tweaked or abandoned entirely.
Blizzard recently added new functionality to Overwatch that encourages players to give others accolades and endorse them. Alongside this, it also added Looking For Group, which helps teams fill roles quicker. Blizzard has also revealed a new hero for Overwatch. However, thus far all we have is a suspicious-looking boulder to speculate over.
The Year of Legendary Pokemon rolls on with another pair of free Legendaries for Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Next month, The Pokemon Company is giving away two powerful monsters that originally appeared in Pokemon Black and White versions: Tornadus and Thundurus.
Continuing the trend of previous distributions, the Legendaries will be given out in different ways depending upon your region. US residents can pick up a free download code for the Pokemon at the electronics section of Target from July 13-28; those in Europe can download the Legendaries over the Nintendo Network via Mystery Gift from July 6-22; and players in Canada will receive a code in the Pokemon Trainer Club newsletter.
As before, the Legendaries can be redeemed in any seventh-generation Pokemon game, although the one you receive will differ depending on which version you have. In Sun and Ultra Sun, players will get the Electric-type Thundurus, while those with Moon and Ultra Moon will receive the Flying-type Tornadus. The Pokemon will also come at different levels and know different moves depending upon the game. You can see the moveset for each Legendary below.
Pokemon Ultra Sun
Thundurus -- Level 100 (w/Gold Bottle Cap)
Thunderbolt
Focus Blast
Grass Knot
Nasty Plot
Pokemon Sun
Thundurus -- Level 60
Discharge
Crunch
Charge
Nasty Plot
Pokemon Ultra Moon
Tornadus -- Level 100 (w/Gold Bottle Cap)
Hurricane
Heat Wave
Grass Knot
Tailwind
Pokemon Moon
Tornadus -- Level 60
Air Slash
Crunch
Tailwind
Rain Dance
The code you receive can be redeemed via the Mystery Gift feature from the games' main menu. After selecting it, choose the option to receive your gift with a code/password, input the code, and the Pokemon will be downloaded to your game. (Players in Europe must choose the option to receive their gift via the internet to download their Legendaries.) You'll then be able to pick your Pokemon up from the deliveryman waiting inside any Pokemon Center.
Since February, The Pokemon Company has been giving away free Legendaries for the seventh-gen Pokemon games. Following the Tornadus and Thundurus distribution, players will be able to get the Hoenn Legendaries Groudon and Kyogre in August. In the meantime, you can see all of the free Pokemon available for Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon right now.
The end of Fortnite: Battle Royale's Season 4 is in sight, but there's still time to take on the current batch of challenges. Week 9's have been introduced, providing a slate of seven more objectives for you to complete if you own the Season 4 Battle Pass. That includes yet another treasure map to hunt down and follow--here's where to find it and how to get your hands on the treasure, as well as the other challenges.
Week 9's trickiest challenge tasks you to follow the treasure map found in Haunted Hills. Provided you want to do things by the book, you'll first head to Haunted Hills to get a look at the map, which is pictured below. The map can be found in one of two locations: in a small building just south of the church, or underneath the larger building on the western side. Either way, here's what you'll see:
If you know the island's map well, you may recognize this as showing the silhouettes of Junk Junction's... junk. Fortunately, that area is located just north of Haunted Hills. Either make your way there next or drop in at the start of the match, and head toward a stack of cars near the northern wall, as directed by the X on the treasure map. Get to the top of the pile and you'll see the treasure waiting to be picked up. Grab it just as you would open a chest and the challenge is complete.
Epic considers this to be a Hard-tier challenge, which is good news for you--doing it will net you a total of 10 Battle Stars. That helps to rank up your Battle Pass and get your hands on Fortnite's Season 4 skins and rewards. With Season 5 set to begin in early July, you'll want to squeeze what you can get out of the current Battle Pass.
You can check out a complete list of Week 9 challenges below. These are, for the most part, quite straightforward, tasking you with eliminating opponents with shotguns, elimination opponents in Anarchy Acres, using a shopping cart (luckily, these have been re-enabled), searching chest in Moisty Mire, and dealing explosive weapon damage. One that might give you some difficulty is visiting the center of named locations in a single match. These are marked by large blue beacons, and you'll know you've reached the center when you see a new flag in the center of the area change to your banner.Your best bet to complete this may be to simply stay outside the storm circle and avoid other players as much as possible.
Fortnite Week 9 Challenges
Deal damage with Explosive Weapons to opponents (500) -- 5 Battle Stars
Search Chests in Moisty Mire (7) -- 5 Battle Stars
Use a Shopping Cart -- 5 Battle Stars
Visit the center of Named Locations in a Single Match (4) -- 5 Battle Stars
Hard: Follow the treasure map found in Haunted Hills -- 10 Battle Stars
At the end of Preacher Season 2, Tulip was dead as a doorknob. But because this is Preacher, she of course was never going to stay that way.
In the Season 3 premiere, Tulip exited her own personal purgatory and re-entered the world of the living with the help of Jesse, Cassidy, and, of course, Grandma L'Angell. Grandma is at the center of Season 3's storyline, although she wasn't the only new character we met in the Season 3 premiere.
Introduced alongside her were lackies T.C. and Jody, the latter of whom we see again in this exclusive clip from the upcoming Preacher Season 3, Episode 2, "Sonsabitches." Jody and Tulip meet at last, and although they don't initially see eye to eye, they wind up finding some common ground.
Since the announcement that DC was stepping into the streaming game, fans have wondered just what its new service would entail. In the past months, details have been scarce aside from announcements of new shows that will air on what the company calls DC Universe. The company announced that the service will contain movies, television series, comic books, and more.
DC Universe includes brand-new series on its service including the live-action series Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol, and Titans. And because DC is primarily known for its exceptional animated series, DC Universe will also include a third season of Young Justice, with the subtitle Outsiders, and a new Harley Quinn series as well.
The service pushes to be more than just a Netflix for DC's back catalog of shows and movies. In addition to the previously announced new television series coming to DC Universe, it's bringing comic books to the table as well. Not everything DC has published will be available on the app though. The selection will be curated but will still contain contain thousands of DC comics.
"This hand-curated selection from our decades of comic creations gives fans a thematic digital longbox to carry with them on the device of their choosing or lets them watch exclusive video content on a big screen followed by the comic that inspired it," explained DC Entertainment publisher Dan DiDio.
In addition, the service will contain a DC encyclopedia, news, interviews, daily video segments, and a shop for DC Collectibles. There is a lot going on with this service, but the focus seems to be on movies, television, and comic books, as you can see in screenshots for DC Universe below. A monthly pricepoint for the service has yet to be announced, and another thing absent from this announcement was the inclusion of the DC Cinematic Universe movies (Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman, Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad, and Justice League). At launch, DC Universe will be available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV, as well as through the service's website.
"DC Universe is so much more than a streaming service. It's a welcoming place for everyone to immerse themselves in their own level of DC fandom, with the epic characters, stories, and experiences they have come to expect from DC," said Jim Lee, chief creative officer and publisher, DC Entertainment. "We are investing in and creating original, high-quality shows including the new Titans series, and curating the most beloved nostalgic content, while at the same time elevating the comic reading experience to new heights. Nothing this robust has ever been offered to fans before."
Additionally, you can sign up today for an opportunity for beta access to DC Universe website which will begin in August 2018. There is no set date for release of DC Universe, but DC Entertainment expects to have it go live this fall.
Here's the full list of shows and comics DC has announced for DC Universe:
When it comes to the PS4 lately, it seems like PlayStation Plus members have all the fun. Not only do they get free games each month and exclusive deals like the PS Plus Specials sale going on now, but they occasionally get additional special offers. The latest deal for PS Plus members is a 33% discount on the game-streaming service PlayStation Now.
Between now and September 25, PS Plus members who sign up for (or renew) a PS Now membership will get a three-month subscription for $30. That's not a bad deal, considering the normal price is $45. If you sign up, note that the subscription auto-renews unless canceled, and the discount only applies for the first three months. After that, it goes back up to $45.
PS Now is basically Sony's "Netflix for games." It lets you play a selection of over 650 PS4, PS3, and PS2 games by streaming them to your PS4 or PC--which means you don't have to download the games to play them. A solid internet connection certainly helps, though.
Call of Duty: WWII's third expansion, United Front, is now available for PS4. The DLC pack introduces an assortment of new content to the World War II shooter, including a handful of maps, a new War mode mission, and the next chapter in the Nazi Zombies story.
Those who purchase the United Front pack will get three new maps for Call of Duty: WWII's multiplayer mode. The first, Market Garden, is a fast-paced arena that forces players into close-quarters confrontations. The second, Monte Cassino, takes place in a "war-torn village" and emphasizes verticality with its many rooftops and other high vantage points. The final map, Stalingrad, is based on the largest confrontation in WWII and features two bases that are located on opposite sides of the war zone.
In addition to the new maps, United Front introduces a new mission for War mode called Operation Supercharge. In this mission, players are dropped in Tunisia and must push into a Nazi-controlled village and capture key supplies there. After that, they must destroy a key transport bridge and then capture "entrenched Axis fortifications."
Finally, United Front adds a new chapter for Nazi Zombies mode called The Tortured Path. This installment has players trying to stem the advance of the Axis's undead army. "Players must uncover the lost forges of ancient Thule, make the sword whole again, and also deliver a final death to the Undead in this all-new Zombies experience," Activision says. You can watch us play through a portion of the new Nazi Zombies chapter above.
Like Call of Duty: WWII's previous two DLC packs, United Front can be purchased individually for US $15 / £11.59 / AU $20.45. It's also included as part of the game's US $50 / £40 / AU $65 season pass, which grants access to all of Call of Duty: WWII's DLC packs as they release. Activision hasn't announced when United Front will launch for Xbox One and PC, but thanks to an exclusivity agreement with Sony, Call of Duty DLC typically arrives on those platforms about a month after it hits PS4.
Following its surprise reveal during E3 2018, the Life Is Strange spin-off The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit has officially launched. The game is now available to download on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and unlike previous entries in the series, it's completely free to download for all platforms.
The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is a shorter, self-contained episode that stars Chris, a young boy who lives alone with his father. Chris loves comics and has a vivid imagination; during the story, he pretends to be a superhero named Captain Spirit and battle "monsters" such as a broken water heater.
Despite not directly tying into the previous Life Is Strange episodes, developer Dontnod says the game "links" to stories from the upcoming Life Is Strange 2 and contains "many secrets" and Easter eggs for fans to uncover. Choices you make in The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit will also carry over into Life Is Strange 2.
Early reception for The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit has been positive. GameSpot called it a "beautiful game" and awarded it an 8/10 in our The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit review. Critic James O'Connor wrote:
"Life Is Strange gained a huge cult following, and whether you're a veteran or a newcomer, Captain Spirit captures a lot of the original game's appeal. Regardless of how you classify The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit--whether it's a standalone adventure, a demo, or a prologue--it's a beautiful game, and one that leaves you all the more excited about Life Is Strange 2."
Pokemon Go's Summer Tour 2018 kicks off this weekend with the Safari Zone live event in Dortmund, Germany, but even if you aren't able to attend in-person, you'll still have a chance to participate. The Pokemon Company announced that special Global Challenges will be underway during each of this summer's live events, with players all over the world contributing toward their success.
Each weekend that an event takes place, players will be divided up into four regions: the Americas; Europe, the Middle-East, and Africa; Asia-Pacific; and the "main research site," which is the location of the live event. Each region will strive to complete their own challenges, which will contribute to the global progress and unlock bonus rewards in the game. If players manage to earn bonus rewards during all three events, then Niantic teases an Ultra Bonus will be unlocked--although what that will be remains a mystery.
The first live event in the Summer Tour 2018 is the aforementioned Safari Zone in Dortmund, which takes place on June 30 and July 1. During the event, the Grass- and Poison-type Pokemon Roselia will spawn much more frequently around the globe. Players will also have a chance to find a Shiny Roselia in the wild.
Following Safari Zone Dortmund, Niantic will host the second annual Pokemon Go Fest event in Chicago on July 14 and 15. During that weekend, players around the world will find increased spawns of Trapinch, Feebas, and other Pokemon. The Alolan forms of Geodude and Diglett will also begin appearing for the first time in Pokemon Go.
The final stop in the Pokemon Go Summer Tour 2018 is a special Safari Zone in Yokosuka, Japan. Specific details about that event will be announced at a later date, but it is slated to take place later this summer. You can read more about the Summer Tour 2018 on the official Pokemon website.
In addition to the aforementioned events, Niantic will also host the next Pokemon Go Community Day on July 8. During that event, the Red and Blue starter Pokemon Squirtle will appear much more frequently in the wild, and if previous Community Days are any indication, players will have a chance to find its Shiny variant as well. Participants will also hatch Eggs at a quarter of the distance they typically require.
A new month is quickly approaching, which means more research tasks will soon be available in Pokemon Go. Developer Niantic confirmed on Twitter that the next set of Field Research quests will roll out for the game in July, and they'll revolve primarily around Pokemon originally found in the Kanto region.
Niantic didn't share any further details about what the Field Research tasks will entail, but it did accompany its tweet with a new promotional image featuring the beloved Gen 1 Pokemon Snorlax. Pokemon fan site Serebii.net reports that Ditto, Pikachu, and Eevee will be available as part of the quests as well.
Similarly, Niantic hasn't revealed what reward players will get for achieving a Research Breakthrough when they complete enough of the new Field Research tasks. Previous Breakthroughs, however, resulted in an encounter with a Legendary Pokemon; the latest batch of quests, for instance, gave players another chance to capture the Legendary bird Articuno.
On top of being able to get some rare Gen 1 monsters, the new Field Research quests will provide a good opportunity to build up your Pokemon collection, particularly if you're interested in picking up Nintendo Switch's upcoming Pokemon RPGs: Let's Go, Pikachu and Let's Go, Eevee. Players can transfer any Gen 1 monsters they've captured in Pokemon Go--including their Alolan forms--to the Let's Go titles, where they can be captured in a new facility called the Go Park.
Along with the long-awaited trading and friends list features, Pokemon Go recently introduced a handful of new Alolan forms. The game's next Community Day event will also feature a popular Gen 1 Pokemon: the Water-type starter Squirtle.
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