Square Enix has revealed more details on Final Fantasy XIV's upcoming expansion, Shadowbringers. During the FFXIV Fan Fest event this weekend, the publisher announced that Shadowbringers will launch for PS4 and PC on July 2, and it gave fans a glimpse at some of the new content the expansion will introduce to the MMO.
Along with a variety of new dungeons, Shadowbringers will add another playable race to the game: the rabbit-like Viera, the race Final Fantasy XII's Fran belonged to. The expansion will also introduce several new beast tribes: Nu Mou, dwarves, and pixies. Players will have a "harrowing encounter" with the ruler of the pixies, Titania, in one of Shadowbringers' new trials.
Square Enix also revealed one of the new classes coming in Shadowbringers: Gunbreaker. The class wields gunblades and fills the role of a tank. The game's level cap is also being increased from 70 to 80, and there will be a number of new areas to explore, including the Rak'Tika Greatwood, Amh Araeng, and Il Mheg.
On top of that, Square Enix announced that Shadowbringers will kick off a new Alliance raid series. The publisher hasn't shared many details about it yet, but this one will be a surprise crossover with Nier: Automata and is titled YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse. You can read more about the upcoming expansion on the Shadowbringers website.
Shadowbringers will be available in standard and Collector's editions. The latter will retail for $200 and comes with a variety of bonus physical and in-game items, including an art book, Dark Knight figure, playing cards, Fran minion, and Revolver Gunbreaker weapon. Pre-orders for Shadowbringers will open this week, on February 6; everyone who reserves the expansion will be able to access it several days early, beginning June 28.
We don't yet know Legion Season 3's release date, but we do know one concrete thing about it: Legion Season 3 will be the show's final season, FX announced today. The network made the announcement during its panel at the twice-yearly Television Critics Association event in Los Angeles. FX CEO John Landgraf said during the panel that ending Legion with its third season was always creator Noah Hawley's plan.
FX announced Legion Season 3 before Season 2 had even completed airing, back in June. The network's president of original programming, Eric Schrier, issued a statement in a press release at the time indicating that FX has faith in the series and its creators.
"Legion has redefined the superhero drama and exceeded all expectations as the intensity and revelation build through the second season," Schrier said. "We are incredibly proud of Noah Hawley's achievement and are honored to continue the series as it pushes the boundaries of conventional television storytelling. We are also grateful for the contributions of our executive producers, John Cameron, Lauren Shuler Donner, Simon Kinberg, and Jeph Loeb with Marvel Television, as well as our outstanding cast and crew of this groundbreaking show."
By Anonymous on Feb 04, 2019 11:30 pm (In Partnership with Xbox One) From the derelict subways to the unforgiving tundra, take a look at some of the new creatures you'll face in Metro Exodus.
FX has ordered a series of Y, based on the highly-regarded Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra graphic novel series Y: The Last Man. The adaptation has been shopped around and in development for some time, and this finally lands it a permanent home. You can see the first image from it below.
The series will follow the travels of Yorick, the lone male survivor of a mysterious event that has spontaneously killed every other male animal on the planet. Women are left to keep society going, exploring themes of gender, race, and class.
Last year FX announced its planned cast for the series, which includes Barry Keoghan, Imogen Poots, and Diane Lane, as the lead characters Yorick, his sister Hero, and their mother Senator Jennifer Brown, respectively. Joining them will be Lashana Lynch as Agent 355, Juliana Canfield as Beth, and Marin Ireland as Nora. Executive producer Melina Matsoukas directs the pilot episode.
The adaptation has been long in development, having gone through attempted film adaptations from Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) and D.J. Caruso (XXX: Return of Xander Cage). The script was delayed in part because showrunner Michael Green says he struggled to make an impactful show about gender dynamics in light of the 2016 election.
"Y: The Last Man is a towering achievement among graphic novel storytelling and it's been rewarding to work with this outstanding team," FX president of original programming Nick Grad said in an announcement. "Michael Green and Aïda Mashaka Croal have partnered with Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson to deliver a stunning new expression of this fascinating and timely story. Melina Matsoukas, who directed the pilot, did an incredible job bringing it to life with Diane Lane and this stellar cast."
The Division 2 will have a photo mode, unlike its predecessor, and its inclusion is supposedly thanks to the series' community. After seeing fans of The Division asking for a photo mode, Ubisoft decided it was necessary to add the feature to the sequel.
"It's something that the community asked for a lot," The Division 2 lead designer Keith Evans said in an interview with USG. "Throughout [The Division's post-launch], there would be these amazing pictures that the hardcore community members would start posting on Twitter. They were just doing it themselves and it was very grassroots."
Although the first game didn't have a photo mode, you could download a mod for the PC version, titled Cinematic Tools, that added a camera function to the game. When it was first released, the mod got its creator banned from the game. However, plenty of players used the mod, and that caught the attention of The Division creative director Julian Gerighty. When it came time to develop The Division's sequel, Ubisoft decided to add a photo mode, which will be available in The Division 2 on day one.
The Division 2's photo mode works similarly to the one in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, so you'll be able to pretty easily take photos throughout the game without having to mess with settings. After taking the photo, you can also add filters or adjust the depth of field and brightness.
You'll be able to try out The Division 2 prior to launch with the game's private beta. The beta starts on February 7 and continues to February 11. In order to participate, you can either pre-order The Division 2 for a guaranteed invite or register on the game's main website for a chance to win one. The Division 2's private beta includes a fair bit of content. On February 7, you'll have access to two story missions, several open-world activities, one of the PvP modes, and one of the three Dark Zones. Starting February 8, endgame content will also be unlocked in the private beta, which allows you to try playing with one of The Division 2's level 30 specialized agents in a late-game Invaded mission.
The idea that Disney might not make a third movie in the Guardian of the Galaxy series, which has grossed more than $1.6 billion worldwide, would have seemed ridiculous less than a year ago. But when writer/director James Gunn was fired by the studio after offensive tweets he made nearly a decade ago resurfaced, it threw the fate of the Guardian of the Galaxy Vol.3 into uncertainty. However, star Chris Pratt has now commented on the future of the series.
Pratt was asked about the status of Vol.3 by Variety, and he assured fans that the movie will happen. "I promise there'll be a third movie," he said. "I don't know exactly what that's going to look like, but I know everyone on board is just eager to give the fans what they want and wrap up a trilogy in a meaningful way."
While Vol.3 was never given a release date by Marvel, it was expected to go into production in early 2019 ahead of a 2020 release. Dave Bautista, who plays Drax and was the most outspoken about Gunn's firing, stated in August that the movie was "on hold indefinitely," and and he had no interest in appearing in the movie if Gunn was not involved. Pratt and the rest of the cast offered Gunn their support, but stopped short of asking for him to be rehired.
In October last year, it was announced that Gunn had been hired by Marvel's rival DC to write a reboot of Suicide Squad. Last week, it was confirmed the movie, titled The Suicide Squad, will hit theaters on August 6, 2021. It has also been reported that Gunn is in negotiations to direct the movie, and that it will "take the franchise in a new direction with a mostly all-new cast of characters and actors."
Whether the third Guardians movie happens or not, we will definitely see some of the cast in the upcoming Avengers: Endgame. The much-anticipated follow-up to Avengers: Infinity War is released in April, and a new trailer was screened during last weekend's Superbowl.
It's the first full week of February, and streaming giant Netflix has some new offerings on its service this week. And the next seven days are filled with Netflix original series and movies for you to check out.
Hitting the service this past Sunday was everyone's favorite movie about a spoiled canine who gets lost in Mexico. That's right: Beverly Hills Chihuahua is now available for you to stream. Aside from that, 2009's The Soloist, starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr., are the only two non-Netflix originals debuting this week.
On the original side of things, Ray Romano returns with his first comedy special in 23 years with Ray Romano: Right Here, Around the Corner, available now. Additionally, Mexico gets its own spin-off of the wildly-entertaining baking series with ¡Nailed It! México coming on February 8. Also headed to Netflix that day is Kevin Hart's Guide to Black History, where the comedic actor highlights black Americans' contributions to the cinematic artform over the years.
There is only one movie leaving the series this week, and that's the animated musical Sing. It scampered away on February 3.
By Anonymous on Feb 04, 2019 10:30 pm Our hands-on with the Division 2 Private Beta shows off the impact of factions, settlements, and endgame invasions. Captured on Xbox One.
By Anonymous on Feb 04, 2019 10:30 pm The tusks are a brand new faction that pose a tough challenge. Check out this end game mission in a wicked cool space center. Captured on Xbox One X.
Ever since its debut at E3 2018, the developers of The Division 2 have focused on the sequel's endgame. It's a recurring topic for many online looter-shooters such as Destiny and Anthem, as it's often seen as the make-or-break point for a game's long term success. That's something the developers of the original Division know all too well. Players who finished its vanilla campaign inevitably hit a slump, leading to a repetitive cycle. Ubisoft eventually overhauled much of the game's mechanics and added in new encounters--leading to an impressive post-launch life for The Division. However, many players still burned out by the original release missed out on the revival once other games came around.
With the sequel, Ubisoft is taking steps to ensure that it won't fall into the same traps as the original, while also giving the campaign a greater sense of purpose. We recently spent some time getting an early look at the game's upcoming private beta--playable February 7-10--which offers a tease for what's to come in the early hours of the campaign and the late-game content that follows. After you've established yourself in The Division 2's turbulent setting of post-outbreak Washington D.C. during the campaign, things take a more chaotic turn after the conclusion, forcing you to defend what you've built up in the expanded endgame.
During this event, the developers spent some time reflecting on what they learned from the original game and detailed their approach in the sequel.
"One of the biggest things for The Division 2 is the importance of the endgame and our focus on it," said creative director Julian Gerighty. "We launched The Division 1 with very little in terms of endgame content. It was a great campaign, you reached level 30, the endgame started, but it was lacking in activities. We were trying to operate this live game, yet we saw things that weren't working out for the long term. That's why a very tough decision was made before patch 1.4, which was to stop the development on all of the planned features and the DLCs to be able to focus on the technological debt and on the improvements to get the game to where we wanted it to be. That all fed into how we've set up The Division 2 production-wise, creatively as well."
The Division 1 is a vastly different game now than it was at launch, and all for the better. That second wind is something that the developers wanted to carry over into the sequel, which they did in a few important ways. For starters, The Division 2 will incorporate much of the existing game's content from the post-launch updates, which includes update 1.2's bounties, 1.4's world tiers, 1.6's exotic weapons, and 1.8's PvP arena. These features will also be available for all players at launch, and future DLCs for the first year will be free. This is not only to stay consistent with the current game's flow and meta but also to ensure that the community would stay engaged.
With the new game, there also comes a fresh start for all players. Whereas the original was set in Manhattan, Division 2 brings a new set of agents to the nation's capital, which introduces new systems and world events that occur in the field--presenting more moments and opportunities to leave a large footprint. At the beginning of the demo, our first mission was to retake the White House from one of the opposing factions, which becomes your base of operations soon after.
Over the course of the campaign, the White House increases in influence and followers the more you expand the Agency's reach throughout Washington D.C. In order to reassert control over the city, you'll set up new settlements and interact with key characters who will aid in your rise to power. Some NPCs are recruitable and can even be brought to the White House to upgrade the various areas--leading to new items and perks to acquire.
Exploring ruined D.C. offered plenty of opportunities to meet new characters and come across control points that are in constant dispute. Though D.C. doesn't have nearly as strong of an atmosphere and eerie vibe as the original, it does fill that void by presenting more reasons to explore and engage in the various side-missions. Much like in the original, there are ECHOs that allow you to play back moments from the lives of supporting characters. While the original's take felt one-sided since the characters were dead long before you arrived, several of the persons of interest in The Division 2 are alive and reasonably well, and the ECHOs offer more details about their connections to others throughout D.C.
Things, however, take a particularly surprising turn in the endgame. A new threat in the form of Black Tusk emerges, leading into the broader endgame that shakes things up. Similar to the Hunters from The Division's 1.8 update, who only appeared in the Survival mode and Underground DLC, Black Tusk is a roaming faction that serves as the antithesis of the Division agency. Possessing an arsenal of high-tech weapons and gadgets that match your own, this new faction invades D.C. and actively tries to retake areas of the city--and even the Dark Zones. In the two endgame missions we played, one in the Air and Space Museum and along with the Federal Emergency Bunker, the Black Tusk proved to be a powerful force to be reckoned with. Along with using robots that look like they come right out of the Boston Dynamics lab--except they actually have guns this time--the endgame faction also uses mini-drones, and have soldiers wearing heavy armor that require strategic shots to open up weak points.
During the endgame, you'll unlock new specializations that further enhance your character, which also open up power weapons like the grenade launcher, heavy sniper rifle, and the crossbow. In order to find better loot and gear, you'll have to tackle missions that are several notches more challenging than the campaign. But as is typically the case for endgame content, you'll also be repeating some older missions. The Division 2 does, however, spice things up by introducing a new tier called Invaded missions. During the endgame, all previous missions from the campaign will have a new difficulty that replaces the existing enemies with the Black Tusk. To cut down on repetition, the Invaded missions will also randomize each encounter with Black Tusk in the level, leading to different fights with enemy squads on each playthrough.
This new faction also changes the dynamic of the Dark Zones in the endgame, which actively occupies one of the areas. As we detailed in another preview, the Dark Zone's PvPvE (player-versus-player-versus-environment) dynamic has been upgraded for the sequel. In addition to three separate zones, all of which have story missions that allow you to get your feet wet, the endgame will introduce an Occupied Dark Zone. With one Dark Zone under occupation by the Black Tusk faction, which cycles to a different location every week, the occupied zones also remove certain handicaps from the base version of the PvPvE mode, particularly level-balancing and friendly fire.
The skirmishes with Black Tusk during the two missions we played were intense and required some solid communication from our team to make it through. However, the invaded missions also felt a bit exhausting as well, leading to some moments where we were trapped in a room for up to 10 minutes dropping squads of bullet-spongy enemies as they funneled in. Though this is often the case for endgame content, it definitely hurt the pacing of some otherwise thrilling missions. Granted, we were just dropped into these missions for the purpose of this demo, which came after the rather brisk early game missions we played at the beginning. They may flow better once you've invested the hours to work your way to this content.
However, this also reminded me of some of the larger issues I've felt from The Division 2, in that it comes off a bit too similar to the original. It strongly emulates much of what worked in its predecessor, almost to a fault. Though some of the new innovations make for a more engaging and interesting setting to explore, the general looter-shooter loop itself can be exhausting, and lead to those familiar moments of occasional tedium that bogged down the first game. Having said that, I do feel the new approach to the endgame, though somewhat overwhelming, does offer a more compelling hook that felt absent from the original. By tasking you to defend the place you've been actively building up and investing yourself in throughout the campaign--which can be taken by the enemy faction. It creates a greater sense of urgency in the late-game, which was lacking from the original.
Ubisoft seems to be on the right path for The Division 2. Though it's obviously building off of what came before, the new features do seem to be a natural step up that plays to the renewed strength the series saw with its revamped gameplay from the original. Ubisoft's approach with this private beta was a neat way to kick the tires from both ends, and it'll be interesting to see how players--even those that missed out on the revival of the original game--will take to it. The Division 2 is series' second chance, and hopefully it'll be able to make good on it's renewed vigor.
For more info on The Division 2, including how the new Dark Zones work and how to get into the private beta, you can check out our features and articles on here on GameSpot.
A new Pokemon smartphone app is on the way to iOS and Android. The Pokemon Company has announced the Pokemon TCG Card Dex, a free application that allows users to easily catalog their Pokemon card collections.
The Pokemon TCG Card Dex is available today in Sweden and will expand to other regions "soon." The app allows you to scan your physical Pokemon TCG cards using your smartphone's camera and keep track of those you own. You're also able to browse an extensive database featuring every card since the release of the Pokemon TCG: Sun & Moon series and manually catalog your collection.
The Pokemon Company hasn't announced when the Pokemon TCG Card Dex will be available to download in other parts of the world, but the application supports several languages, including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. The Pokemon Company says that any card you scan will be displayed in the app in the language you've selected, even if it differs from that on your actual card.
The Card Dex app arrives shortly after the release of the latest Pokemon TCG expansion: Sun & Moon--Team Up. First announced during the 2018 Pokemon World Championships last August, the expansion introduces new Tag Team GX cards that feature Pokemon duos with incredibly powerful attacks and high HP. You can read more about the expansion on the Pokemon TCG website.
By Anonymous on Feb 04, 2019 09:30 pm See how much has changed a decade later when we compare the PS4 Remaster Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, against the original PlayStation game.
By Anonymous on Feb 04, 2019 09:30 pm We got the chance to race across three maps in Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled. Here is 8 minutes of gameplay captured on PS4.
By Anonymous on Feb 04, 2019 09:30 pm Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled brings back everything you remember about the original game with added visual flair. It only makes sense that the golden days of split screen racing are back and fun as ever. Here's what it looks like. Captured on PS4.
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