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PS4 gamers won't need an active PlayStation Plus subscription to play Apex Legends, EA confirms in a FAQ.

Today Respawn and EA announced Apex Legends, a big new free-to-play shooter with 60-player battle royale and Overwatch-like squad battles. Set in the Titanfall universe, Respawn makes some big changes from previous games in the series: multiplayer nixes mech suits and parkour/wall-running, replacing them with a roster of 8 characters with Overwatch-like skills and abilities. Going free-to-play wasn't enough, though, and EA and Sony made the game even more accessible by removing the PS Plus barrier for Sony's 90 million strong install base. Apex Legends still requires Xbox LIVE Gold to play on Xbox One.

Apex Legends is borrowing a lot from other games. Outside of its visuals and mechanics, EA will monetize the game in two key ways: optional cosmetic-only microtransactions and a battle pass, similar to Fortnite. Apex Legends also has seasons, and the battle passes unlock exclusive vanity items for these timed events. There's no pay-to-win scheme here, but cosmetics are unlocked in lootbox form via Apex Packs.

The reports were right. EA today announced Apex Legends, a new free-to-play battle royale shooter set in the Titanfall universe.

Apex Legends is a mix of popular games: it looks a little bit like Borderlands, plays like Overwatch, and borrows a battle royale theme from PUBG and Fortnite. It's set in the Titanfall IP but it doesn't feature mechs, instead has an array of unique classes. There's 8 different characters with their own special abilities like seeing through walls or using a grappling hook to fling across maps, and even teleporting. Sadly wall-running didn't make the cut.

The combat looks slick, fast-paced, and chaotic, throwing players in explosive 60-player battle royale matches or 3v3 gametypes across a variety of widespread maps with verticality and plenty of opportunities for havoc. Apex Legends is out now across PS4, Xbox One and PC, and will be monetized with optional cosmetics that can also be earned in-game.

4A Games isn't ready to give up on PC gamers and attempts to extinguish the current Metro boycott controversy.

The Metro series and everyone involved--developer 4A Games, publisher Deep Silver, and parent company Koch Media--is getting blasted right now. It all started when Metro Exodus became timed exclusive on the Epic Store until 2020. With an attractive revenue split that allows publishers to keep 88% of all revenues, it's not hard to see why Deep Silver made the deal and skipped Steam. Gamers responded by review-bombing the series on Steam. Then a 4A Games developer said Metro could skip PC for good if Exodus didn't sell well. And so the maelstrom was fed with even more fire and gamers are quite furious.

But now 4A Games tries to quell the PR whirlwind by confirming something we already knew: it's not giving up on PC. Yesterday we wrote an in-depth article explaining why future and existing Metro games won't just disappear on PC, and the studio's words reinforce our own.

Take-Two Interactive expands its 2K Games label with a new studio led by industry veteran Michael Condry.

Michael Condry is well-known in the games industry. At Visceral, he directed the excellent horror-survival game Dead Space for EA, then co-founded Call of Duty developer Sledgehammer Games. Now Condry is starting up a brand new studio to work on a new unannounced game for 2K Games. The seasoned developer will sit as president of the new unnamed studio and make key executive decisions layered beneath the 2K Games label, which is overseen by parent company Take-Two Interactive. Condry and 2K are currently hiring devs to fill out the ranks for the studio that's being built from the ground up.

This move comes at an opportune time for 2K Games. The label is mostly known for its sports games, Borderlands, and BioShock, but the latter two have been missing in action as of late. Borderlands 3 is in development, and will probably release after April 2019, but overall the 2K label has been somewhat stale and lacking variety. Condry's new studio--which has yet to be named--will help fortify 2K Games' game selection.

Starting this month, Sony's PS Plus cloud saves have increased by tenfold.

PlayStation Plus subscribers can now store up to 100GB of saves in Sony's cloud storage vault, which is practically enough save space for every PS4 game on the market. The decision was made as a way to bring more value to the service by upping a major benefit, and retain more subscribers over time. Sony is always looking for methods to pull in more active PS Plus users, and it saw a nice influx of users with the holiday PS4 sales rush.

"In early February, we will be expanding our cloud storage space from 10GB to 100GB for PS Plus members - giving PS4 owners even more space to keep all those game saves," Sony announced on the PlayStation Blog. "With cloud storage, you can save your game progress and character profiles on one PS4 system, and then continue the game on another system later without losing progress. Be sure to check it out next month."

After an 8-year lifecycle, the 3DS is long in the tooth and we think it'll be laid to rest quite soon.

Information gleaned in new financials hint Nintendo may retire its 3DS handheld family soon, possibly during its next fiscal year. Sales of the handheld are dropping off dramatically as gamers shift to the Switch, and the company noted a sharp 60% decline in 3DS nine-month sales. 3DS hardware and software sales raked 55 billion yen compared to the Nintendo Switch's 8.49 trillion yen, showing a clear wind-down trend. Nintendo may retire the 3DS to make way for a new handheld-only Switch model.

The company previously said the 3DS will live alongside the Switch, but Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa only mentioned the 3DS three times in a recent earnings presentation, and all of them were in relation to the Switch's sales. No direct discussion of the 3DS current and future plans is found in Furukawa's presentation.

The premium Switch Online subscription service now has over 8 million paid members, Nintendo confirms.

Nintendo's latest fiscal year earnings report is chock-full of information, and company president Shuntaro Furukawa isn't shy about metrics. Throughout the document Mr. Furukawa not only broke down the Switch's meteoric 9.41 million holiday sales and outlined Nintendo's three business pillars, but also confirmed Switch Online adoption is quite high.

Since launching in September 2018, the Nintendo Switch's paid Switch Online service has amassed 8 million paid subscribers. This means 25% of Switch owners have bought into the service in fourth months' time. That number should grow as Nintendo promises to expand Switch Online with more content and features, and there's strong evidence SNES games will be added at some point.

The new Super Mario Bros. movie should arrive on the big screen in three years.

Nintendo hopes to release a new Super Mario Bros. animated film in 2022, the company confirmed in its latest financial report. Illumination Entertainment, the studio responsible for Despicable Me, is producing the film under Nintendo's supervision.

"In addition, the development of animated film based on Super Mario Bros. with Illumination is moving along for an anticipated theatrical release around 2022," Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said in the company's Fiscal Q3'18 financial report.

To celebrate the release of 'Fear the Walking Dead: The Complete Fourth Season' on home video, we have five Blu-ray copies of the season to give away thanks to our friends at eOne Home Entertainment!

In season four of 'Fear the Walking Dead,' we will see the world of Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and her family through new eyes -- the eyes of Morgan Jones (Lennie James), joining the story from the world of 'The Walking Dead'. The characters immediate past mixes with an uncertain present of struggle and discovery as they meet new friends, foes and threats. They fight for each other, against each other and against a legion of the dead to somehow build an existence against the crushing pressure of lives coming apart. There will be darkness and light; terror and grace; the heroic, mercenary, and craven, all crashing together towards a new reality for 'Fear the Walking Dead',

To go into the running to win a prize, post this article to your social media profiles, correctly answer the following question and send your postal address to ben at TweakTown dot com before the competition closes on February 8.

Some new gameplay footage has been released for Jump Force, we see Naruto's Gaara and Kaguya Ootsuki going head to head in a short video.

The above gameplay has been released on PS360HD2 YouTube Channel, and it begins with Naruto Shippuden's Gaara. Gaara uses multiple abilities on Ootsuki, the animations for the sand look smooth as hell and we also get a showcase of the sheer power of Kaguya Ootsuki. What I would of liked more though was some more moves displayed from Ootsuki, the video seems to give a better look at Gaara during combat and uses Ootsuki as a punching bag.

Jump Force will be coming to the Xbox One, PS4 and PC on February 15th. In other news about the title, Bandai Namco accidentally leaked images of Dragon Quest and JoJo characters, if you want to read more about that click here.

During the Superbowl 2019, Marvel has taken the stage to showcase two new trailers for two new upcoming movies that are about to enter the franchise.

Marvel has released the two new trailers on the Marvel Entertainment YouTube Channel, the first being the Avengers: Endgame 'Big Game' trailer. In the trailer we see a quick scenes of Tony and Nebula working together on ship repairs, Rocket at a strange beach, Black Widow shooting to kill, Ant Man out of the quantum realm, Thor in Wakanda and Captain America gearing up with his shield.

There is quite a lot to look into and speculate from the new trailer, as it seems there has been many years since the dreaded 'snap' of Avengers: Infinity War. Captain America has picked up his once renounced shield that he gave up in Civil War, so it can be assumed that the situation is clearly a serious one. An hour after the release of the Endgame trailer Marvel decided to release a new trailer for Captain Marvel as well. Below you will find the trailer embedded and the movie is planned for release on March 8th. Avengers: End Game will come to theaters on April 24th.

Developer Pathos Interactive have announced in a recent press release that their upcoming real-time strategy title 'Bannermen' will soon be heading to the beta stage, players can now sign up to get exclusive access to the title.

The news has also been released onto the official Bannermen Steam page listing, developer Pathos Interactive states; "We are happy to announce that a free Bannermen beta will be held on Steam, starting Friday February 8 and ending Sunday February 10!". If you are unsure sure of what Bannermen is and you are a fan of Age of Empires-like games then I'd recommend you give this title some time of day. Pathos Interactive explains in the later half of the video that Bannermen players will be able to manipulate the environment to your advantage through the use of holy spots on the map. Players will be required to occupy these spots to be able to control dynamic weather properties.

Bannermen will also feature online and single player gameplay, players that jump into the single player experience will begin their journey at the aftermath of a defeat in battle. The is goal is to travel about the world you will be immersed in gathering followers and essentially increasing your army of loyal 'Bannermen' and status as a lord. Multiplayer wise, players will be able to enjoy "full support with dedicated servers - with unranked ladder, ranked ladder and custom games and that can be played with just your friends". Online multplayer will have the option of having large 8 player battles as well.

The Cyberpunk 2077 development studio has now revealed how much their employee count has increased in wake of the recent departure of their Creative Director.

CD Projekt RED really put their name on the gaming map after the massive success of The Witcher 3, the studio undoubtedly grew in considerable size after the title being rewarded The Game of the Year in 2015, but by how much exactly? The news has come from a response to a question regarding the potential of Cyberpunk 2077 development being hindered due to the Creative Director, Sebastian Stępien leaving for Blizzard.

The polish website, StockWatch received the reply "His departure does not affect the pace of work on our latest title in any way. The team working on Cyberpunk 2077 already has over 400 people." Now that is a lot of employee's, if you look back to the development team size for The Witcher 3 you will find that team consisted of 250 employee's, which means that the team that is currently pushing forward the development of Cyberpunk 2077 is 60% larger than that of The Witcher 3. CD Projekt Red have really got my hopes up for the release of Cyberpunk 2077, even though the title could still be "a few years away" the news of such an increase in manpower certainly raises the expectations for what we will see within the world of Cyberpunk.

Antec has announced that it has now released its Prizm Cooling Matrix fan which is something that the company is first to market with, boasting a unique single-bracket, dual-fan housing with ARGB lighting strips for $69.99.

The new Prizm Cooling Matrix cooler rolls up as a single unit with two 120mm fans where combined act as a 240mm cooler that can go onto a large 240mm radiator that is cooling your CPU. Antec has used aluminum alloys and embedded ARGB Antec logos onto each side of the Prizm Cooling Matrix, with two 11-blade fans, PWM control, and Fluid Dynamic Bearing Technology which the company says helps with its stronger ventilation and longer lifespan of the cooler.

Antec's new cooler is also fully modular which is another bonus, as well as being easy to install with its flat wire design making even the cable management of the Prizm Cooling Matrix a breeze. There's an addressable RGB LED controller included which lets you tweak colors and lightning modes, but it can also be plugged directly into your motherboard for some RGB lighting synchronization.

It is now confirmed: Respawn Entertainment will be detailing Apex Legends tomorrow morning, Monday, February 4 at 8AM PST. We have already had multiple sources say that Apex Legends is a sort of Titanfall spin off without the Titans obviously, with the game arriving as a free-to-play battle royale shooter.

Respawn confirmed the news on Twitter, with a newly-formed Apex Legends Twitter account. On top of that, publisher EA has secured a bunch of influencers and Twitch streamers that attended a secret LA event last week to play Apex Legends. At the same time, their embargo lifted and they could tease gamers with their excitement for the announcement and details of Apex Legends dropping. EA had Shroud, DrLupo, Dr Disrespect and others attended the event, all tweeting out in the last few hours.

Titanfall 3 was reportedly in development post-Titanfall 2 with the same aging Source engine, but Respawn could've changed game engines for Apex Legends - that's something we'll hopefully find out about in the morning. Respawn is also working on Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order which will be releasing this year, so it makes sense that the developer would use a new engine.

Disney pulled out millions of dollars advertising some of its big movies arriving this year including Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel and Toy Story 4. The new teaser for Toy Story 4 teases the return of Bo Peep, who hasn't been in the franchise since Toy Story 2 all the way back in 1999.

The new 'Big Game Ad' teaser for Toy Story 4 gives us a glimpse at what the toys have gotten themselves into this time around, with Buzz finding himself as a sideshow toy, with some fluffy characters giving him crap in the 30-second clip. We see Woody and Bo Peep together once again, with all of the original stars returning their roles including Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, as well as Annie Potts to the voice of Bo Peep.

Josh Cooley is directing Toy Story 4 hot off of co-writing the screenplay to Inside Out. There will be many more characters for the beloved toys to interact with, with some of it teased in the trailer with Buzz Lightyear.

Intel unleashed its new unlocked 28C/56T monster of a processor last week in the form of the Xeon W-3175X which was only being bundled with systems in the US, but has now turned up in retail form in Japan.

The new Xeon W-3175X has arrived in the Tokyo Tech Plaza in Japan, at a converted $3880 - above its $2999 retail price. The only motherboard that supports Intel's new Xeon W-3175X is the ASUS Dominus Extreme, so you'll need to buy one of those after you've just dropped this wad of cash on the unlocked 28C/56T chip. ASUS has said that its new Dominus Extreme motherbaord is only available through system integrators.

But then there are some retailers listing the new ASUS Dominus Extreme motherboard as an OEM-only part with a gigantic $1728-$1799 depending on the listing at ShopBLT and CompSource.

Microsoft is getting busy with the marketing push for its upcoming Crackdown 3, with Microsoft Studio Creative Director and Writer Joe Staten talking about the single player campaign during an interview with GamesBeat.

Staten said that Crackdown 3 has around 15 hours worth of single player campaign, he said: "The game comes with a 15-hour-plus single-player campaign where you get to play as an agent in the open world of New Providence, a neon-lit city controlled by the mysterious organization Terra Nova. One by one, you take down the crime bosses of the city and solve its mystery. You can play one of 21 different agents, and switch between them at any time you come across supply points in the city".

Crackdown 3's single player campaign isn't just something happening in the story and you dealing with it, with Staten adding that it'll also train you on how to play tghe game. He added: "It'll get your skills sharp enough to be competitive in multiplayer. It'll also just give you fictional context for the world, that kind of thing. The way I look at it these days, the reason you put a campaign in any game is because players are different. Depending on the day, everyone has a different mood. Some days I feel like being super social. Sometimes I feel like not talking to anybody. Some days I feel really cooperative. Some days I'm super competitive. I think the more games can satisfy all of those different player moods, the more successful they're going to be".

GIGABYTE is reportedly preparing to cull its motherboard workforce by 5-10% over lower motherboard sales, with shipments of motherboards dropping year-over-year.

The company is better preparing itself for 2019 to hit a sales target of 10 million motherboards, which is keeping its head above water compared to 2018 where it sold 11.4 million motherboards, 12.6 million in 2017, and down from the much larger 16 million shipments in 2016.

DigiTimes is reporting that GIGABYTE will lay staff off from its sales and marketing departments of its motehrboard division, but the VGA side of things will be left untouched. GIGABYTE's graphics card sales aren't being hurt that badly with 3.5 million graphics cards sold in 2018, the same as in 2016.

Sony Japan has reportedly just registered a new patent that would allow for full backwards compatibility on its next-gen PlayStation 5 console from "previous consoles", something that could see PS1, PS2, PS3, and PS4 games working on the PS5.

This new patent teases something that popped up last year that we covered, where it would see the new CPU in the PS5 (which will be a custom Zen 2 processor from AMD) being able to "interpret" the CPUs of previous-gen PlayStation consoles. Mark Cerny, the brains behind the PS4, filed the patent that could provide the backwards compatibility on PS5.

The patent would have the PS5 playing previous-gen PlayStation games smoothly, with its more powerful hardware able to iron out the sychronization errors between the frequency and core counts of the processors. For example, the PS3 and PS4 have radically different CPU architectures, frequencies, and core/thread counts than the upcoming PS5. Games made for the PS3 are made for that very specific hardware in only the PS3, making it difficult to 'simply emulate' it on PS4.