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In a bid to continually add value to its lucrative subscription-based game services, EA is bringing Battlefront II to its Access program for free.

EA is one of the major games-makers pivoting towards subscription models to help fortify its business model, which principally includes live games and the billions gleaned from engagement monetization therein. But it's always important to make these services worthwhile so gamers continually spend money on them, especially now that EA is inadvertently competing with Microsoft's own successful $9.99 a month Game Pass on the Xbox platform.

One such way EA is making its subscriptions more attractive is adding new games, and the latest one, Battlefront II, is now free to play for EA Access subscribers on Xbox One. EA Access currently costs $5 a month or $30 a year, and only active subscribers can play the vaulted games--similar to Sony's PlayStation Plus. What's particularly interesting about this is Battlefront II isn't free on the basic Origin Access subscription, which costs the same as EA Access on Xbox One. To play Battlefront II on PC, users have to buy into the steeper Origin Access Premiere which costs $15 a month or $100 a year to maintain.

Red Dead Online's in-game gold can now be purchased with real money.

Rockstar Games today flipped the monetization switch in Red Dead Redemption 2's online mode, despite the content being in beta testing phases. This move is particularly interesting as the devs continually update and tweak Red Dead Online's in-game economy, meaning the time-grind values may not remain static even after players spend money. Gamers earn $RDO cash and gold pieces for doing activities, missions, and completing objectives. 100 gold pieces can be transformed into one gold bar, or users can simply buy gold bars to avoid the grind.

The pricing scheme seems straightforward and mirrors many live service games. There's a distinct pay-to-win element involved as gamers can guy guns and horses with gold, but they must level up accordingly to be able to use higher-level gear. Cosmetics, horse insurance which spawns your horse near you if it dies, and camp customization items can also be bought with gold.

Major competitors are stepping into the PC gaming storefront ring to hit Steam where it hurts: the pocketbook.

Steam's long-standing reign in PC gaming may soon be compromised by Epic Games and Discord, both of which aim to attract developers to their new storefronts with better revenue split. Essentially we're seeing competitors take advantage of Valve's missteps, namely with Steam's new earnings policy that favors big-earning games--a move that upset lots of smaller devs.

Now Epic Games and Discord are courting spurned devs with the promise of paying out more earnings for game sales. The newly launched Epic Store lets developers keep 88% of revenues while the platform keeps 12% for operational costs, compared to Valve's 70% - 30% split.

Soulcalibur VI players will have to prepare themselves as Square Enix's 2B will be arriving on the stage of history starting December 18th.

We first heard about 2B coming to Soulcalibur VI back at the end of October when Bandai Namco released the above reveal trailer onto their YouTube Channel. From the trailer we saw 2B using a variety of different moves in both the air and the ground. We also notice that she is of course equipped with her famous swords, Virtuous Contract and Virtuous Treaty.

The announcement of the release date of 2B comes from the Bandai Namco Twitter account and says that 2B will be coming to Soulcalibur VI on December 18th. It should be noted that 2B will be arriving with her very own stage and background music to go with it. In the entirety of this post you will find newly released screenshots of 2B that were featured in the Bandai official announcement. For more information regarding Soulcalibur VI, check out the compiled character trailer article here.

BioWare has decided to release a new trailer for Anthem's Legion of Dawn Edition that will be available to gamers to order. The trailer details some more storyline for the coming game as well as additional weapons and armor.

The trailer has been released onto the IGN YouTube Channel and begins with us diving story for Anthem. We see the forming of the Luminary Legion, exclusive Legion of the Dawn Armor packs for the following classes; Ranger, Colossus, Storm, and Interceptor. We also get a sneak peak at the new Legendary Weapon, Light of the Legion.

Players that decide to pre-order Anthem will also receive exclusive VIP access to a demo of the game ahead of its launch. With also the addition of the Legendary Gear Enhancement and digital soundtrack. If you want to see some more gameplay of Anthem, visit this 45 minute livestream here. Anthem will be released onto the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on February 22nd, 2019.

After the reveal of Mortal Kombat 11 at this years Game Awards, we can see that the series' forte with violence is ever exceeding forward. Now, some new screenshots and information has leaked via a GameStop Italy listing.

Above and within the entirety of this post you can see the leaked screenshots that appeared on the GameStop Italy store listing. The listing also revealed that Mortal Kombat 11 would feature a 'Premium Edition' that would include a "Kombat Pass: 6 characters & 6 Battle Pass." Mortal Kombat X users would already be familiar with the 'Kombat Pass', so it appears nothing will be changed in that area for MK11.

The GameStop listing also alleges that Mortal Kombat 11 will be featuring a "new game engine, with even more bloody and bloody scenes." A brand "New personalization system" that will arrive "with clothes, accessories and move sets never seen before". Additionally it will also be coming with a "new Fatality as well as a new GoreTech system to make executions even more brutal." Finally, the listing says that MK11 will be concentrated on a "Strong multiplayer component, entirely oriented towards the eSports: personalization systems, daily news, constantly updated rewards and an improved matchmaking."

Nintendo Europe has announced that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will be going receiving a three-day event, Smashers prepare as it is Spirit collection time.

The three-day event will be beginning on December 14th and has been deemed the theme "A Spectacle to Behold!". During the running times of this event, Spirits that are wearing any form of sunglasses or glasses will be "frequenting the Spirit Board."

Players should also note that during the time of this event, beating these Spirits will grant the player extra gold. The above post also details that there will be a new event every week from now on, I'd assume they would follow the same construct as this one here. Examples would most likely include; Spirits that are wearing hats, gloves, shoes, are aliens etc etc. Since there are so many Spirits found throughout Ultimate, the possibilities for the descriptive combinational categories are a plenty.

The first Super Smash Bros. UItimate patch has been released by Nintendo and we have patch notes showing changes for multiple fighters, matchmaking and more.

Yesterday I reported on the patch that would be released and the only aspects that we knew were coming was the removal of the replays that were already saved to the Smash Ultimate folder (in-game) in your Nintendo Switch. I recommended everyone that wanted to keep those awesome kills you have already saved to re-save them to your Nintendo Switch storage or microSD card. Now that the patch is live, we can jump into what changes have been made.

Patch 1.2.0 is the first patch to come to Smash Bros Ultimate and will be containing changes made to Offline Gameplay aspects such as adjustments made for approaching challengers and Online Game changes made to the matchmaking system. After this update is downloaded, "the Format setting of your Preffered Rules will be more highly prioritized", essentially meaning that players will not be experiencing as much random free-for-alls or other forms of matches when they originally queued for a 1v1. Nintendo warns that this may cause players to experience longer queue times.

Daybreak Games has just unveiled PlanetSide Arena, with the latest entry in the PlanetSide franchise of course rocking a battle royale game mode, but that is just one game mode in a slew of game modes in PlanetSide Arena.

There will be two battle royale modes that will be split into solo matches (up to 100 players) and then teams of 3v3 (up to 102 players), but then there's the monster 250v250 mode that the developer is calling Massive Clash. The massive 500-player battle will take place on a massive 8x8km map called Echoes of Amerish, a map based on Amerish which was the third continent added to the world of Auraxis in PlanetSide 2.

PlanetSide Arena will feature three classes at launch, with all classes rocking jet packs and can summon vehicles on command. The developer has promised matches in the future with game modes that will support huge 1000-player battles.

Blizzard is taking its popular Overwatch League to the next level in 2019, with the developer announcing that for the 2019 season it will host games in home cities of major Overwatch teams that will include Atlanta and Dallas.

Until now, the Overwatch League hasn't moved out of its home city of LA where Overwatch team LA Valiant and its fans can provide energy for the team as the home crowd. Well, come April 27 and 28, 2019 we'll see the Overwatch League 2019 begin in Dallas, where it will move to Atlanta on July 6 and 7 before moving to The Novo by Microsoft for the big LA Valiant series that will kick off on August 24 and 25.

Blizzard has said that it will have more details to share about the Overwatch League 2019 "at a later date". The season will begin on February 14, where we'll see a four-day series of matches take place with some of the best in Overwatch. This will include a rematch between London Spitfire and Philadelphia Fusion, the two teams that battled it out during the Grand Finals recently.

Metal Gear Solid hasn't really moved as a franchise lately with the last entry in the franchise not doing well, and series creator Hideo Kojima moving onto bigger and better things with the mysterious Death Stranding. But... Metal Gear Solid is back and its being turned into a board game.

Konami Digital Entertainment and IDW Games has announced Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game, which will be offering an immersive cooperative experienced for fans of the MGS franchise. You'll be able to play as characters from the Metal Gear Solid franchise like Solid Snake, Meryl Silverburgh, Dr. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, and Gray Fox the Cyborg Ninja.

The minituares in Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game are being sculpted by Francesco Orruu, while Metal Gear Solid fan and comic artist Kenneth Loh will be taking care of the art style.

LG has just announced its new 14-inch and 17-inch laptops, expanding its Gram family of products. The new 17-inch LG Gram laptop is quite the beast, marking a return to the world of 17-inch laptops that has been pretty empty for the last few years.

The new 17-inch laptop weighs less than 3 pounds which is impressive considering its large 17-inch screen which has a native resolution of 2560x1600 on its, surprise surprise, 16:10 aspect ratio panel. Inside, there's an 8th generation Intel Core i7-8565U processor, up to 512GB of SSD and up to 16GB of RAM. There's also a fingerprint sensor which makes logging into the 17-inch LG Gram easier than most laptops.

LG's big selling point here other than the what should hopefully be very spacious 17-inch 2560x1600 16:10 panel is the fact that the company is touting a huge 19.5-hour battery life on a single charge. The only laptops that come close to this are from Qualcomm in the form of Snapdragon-based Always On, Always Connected PCs.

Fortnite developer Epic Games is wanting to push the world of cross-platform gaming, with the company unveiling its latest plans for a new developer framework for online services.

Epic Games will begin this new journey in 2019 by launching a bunch of cross-platform game services that the developer originally built for Fortnite, and highlights this by saying they've been "battle-tested with 200,000,000 players across 7 platforms. These services will be free for all developers, and will be open to all engines, all platforms, and all stores. As a developer, you're free to choose mix-and-match solutions from Epic and others as you wish".

There are extended plans for 2019, but the new service from Epic Games will see gamers signing up and then customizing profiles, adding friends to the service, and competing for items. If you're gaming on a PC and then go mobile with your Nintendo Switch or Android smartphone, all of your activity is on the new service so you can go between devices without skipping a beat.

Ubisoft is inviting a small amount of people from the The Division 2 beta to take part in the closed technical alpha on the PC, with the technical alpha taking place between December 15 at 8AM ET, and December 18 at 8AM ET.

If you are involved in The Division 2 technical alpha you'll be pre-loading the game right now but other than that, we don't know anything about the going ons of the technical alpha since players involved in it have signed an NDA. If you have been invited into The Division 2 technical alpha, this is what you'll need to do to get access to Ubisoft's latest and greatest:

Ubisoft will be hosting a private beta of The Division 2 in the near future, with anyone who pre-orders the game will get access to the beta but you're not forced into pre-ordering the game as anyone can sign up to the beta.

Obsidian's new RPG The Outer Worlds looks quite promising, and now we get some gameplay footage.

While Obsidian's new sci-fi game The Outer Worlds will be a AA-style game and not a huge open-world affair like Fallout: New Vegas, it certainly encapsulates the studio's stylish humor and core RPG framework. Back in 2017 we reported that Obsidian's new IP, now revealed as The Outer Worlds, would be the studio's own unique answer to Fallout, and now the game is set to fill the vacuum left by displaced and disgruntled Fallout 76 players.

Obsidian showed a closed-doors demo of The Outer Worlds at The Game Awards 2018, and Game Informer got a copy of the footage. The video clearly illustrates the scope of the game: it's a sci-fi RPG built around shooter combat interspersed with quirky NPCs, story-driven content, and exploration. The game world won't be massive--it's set on two planets--but game directors Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky indicate this compaction allows for more robust flavor.

To dig itself out of a big financial hole, Starbreeze Studios will now focus exclusively on developing big marquee titles like Payday and publishing third-party games.

Starbreeze has had a tough few weeks. First its big new Walking Dead game stumbled on PC sales, triggering a big financial disparity that caused the company to re-evaluate is business model. Shortly after, it filed for reconstruction, an overseas form of bankruptcy that protects the company from certain debts. Then Starbreeze's headquarters were raided by authorities and one employee was arrested on suspicions of insider trading. If that wasn't enough, its board of directors is shrinking.

Now the games-maker is taking proactive steps to solve its problems, and is interested in making guaranteed bets like making games. The company announced it's new business model is solely built on making and publishing video games. Other ventures, like its StarVR headset, will essentially break off from its core focus and will rely on partner funding and collaboration.

One of Activision's mainstay development arms of the popular Call of Duty series had to leave the building following a bomb threat.

Infinity Ward's Los Angeles offices were evacuated earlier this morning due to a bomb threat, sources tell Kotaku. The threat, which was issued through email, demanded $20,000 in bitcoin cryptocurrency or a bomb would presumably go off on premises.

Neither Infinity Ward nor Activision have spoken about the incident, which happened earlier this morning. The police evacuated developers and staff members from the building and no one was hurt.

Jagex could be widening its MMORPG scope to the console plane.

Thanks to accessibility, Runescape is getting more and more popular and remains a lucrative earner for developer Jagex. The game has now earned over $1 billion across its long lifespan, and 260 million people have signed up for the game. This momentum is set to continue with Runescape mobile, but the company might be targeting a new platform: consoles.

According to Jagex Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson's LinkedIn profile, the company is working on a new unannounced Runescape RPG. The profile says that "an unannounced Runescape Shared World Action Role Playing Game" has been in the works since Richardsson joined in October 2018, but the project has likely been in dev way before his arrival. Given Jagex's mobile strategy it's possible they're working on a free-to-play Runescape console port for PS4, Xbox One, and maybe even Switch.

4A Games has laid the finishing touches on their latest post-apocalyptic opus and have moved the game's release date up a week.

Metro Exodus has gone gold, meaning development is finalized and its ready to ship. Originally slated for a 2018 launch, the huge survival shooter was delayed to 2019 to ensure polish and a rich feature slate, and now Deep Silver has moved the release date forward a week to February 15, 2018. This is an odd decision considering both Far Cry: New Dawn and Crackdown 3 will come out the same day.

Exodus will push the series forward to new heights, says 4A Games. It'll feature a huge continent-spanning open world to explore with a day-to-night cycle, dynamic weather, and changing seasons. Although it's not an online service game, the gameworld will feature standard engagement hooks with its new crafting and scavenging system and very Red Dead Redemption 2-like gear maintenance.

The ZeniMax vs Facebook saga is finally over.

ZeniMax and Facebook, who were once up in arms over Oculus Rift VR tech, have settled their long litigation for an undisclosed sum. ZeniMax, parent company to Bethesda Softworks, alleged in 2014 that ex-employees including John Carmack (of id Software fame) took trade secrets with them when moving to Oculus. These secrets included specific code that ZeniMax says was used in making the Oculus Rift VR headset. ZeniMax wanted to block all sales of the headset and sought damages from Facebook, who had then bought Oculus for $2 billion.

In 2017 a Dallas court ruled in favor of ZeniMax, finding that Facebook violated NDAs and awarded the plaintiff $500 million. That sum was lowered to $250 million, causing both companies to appeal. Now the lawsuit has been settled for an undisclosed sum, ZeniMax today announced in a press release.