Gaming - Page 769

Earlier this week we caught wind of two new Alien games coming to market, one of which formated for iOS and Android and the other coming under the genre of a MMO shooter. But what about Alien Isolation 2? Don't get your hopes up.

In a recent interview with Variety, TQ Jefferson, Vice President of FoxNet spoke at length about what fans of the Alien franchise should expect from the coming games and recent announcements. Jefferson clarified that any connection between the controversial Diablo Immortal game and the coming Alien: Blackout is bogus, here is what he had to say "I can see some people making a connection between 'Diablo' and this, but I think it's a bit of a leap. The 'Diablo' backlash was focused on free-to-play and mobile, our game is a premium mobile game where you pay one price and you're done. It's a contained experience."

Jefferson also talked about how fans were excited to hear news about a potential sequel to Alien: Isolation. The Vice President responded with "But it's not that binary. There are a lot of stories we can tell in the franchise. We can tell more stories about Amanda Ripley without it being an 'Isolation' game." He further backed up his response by saying that the team at 20th Centuary Fox believes that they are very much in-tune with what their fanbase wants from an Alien game and did know about how some fans wanted news regarding a potential Alien: Isolation 2. Lastly, Jefferson confirmed that "Isolation 2" is currently not in development.

Bungie has officially split away from Activision in a recent announcement and will be taking their Destiny franchise with them. These announcement raised questions to whether Destiny would remain on the Blizzard Battle.net client.

Both Activision and Bungie announced that they would officially be parting ways from each-other with the massive publishing conglomerate signing the publishing rights for Destiny back over to Bungie. Activision posted a join statement between Bungie and themselves onto the Activision Twitter page. Here is what it had to say, "Today, we're announcing plans for Bungie to assume full publishing rights and responsibilities for the Destiny Franchise. Going foward, Bungie will own and develop the franchise, and Activision will increase its focus on owned IP and other projects."

Activision and Bungie say they are both committed to this transition being as seamless as possible on behalf of all Destiny players around the globe. "Activision and Bungie are committed to a seamless transition for the Destiny franchise and will continue to work closely together during the transition on behalf of the community of Destiny players around the world." Since the split is no official, fans wondered if this would mean Destiny would be pulled from the Battle.net client, the Blizzard customer service Twitter account has confirmed this will not be the case. "Destiny 2 will still receive full support on BattleNet and we do not anticipate any disruption to our services or your gameplay experience."

Recent news has confirmed that Destiny developer Bungie has officially left publishing company Activision and will be taking their Destiny franchise with them.

The news comes from the official Bungie and Activision Twitter accounts, with both companies issuing out a statement confirming that Bungie will soon be acquiring the publishing rights for Destiny and disembarking from the Activision label. Bungie took to their website in the form of a blog post to further shine some light on the situation, "We have enjoyed a successful eight-year run and would like to thank Activision for their partnership on Destiny. Looking ahead, we're excited to announce plans for Activision to transfer publishing rights for Destiny to Bungie. With our remarkable Destiny community, we are ready to publish on our own, while Activision will increase their focus on owned IP projects."

Bungie continued to express themselves via the blogpost, reasurring fans of Destiny that the roadmap that was released for the most recent game will still be fulfilled in all its entirety. "We'll continue to deliver on the existing Destiny roadmap, and we're looking forward to releasing more seasonal experiences in the coming months, as well as surprising our community with some exciting announcements about what lies beyond." If you are interested in reading the official statement for yourself, visit the official Bungie website here.

SEGA has issued out a new PC port, this time bringing the crazy love triangle puzzler game 'Catherine' to the PC. Players can now dive into the story of love and betrayal via the Steam listing here.

We first got a tease of a possible Catherine port coming to the Steam by the Bayonetta Steam page who released a sly image of sheep with the caption "baa", more on that story here. SEGA and developer ATLUS have decided to bring Catherine to the PC under the title of "Catherine Classic", players that decide to pick up the title will be able to play in 4K, have an unlocked framerate, customizable keyboard and mouse controls and more.

For those that don't know, Catherine was originally released back on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2011. Catherine combines difficult puzzles with a gripping romantic love story between Vincent and two females, Katherine and Catherine. Players can navigate the story in a multitude of ways and will be faced with difficult decisions to make that could lead to even bigger repercussions.

Xbox thrives on the billion-dollar engagement market, namely from microtransactions, live services, subscriptions, and other community features. But it's found an ingenious way to mold all of these things together in one cohesive ecosystem that's become the new Xbox brand.

Microsoft will soon pay users rewards points for playing Game Pass titles, a move that fits perfectly into its service-focused business model. The new promo is part of the Xbox Quests program announced in 2017, but it's only for active Game Pass subscribers.

Microsoft doles out points of its own rewards currency to players who complete objectives in Game Pass games, essentially paying you Microsoft Rewards Points for unlocking achievements. Completing all the objectives only gives you 2100 MS Rewards points (less then $3).

BioWare has big ambitions for Dragon Age 4, and plans might include some new form of interactive multiplayer or live-based content.

EA makes billions from online-based content, namely monetizing live service games. This trend has bled over into singleplayer games, and was found in Dragon Age: Inquisition's online multiplayer with its purchasable microtransactions, and may continue to the next big mainline Dragon Age game. A new job listing for a Dragon Age franchise Technical Director calls for applicants having experience with developing multiplayer games. Admittedly this on its own isn't enough evidence, but we can make a compelling argument when we join it with more info.

We already know how EA's business model works. Nearly every EA game has some sort of online hook to it that keeps players engaged with new content, and offers opportunities to spend money on digital items. Microtransactions--more specifically live gaming--are the bedrock of EA's strategy. So it's no surprise that Dragon Age 4 could have live elements of some kind that will be monetized (again, we saw it in Dragon Age: Inquisition).

Even with all its Fortnite billions, Epic Games has a serious problem with customer service and satisfaction.

Epic has scored the worst rating from its own local North Carolina-based Better Business Bureau (BBB) thanks to its terrible communication with customers and users. The BBB was grading papers and Epic earned an F because it simply ignored 88% of customer complaints (247 out of the 279 complaints remain unanswered).

This trend has been well-known in the games industry for a while now, and poses a direct threat to its new digital games storefront. If Epic can't handle the titanic Fortnite and address its 250 million strong userbase, how will it ever tackle the leviathan that is a fully-fledged game store peddling titles across the globe?

Today Rockstar announced Gun Rush, a new battle royale mode coming to Red Dead Online's multiplayer.

The Red Dead Online beta actually shipped with the unique Make it Count battle royale mode, which gave saw players duking it out across the 1899 Western frontier with limited bows and arrows and throwing knives.

Now Rockstar ups the ante with Gun Rush, which is basically the same premise only with guns. Gun Rush is 32-players and has two variants: a last-man-standing free-for-all gametype as well as team-based carnage. Like its predecessor, Gun Rush also features the old shrinking map battle royale staple.

Amazon is in early stages of building an online game streaming service, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell The Information.

Major tech titans like Google, Microsoft, and EA are all working on new streaming services that beam games to phones, PCs, and consoles directly from the cloud. We tried Google's Project Stream service and found its ease-of-use and convenience to be the future of gaming. Now retail leviathan Amazon wants to enter the arena with its own cloud-based streaming framework that will leverage powerful servers to bring high-end gaming to all devices.

The service, which is still in a fledgling state and not expected to roll out until 2020 at the earliest, should enfold Amazon's Twitch ecosystem in unique ways. We expect various Twitch features to be wrapped into the service like game video broadcasting and viewing, as well as the Twitch game store and the friends and communications infrastructure. Amazon Prime members could also get a discount for the service.

Xbox Scarlett should natively play existing Xbox One and even Xbox 360 games when it ships.

Backward compatibility is one of the shining features of the Xbox One family of hardware. Microsoft has banked hard on this achievement to one-up Sony's lack of native PS3 game playback and it'd be foolish to not continue the trend with its new line of consoles. I've already talked about how backward compatibility could work on Scarlett--think of forward compatibility game patches similar to the Xbox One X Enhanced program--but now Microsoft adds even more credence to our predictions.

At CES 2019, Microsoft gaming head Phil Spencer went on stage during AMD's keynote to tease the next-gen Xbox platform. While specifics were light, Spencer and AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su put emphasis on the Xbox One X's native backward compatibility and scaling features, re-iterating how much work went into the feature.

The next in-game event for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has been announced by Nintendo. This time round participants will be blessed with bonus experience and SP.

The event is no different length wise from the others that have passed, but instead of being featured around set themed spirits such as the Fire Emblem invasion, players will be gifted with extra bonuses. These bonuses will come in the form of "Double XP and SP" which means players will be gaining double the amount of Spirit experience and Spirit Points when they participate in Spirit Board matches.

Just like the previous weeks, Nintendo will be holding this event for a range of three days. The event will begin on January 10 at 10 PM PT (1 AM ET / 6 AM GMT on January 11) and will be finalized on the 13th/14th of January. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is exclusively available on the Nintendo Switch. In other news about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Nintendo's flagship game has managed to sell 3 million units in 11 days, check that out here.

BioWare has released another Javelin introductory video through IGN First, the video gives us a solid breakdown on what to expect from Anthem's Interceptor Javelin.

The above video is commentated by James Duggan, the host of the IGN show and also the Editorial Producer at IGN.com. Duggan jumps straight into what is great about the Interceptor Javelin, he describes that having a triple jump, triple dash and mid flight double barrel roll will mean players will be constantly jumping in and out of melee range combat. Having the fastest basic melee attack of any Javelin and amplifying abilities to increase damage output, players will be dashing around slicing up vital enemies and then quickly retreating to safety.

If you are a type of player that likes to do everything in style while also packing a heavy load of damage, then the Interceptor is for you. Most of the Interceptors abilities increase damage output, and when combining that with its speed, mobility and flourish, I feel as if the Interceptor will be a Javelin many players are going to pick up. If you want to check out another Javelin from Anthem, visit my breakdown on the Storm Javelin that was released earlier this week. In other news about Anthem, social hubs are planned for the game, read more on that here. Anthem's release is scheduled for February 22nd and will be coming to the Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

Kingdom Hearts fans will be pleased to know that Square Enix have released 10 images showcasing each of the Keyblades that will be available for Sora.

The images have been released onto the official Kingdom Hearts Twitter account and showcasing each of the unique keyblades that players will be able to enjoy in Kingdom Hearts III. Out of the 10 images that have been released, we can notice that 9 of the keyblades are brand new, so every blade we see besides the original Kingdom Key Keyblade is brand new.

It seems that each of the keyblades that are shown are from their respective world, players should expect to earn the respective keyblade after completion or throughout the progression of each of these worlds. In the entirety of this post you will find the remaining 9 images and the descriptions for each of the keyblades. Kingdom Hearts III will be releasing at the end of this month, more specifically on January 29th for the Xbox One and PS4.

4A Games and the official author of Metro have announced an extremely limited edition Metro Exodus Collectors Edition, its titled the 'Artyom Custom Edition' and there will only be 10 of them made.

A video has been uploaded to the Metro YouTube Channel and features author of Metro Dmitry Glukovsky unpacking a crate filled with all the limited edition goodies that lucky Metro fans can win. This 'Artyom Custom Edition' will not be available to purchase, but instead will be acquirable via "a number of planned promotions in the coming weeks." Glukovsky advises Metro fans to keep an eye on all of the Metro communication channels, e.g social medias/website.

Deep Silver, the developers for Metro Exodus have spoken out about the recently announced edition, here is what they have said; "We are incrediby excited to reveal the Metro Exodus Artyom Edition, an incredibly limited hand-crafted and priceless edition, created with 4A Games and Metro author Dmitry Glukovsky."

Blizzard Entertainment have struck comic book fans right in weak spot, as the game developer has honored the tragic death of Stan Lee by implementing Lee as a character in-game.

Within the new 8.1.5 patch notes, WowHead has found a new character model added to the game. The character comes under the name "Stanley" and is a thin old man, he has white hair and a thick white bushy mustache. Confirming that this character model is actually a reference to Stan Lee is not only its raw appearance minus the classic aviators, but the fact that this character only says one word, Stan Lee's iconic catchphrase, "Excelsior!"

For the moment, Stanley has only been found in Stormwind on the PTR in alliance gear, but when going through the patch notes two more Stanley models were found; one in neutral clothing and another in Horde. For those that didn't know, Stan Lee passed away last November and was known for his co-creation of Marvel Comics and the superheroes we now see on the big screen today. He was also known for his ever-lasting cameo roles he played in these superhero movies, unfortunately Lee sadly died at age 95. Fun fact - "Excelsior!" is actually a Latin word and can be translated to "ever upward".

In celebration of Marvel's Fantastic Four Week, the Marvel Games Twitter account has teased that PS4's Spider-Man will soon feature something "fantastic."

During Marvel's 'The Worlds Greatest Week livestream' numerous forms of Fantastic Four content was announced for the selection of Marvel mobile games. These games include, Marvel Contest of Champions, Marvel Future Fight, Marvel Puzzle Quest and more. Most importantly, Marvel teased some brand new content for Spider-Man on the PS4.

Marvel's Ryan Penagos said, "Something 'Fantastic' is coming to Marvel's Spider-Man real soon. I can't tell you anything more right now, but you'll want to keep an eye out for this. It's going to be amazing and fantastic." Insomniac Games reinforced the massive hint towards Fantastic Four content by re-tweeting the post from Marvel Games. With both Marvel and the Spider-Man PS4 developer backing the idea that Fantastic Four content is on its way to Spider-Man, we should see an announcement sometime soon. Perhaps we will get more DLC content since the three-chapter 'The City That Never Sleeps' season pass has finished.

League of Legends, the father of all multi-online battle arena's, or better known as MOBA's for short, now have a partnership with Refereum. Refereum and Riot Games now rewards League of Legends players with cryptocurrency for simply playing the game.

In a recent press release from Refereum, beginning today the 65 million+ monthly League of Legends players can now be rewarded for playing League of Legends. These rewards will be from the now integrated blockchain reward system by Refereum. Players that want to earn cryptocurrency while playing League of Legends will be rewarded for completing matches, winning games and participating in in-game achievements.

The initiative that Refereum ideally wants is the fair distribution of rewards for players. The community that was already apart of Refereum has been earning cryptocurrency for streaming, sharing and watching games, most importantly though, this is the first time that "players earn Refereum tokens ($RFR) for actual in-game play on a non-blockchain game." Refereum has done this by integrating "its leading rewards platform with League of Legends via the game's public API."

Just yesterday, we heard about the announcement from Fatshark Games regarding the achievement of their title Warhammer: Vermintide 2 reaching 2 million units sold. Today, Fatshark have announced they are $56 million dollars richer, thanks to a hefty investment from Tencent.

The news comes from the Swedish website DI Digital, and showcases that the investment from Tencent is to booster Fatsharks development capabilities. Fatshark's CEO Martin Wahlund has told GamesIndustry.biz, "We are excited to announce that Tencent has chosen to invest in Fatshark."

Wahlund also made sure that this investment is no way going to sway the studio's vision and that they will continue to remain independent. "Tencent is known for investing in market leading top rated companies. With the investment, Fatshark is in a strong position to continue to grow while staying independent. Our unaltered mission will be to bring high quality games to our fans around the globe." The investment from Tencent comes in at 500m kronor which equates to around $56 million, or a 36% acquisition of Fatshark.

Fallout 76 might be riddled with issues and backlash from fans of the franchise, but Bethesda has been working its butt off during the holidays getting the game in a better state with its upcoming patch for the game dropping four days early.

The new update for Fallout 76 was originally due on January 14 but the developer has announced that it will be going live today, January 10. The new update launches at 9AM ET for the PC, with the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the update arriving "early next week" according to Bethesda.

As for the patch we're told to expect "150 fixes" according to the developer, with Bethesda adding: "address many issues raised by the community as well as continue focus on improving performance and stability". Bethesda said it is launching the Fallout 76 patch for the PC first as it gives the developer time to "make further adjustments as needed before releasing the patch on consoles".

EA and DICE will be unleashing a new update for Battlefield V in just over a week right now, with the second chapter of Tides of War dropping teased as 'Lightning Strikes'. The new update will reportedly roll out on January 17.

The only tease we have now turned up from the in-game calendar and simply reads 'A Few Good Soldiers' but we definitely know Lighting Strikes "Lightning Strikes focuses on vehicle warfare and rapid infantry movement. The chapter brings to life the fear created by the Axis war machine through original content and challenges built around vehicle play".

The developer continues: "Combined Arms: Join forces with up to three friends and take on the co-op experience of Combined Arms. In a series of Combat Strike missions across several maps, you and your squad will fight against AI components in various challenges. During the chapter, two game modes will be added to Battlefield V. A revamped Rush is one of them. Say goodbye to MCOM stations and hello to bombs as you take on this classic, only available during Lightning Strikes. Speaking of classic modes, in Squad Conquest, you'll take on the most iconic way to play Battlefield, but in a more intense way. Only 16 players - two squads per team - will fight for map domination".