Heroes will clash against each other with no payload to escort in Overwatch’s upcoming Deathmatch mode which will be introduced in a new patch after the Summer Games conclude on August 28th. Unlike the death match-like Skrimish Mode, the official DM modes will come with their own special scoreboard and some modifications to player abilities.
Gamer Director Jeff Kaplan surprised the community with the two new modes – Free for All Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch in a brand new developer update via the official Overwatch YouTube channel. Certain Heroes will not have access to all of their abilities during a Free For All match – Mercy for example only has her blaster and since she cannot resurrect herself, her ultimate ability is turned off alongside her escape ability. When playing Mercy on TDM all of her abilities are unlocked with some small tweaks – when using resurrect your opponents kill count will be reduced!
Players need not worry about being the top player on the scoreboard to get credit towards their Arcade loot boxes. As long as a player is within the top 4 (on their team in TDM or overall in FFA) they’ll receive credit towards the weekly boxes. When the two modes launch they’ll have win conditions set to first to 20 kills for FFA and 30 kills for TDM. The selection of maps will differ between modes – split between existing maps used for objective mode, the elimination maps added during the Orisa patch and a brand new map focusing on the backstory for Talon member Widowmaker.
If you’re sick of playing Lucioball or trying to unlock that time limited McCree and Soldier 76 skins you can tryout these new modes on the PTR. They are expected to be rolled out around September 5th, which is the first Tuesday after the Summer Games end.
The first patch for Quake Champions in nearly a month has finally arrived and with it comes a partial data reset for existing players. Beta testers should be familiar with the practice by now but since this is an open beta sometimes players are caught off guard by data resets and progression loss. Developers do this for a number of reasons: testing new systems, getting feedback on progression changes or deeply rooted system or data changes that necessitate players be taken back to square one.
As for what was reset: any challenge progression for challenges left incomplete and the overall statistics data for players accounts have been wiped. Unlocks like shaders/skins from Loot Boxes and purchasable vanity items have all been reset as well. Individual nicknames and skill ratings remain intact alongside unlocked champions.
Here is a segment from the recent patch notes:
Player content that will be reset include:
User States (Armors, Weapons, Attachments, Shaders, Currency)
Challenges
Content that will NOT be reset includes:
Champions
Friends
Skill Rating
Nicknames
Currently, the Quake Champions community is in the midst of a $1,00,000 world tournament on the road to this month’s Quake Con. Id Software and Sabre Interactive have said that they don’t want to shake up the game’s meta too muuch while the tournament is ongoing but there have been a number of game breaking bugs including rockets that do 0 DMG and stuttering lag that hamper the online experience. With that being said this patch is more of a collection of long requested fixes and tech tweaks – you’ll see very little Champion balancing happening during the Regionals.
Previously Quake Champions only had a very basic friends list with CBT 13 a whole number of social options including spectating friends, ignoring players and a reporting system to root out abusive players.
New Social Screen
Player can observe all current in-match players and blocked players
Player can now blacklist players, which blocks invites from unwanted users
Player can now ignore user invites
Player can now report users
On the tech side of things id & co have fixed several issues with system auto detect, implemented a new “play now” screen and introduced some fixes for the ever present memory leaks which have plagued the game since the first Closed Beta but this issue has been steadily improving with each major patch.
Tech
Fixed an issue that could occur when the game would not revert to the player’s native resolution when changing to Borderless mode with a lower aspect ratio.
Fixed a localization text issue
Updated the list of supported video cards for a correct auto-detect
Fixed an issue where killed players could become stuck in place and invincible
Fixed an issue where local configurations would not be saved properly when including Cyrillic letters
Fixed an issue where Champions were not synchronized with moving objects
Performance
Optimized various memory leaks
New Play Now Screen
New screen layout integrated
Player can choose multiple game modes in quick match and match-make between them randomly
Tutorial videos available from Play Now screen
Clutch has seen the most adjustment of any Champion in the game. Originally positioned as a Tank class hero with a strong barrier shield, Clutch was later on adjusted to include the ability to float through the air while deploying its shield. This was later patched out and now Clutch is the focus of the majority of the Champion adjustments – with a new acceleration icon and several small statistics changes.
Perhaps the one bug fix everyone in the Quake community has been finally implemented: Rocket Launchers finally work again! No more Nyx players taking three rockets to the face without taking a single point of damage. Rockets also no longer penetrate Clutch’s shield.
Balance
Clutch’s “Advanced Shielding” passive has been removed
Clutch’s Active Ability cool-down has now been set to 40 seconds
Clutch’s Health and Armor stats revised: Health from 150/150 to 100/100; Armor from 50/100 to 100/150
Slash’s Starting Armor increased +25 ap
Profile Progression: XP requirements tweaked
Random Drop: Rebalance of drop rates in Backpacks Crates and Reliquaries
Crafting: Item prices in shards and dismantle values changed
Champions
New effect for Ranger’s Dire Orb
Fixed a light effect issue affecting Anarki’s Banner vanity item
Fixed an issue affecting audio during Anarki’s hover board movement
Fixed issue that could occur with BJ Blazkowicz’s shooting animation while dual-wielding
Fixed a twitching animation issue with BJ Blazkowicz after being shot while idle
Enemies within 120u of the player are outlined
New Clutch acceleration icon added
Fixed an issue where rock and drill medals pop without hitting the 1000 damage requirements
Fixed an issue when RL damage through Clutch’s shield
Overwatch’s next new map for both competitive and quick play will take Blizzard’s heroes to the moon with the upcoming addition of the Horizon Lunar Colony. This new map, lore wise, gives us a sense of where the game’s giant ape Winston grew up and the circumstances surrounding his past and an ape uprising on the moon.
Gameplay wise Horizon Lunar Colony will feature a single low gravity section near point A. There is a set of airlock doors that players can move through to experience combat with less gravity – how long do you think Junkrat would let his grenades float around? Like Hanamura, Temple of Anubis and Volyskaya Industries, Horizon requires the attacking team to capture 2 different capture points to achieve victories while defenders must keep attackers at bay until time expires.
Fans of Overwatch lore can be found via new tidbits on computer monitors, the names of scientists and other contextual objects in the map. If you watched the first animated short released when the game was announced in 2014 you might recognize some of the rooms on the Colony.
Modified gravity won’t just be exclusive to the Horizon Lunar Colony map – a special arcade brawl with low gravity will be available during launch week. Also as an added treat gravity sliders will also be added for hosts of custom games.
With the Overwatch anniversary event ending on the 12th it feels like the OW dev team are hard at work on new content to keep us coming back.
Player Vs Environment content finally returns to the futuristic world of Overwatch with the latest event – Uprising – which released yesterday across all platforms. From now until May 1st players can take a trip to Kings Row in a 4 player co-operative narrative that showcases Tracers’ first operation with Overwatch. As with every other limited time event Overwatch: Uprising also brings with it 100 new unlockable items including some pretty cool skins.
What Is It Like To Play?
Overwatch: Uprising tells the story of Lena Oxton (Aka Tracer)’s first real operation with Overwatch. Players will guide Tracer, Reinhardt, Mercy and Torbjorn through a brand new variation of the Kings Row map across a number of different objectives. The team starts with the objective of “hacking” three different terminals to disable the AA guns that surround the city so that a payload can be delivered to its destination.
Uprising combines multiple gameplay modes that we’ve seen in Quick match and Competitive into one cohesive package. The team of four start by controlling the hack points king of the hill style before defending the delivered payload from every increasingly difficult waves of enemies as the payload powers up. Once the payload is ready to roll the action shifts to the familiar payload escort type that any Overwatch player should know like the back of their hand. The final push involves having to defeat 4 souped up omnics – The OR-14s, the predecessor to the OR-14 also known as Orisa.
Your Role Can Make All of The Difference
Enemy encounters in uprising aren’t especially challenging or anything special compared to the raw amount of tension and unpredictability that can come with Player Vs Player action but Uprising has been balanced in such a way as to allow for unique playstyles and roles for the 4 team members despite all of them facing off against the same enemies. When compared to the mindless omnic robots from the Halloween event Junkenstien’s Revenge the enemies in Uprising will move around the map and defend themselves with energy shields. Another positive to the various Omnic baddies in Uprising is the fact that you can come across a number of different models – enemy bastions, OR-15s, shield carriers and small laser robots designed to destroy the payload. If there is one major drawback to Uprisings encounter when compared to Junkenstien it is that the Omnic models repeat over and over and the Halloween event’s NPCS had some personality with rifts on existing heroes like The Reaper and The Witch, which is sorely missed.
Typically when playing the restricted Torbjorn, Mercy, Tracer, Rheinhardt variant of Uprising players will be cast into specific roles depending on the character they have chosen. After a few runs of Uprising – each of which last between 15 to 20 minutes – players will get used to how they are supposed to handle the different encounters that Uprising throws at them.
In my experience I find that:
Torb – Is best used placing his turret in the corner of the larger rooms early on during hack sequences. When escorting the payload may sure to keep your turret on the payload and healed. During the final stretch inside the power station a great place for your turret is above the elevated platforms once the enemy Bastions are dead.
Rein – Don’t rush ahead of the group as this takes away some much-needed protection in the form of the barrier. Hammer swings can feel satisfying, especially when taking out multiple enemies at once but don’t “go looking for a fight”, let the enemies come to you. When escorting the payload to the Power Station it is best to sit in front of the payload so that the shield can cover the turret.
Tracer – Like rein “don’t go looking for a fight” her low health pool means that it is very easy to get stranded ahead of the team with no healer in sight. Tracer excels at destroying the energy shield carrying Omnics as her mobility allows her access to their weak spots located on their upper backs.
Mercy – Honestly no idea, I’m a terrible Mercy. I asked my wife who mains Mercy and she offered the advice that Mercy’s pistol is more valuable than than the damage boost. So when you can try to take down enemies to help out your team when they don’t require healing. Your teammates don’t need to be at 100% health, do some damage and then top up your teammates.
All About The Unlocks
No Overwatch special event would be complete without a whole bunch of new skins, sprays and collectables to unlock. In addition to the Reinhardt, Mercy, Torb and Tracer “origin” skins from this event, Blizzard has also added origin skins for Genji and McCree as well. Personally I find the origin skins for the main 4 from this event to be bland and boring – hint they all look the same. Genji and McCree for the win on this one!
Here is a sampling of all of the stuff you can unlock if you are lucky enough (or spend enough real world $ on loot boxes):
Over the weekend CCP Games held their semi-annual in-person gathering of capsuleers with over a thousand EVE Online players coming together in Reykjavik, Iceland to hear about the future of Eve Online. Held over three days this year’s fan fest brought with it the announcement of the next three major content releases for EVE, the introduction of a new line of deployable structures and the tease of some mysterious content due out later this year.
The May Content Drop
Blood Raider Shipyards
Interactions with NPC pirate factions are about to escalate quite a bit with the addition of the Blood Raider Shipyards with in the May 9th release. This hostile Amar offshoot will begin deployment of their own shipyards which are similar to the player owned Engineering Complexes in design. Only a limited number of these shipyards will be deployed across New Eden at a time and upon destruction, a special blueprint for one of the Blood Raider Capital ships will drop, This means that competition from other players will be fierce for this highly coveted loot.
Here is how CCP’s site about the May Release describes the Blood Raider Shipyards:
“Blood Raider shipyards provide a unique opportunity for capsuleers from across the cluster to assault Blood Raider manufacturing facilities and military staging points,salvaging blueprints that will allow the construction of formidable Blood Raider capital vessels.”
Three New Blood Raider Capital Ships
Those lucky enough to survive the Blood Raider Shipyards PVE events will be rewarded with one of three brand new Capital blueprints that they can either use to manufacture one of these three new ships or sell for large amounts of ISK on the marketplace.
Pilots in New Eden have multiple ways that they can upgrade their account from the free-to-play Alpha tier to the subscription based Omega clone status. Some of these involve giving CCP real money (typically between $15 – $20CDN a month depending on the amount of game time subscribed), earning enough in-game ISK to purchase a Pilot’s License Extension (PLEX) for an additional 30 days of game time or earning PLEX through the refer-a-friend referral links.
Another entirely second premium currency currently in exists in EVE Online called Aurum which is used to purchase cosmetic items in the “New Eden Store”. Basically, CCP will be retiring Aurum entirely with the May release and making PLEX granular. Instead of purchasing a single PLEX item that can be redeemed for the in-game time, Pilots will be able to purchase PLEX in smaller chunks and spend it on a number of existing services including re-customizing their character, optional apparel, extending their subscription time or donating it to a friend. Don’t have enough ISK to buy the entire 30 days right away? Save up PLEX in smaller chunks until you have the 500 needed for 30 days by storing the new granular PLEX in your accounts PLEX Wallet.
This is how CCP explained the changes to PLEX, their official developer blog on this change has an entire breakdown of the coming changes and an FAQ for existing players:
“Currently, PLEX is rather large. By always existing as a one-month chunk of subscription time, PLEX can be cumbersome to buy and trade. We think it would be great if it could be broken into smaller units that fit your needs rather than always being bound to the size of 30 days. With that in mind, our first planned change is to convert every existing PLEX into 500 PLEX. After the change, anything you could get for 1 Plex from CCP will instead require 500 Plex. This new PLEX granularity will allow us to sell smaller PLEX packages, and allow you to trade whatever amounts you like with each other.”
New Introduction Movie:
The Winter Expansion: Unknown PVE Events In Empire Space
CCP is hard at work preparing a brand new expansion that will see new dynamic Player Vs Environment content come to New Eden. Specific details about this expansion were kept vague during the Fan Fest keynote and really any talk about the expansion’s existed that happened to come up during any panels.
What little we do know can basically be summed up nicely in CCP’s own words:
“We are going all-in with the EVE Online winter expansion. Using all new capabilities (dynamic PvE etc.), we will create amazing new content in the universe. The heart of this expansion will be all about new content: New challenges, new rewards, new aspects of EVE to learn and explore in Empire space. Stay tuned for more info.”
So Much More
(Image via CCP Games)
There was so much more information shared during the Eve Fan Fast keynote address and the almost six hours of daily content streamed on CCP’s Twitch channel over the weekend on Saturday and Sunday. If you’re a veteran capsuleer or simply feel like the world of New Eden might be interesting after reading this nearly 1,000 word summary of the major announcements I highly recommend giving some of it a watch. Not only is CCP’s dedication to their now 13 year old MMO so apparent but the EVE Online community is some of the passionate players I’ve ever shared a server with.
It wasn’t all flashy trailers & keynote presentations either – everything from lectures from real scientists, to community driven concept art panels to insights into the largest player run economies in gaming were available through CCP’s Twitch stream. EVE Online is a vast sandbox and clearly CCP has a lot of changes planned over the next year that will continue to evolve the content and user experience of Eve Online.
Great news for adventurers and Warriors of Light all around Eorzea – the last patch for Final Fantasy XIV: Heavansward has been released, leading up to June’s Stormblood expansion. With this latest patch before the next expansion drops Square Enix have brought us 4 new Main Story Quests. In addition there have been changes for Heavenswards’ raid finder system and the Tokens needed to claim some end-game loot from dungeons & raids. Some adjustments to the PVP portion that affect players of 2.X – A Realm Reborn as well as 3.X players as part of patch 3.56.
Here are some of the highlights of the latest patch:
Hevansward Specific Changes:
Four new Main Story Quests
Alexander The Creator (Savage) has been added to the Raid Finder
Weekly loot lock out from Alexander The Creator was removed
Maximum amount of Allegan Tome Stones of Scripture has been doubled.
Several adjustments that affect the monk 3.x abilities.
2.X PVP Adjustments
Damage reduction for the White Mage ability Sacred Prism.
Stun duration reduction for the PVP Monk ability Steel Peek.
If you’re a current FFXIV player, are you excited to see where Square takes the story leading into Stormblood? The next expansion doesn’t drop until June but I’ve already re-subscribed so that I can catch up on Main Scenario content before it releases. I’m a little over eight months behind the current patch, as of the writing of this news post I just finished Patch 3.3 “Revenge of the Horde”‘s main content.
Psyonix is bringing a brand new mode to Rocket League on March 22nd that does away with goalposts all together. Instead of scoring a goal on a traditional soccer net, the two teams of cars must dribble an electrified ball across the field to open up a hole on their opponents side of the arena. Once a goal is scored on the opponents’ side of things the floor closes back up and everything starts anew. Oh, and just to make things even more interesting the ball isn’t only electrified but also the ball will continue to build up strength as it is successfully dribbled, building up its’ destructive potential.
Alongside the brand new mode the Dropshot update will bring with it a new stadium for the titular mode, called ‘Core 707’. Official live streams of Rocket League will be accessible via a “Live Now” button that Psyonix are adding to the game’s menu. There also six brand new achievements coming to the game as part of the Dropshot update.,
Rocket League originally launched in the summer of 2015 on PS4, Xbox One and PC where it quickly became a smash success with other 28 million players worldwide. Since then Psyonix has dropped several substantial free updates including the mutators, rumble and hoops updates. Paid DLC in the form of additional car parts & licensed Hot Wheels add-ons have also been made available over the course of the last year or so.
Capcom has released the latest the two Banned Footage DLC packs for Resident Evil 7 on both Xbox One and Windows via Steam the publisher has announced. All of this DLC was previously released on PlayStation 4 first. Both packs are also included with the Resident Evil 7 Season’s Pass. Banned Footage volume 1 is priced at $9.99 USD while volume 2 is priced a bit higher at $14.99 USD according to Capcom’s press release.
Each volume includes the following add-on content:
Banned Footage Volume 1
Nightmare
Bedroom
Ethan must die.
Banned Footage Volume 2
Daughters
21 & Over
Jack’s 55th Birthday
Resident Evil 7’s director, Koshi Nakanishi, explained how these add-on tapes allowed the team to experiment narratively and show players some of the motivation behind the actions of the Baker clan. Here is the full quote:
“We had more freedom in the DLC to let the team try different things. Each of the experiences lets us explore one concept in depth in a way, so for Nightmare it was pure combat. In Bedroom, I wanted to show Marguerite in detail and give players a chance to finally try the food she got so upset you didn’t eat in the dinner scene. You can literally eat it until it kills you.”
The Unreal Tournament franchise might not have the staying power it once had – dominating the team based arena combat genre alongside Quake Tournament III in the early 00s but a dedication group of fans & a small time of developers at Epic Games have been hard at work on the next entry in the franchise for several years. The latest patch for the currently in development free to play online shooter brings a collection of community created maps, some huge weapon changes and a brand new prototype weapons.
The following fully meshed community made maps are available via the Unreal Shop for free. These maps have seen some tweaks and changes since their initial launch:
DM-Salt
DM-Bartrankus
DM-Unsaved
DM-Backspace
CTF-Polaris
Audio Changes
New footstep sounds as well as a whole bunch of new weapon sound effects have been added.
Weapon Changes
The flak canon is currently a work in progress and still requires tweaking in terms of its firepower according to the developer video. It has had its base damage increased and the speed of bouncing projectiles also increased however these projectiles will not apply knock back to opponents.
Rocket launcher’s rocket spread has been increased by 33%. The time needed for a player to lcok onto a target with the lock on mode has been increased the icon was changed from yellow to red. Using the locked on seeking rocket is only effective for 20 meters in front of the player now.
Link guns’ pull mechanism no longer requires a complicated two button press – instead it is now linked to the alt fire button to alleviate confusion. The default ammo count for the Link gun and the amount of ammo picked up from boxes for this gun have been increased.
Field of view on the Sniper Rifle’s scope has been modified, it is also not possible to get a head shot off on a player while they are sliding now.
New Weapon Prototype – The Lightening Gun
This long-range scoped sniper rifle returns from Unreal Tournamnet 2003 – here is how the official dev blog that explains the basic of this new weapon. a lot of the prototype weapons including the Lightening Gun & grenade launcher
“The Lightning Rifle prototype is a long range hitscan weapon with clearly defined advantages and disadvantages; a sniper weapon feared when used at long range but limited at closer range. It has two very different fire modes depending on whether the weapon is zoomed in.”
The streets of the desolated New York City in Tom Clancy’s The Division seemed barren for months until this falls 1.4 patch which saw thousands of agents descend into the chaos filled streets once more thanks to a number of positive changes to the game by Ubisoft & Massive Entertainment. Now the devs hope to not only retain players but provide lapsed agents with even more of a reason to come back to the game as they drop the next paid expansion – Last Stand.
Manhattan’s Dark Zone was supposed to be a bit of a WildWest with the possibility of rogue agents killing you and enhanced NPCs that safeguard some of the games’ most coveted loot. Unfortunately the experience never quite lived up to this promise – thanks in part of a number of folks using auto-aim and other hacks on PC and players trepidation in fighting each other, many simply felt that grouping up together would provide a better experience than facing off versus one another.
With 1.6 Dark Zone areas 7 through 9 will finally be available for agents who are the appropriate level / gear level. These brand new modes will function like the existing Dark Zones 1 –6 with new groups of roaming enemies, new landmarks and a challenging progression that increases in difficulty the further north your agent wanders in DZ 7 thru 9. Massive Entertainment will also finally allow us to fast travel between Dark Zone entry locations – rather than traveling to the closest safe house.
Here’s an interesting little quote from the official dev blog about how extraction has changed in the new Dark Zone areas:
“The new Landmarks can have multiple waves of enemies spawning after you’ve killed the initial NPC enemies.Clearing Landmarks will now award you with additional loot placed directly into your inventory, bypassing the need to extract it.“
Alongside these new Dark Zone areas are brand new contaminated areas where your built-in filter will not be able to completely protect you. Players will have to manage their health as well as their ammunition stocks if they’re going to be able to take out the unique Elite Cleaner NPCs that will spawn in the new contained zones before their health runs out. Elite Cleaners will be a world spawn that will occur in the new Dark Zones approximately every hour or so.
A new difficulty is also coming for those players who feel that they might have mastered all of the challenges and activities that the base game has to offer. The legendary difficulty is designed to be the hardest challenge on offer within Tom Clancy’s The Division and will challenge even those who have completed the Heroic Incursions. Legendary difficulty will be available on three specific missions initially: WarrenGate Power Plant, Napalm Production Site and Times Square.
Here is how Ubisoft described the new Heroic content which has been re-worked from the ground up to provide a challenging experience:
“You won’t be fighting the same enemies you usually fight in those missions, though. All the previous content has been taken out and replaced with new, powerful and much smarter LMB enemies that use more advanced tactics against you and your team.“
Head on to the Ubisoft Blog over for exhaustive details about Tom Clancy’s The Division V1.6 including more details about the Dark Zone enhancements, difficulty levels and Gear Set changes that will affect all characters regardless of level or expansion pass. The devs also went through a lot of detail surrounding the upcoming changes to skill power and how that will affect the healing meta currently used by the community, if you are a serious player it is certainly worth the read.
Killing Floor 2 gets a huge content infusion with the release of the Tropical Bash Content Pack on Windows PC and PlayStation 4 today. Bringing a brand new map set on a tropical island, a new mace & shield for the Berserker class, a new type of energy and the ability to cross-class certain weapon types – this update looks to kick off 2017 with a bang.
New Map
Set on the tropical island of Zed Landing (isn’t that name appropriate for an area infested with the undead), this brand new maps sees players explore a downed helicopter while an imposing volcano bellows smoke off in the distance. Alongside this brand new map is a whole set of new achievements for Zed slayers to collect.
New Enemy
A brand new horrifying monstrosity is awaiting to be unleashed on Zed Landing, the Gore Fiend. Featuring a grotesque long tongue and two rusty blades for hands this new undead nightmare is nothing to laugh at, perhaps it is really a cut above the rest of the Zeds?
New Weapons For Berserker
Berserkers get a brand new tier 4 weapon with the addition of the Bone Crusher. Comprised of a spiked circular shield and a make-shift mace made out of a baseball bat and some long nails this new kit should enable the Berserker to crush in the skulls of the hordes of Zed. The hubcap shield can also be used to parry enemies causing them to stagger backwards.
Cross-Classing Weapons
Do you find yourself picking a class like Command only to find yourself adopting a single weapon from another class because it suits your playstyle more? With the new cross-class system many different weapons can be combined during play which should open up new options for those who like to stick to a single class. While Tripwire didn’t publish a complete list of cross-class weapon combinations they did provide a few examples:
Use the HMTech Medical Assault Rifle, the Incendary Trench Gun or M16 M293 as the Commando.
Use the VLAD-1000 Nail Gun as Support.
Use the HMTech-201 Sub Machinegun as SWAT.
Killing Floor 2 is currently also on sale on Steam for $19.99 USD. Check out Tripwire’s official blog post for more information on the latest update.
Star Citizen the ambitious crowd sourced multi-genre spaceship simulator under development at Cloud Imperium Games has made the switch from Crytek’s CryEngine to the Amazon.com developed Lumberyardengine.
Lumberyard is a freely distributed fork of CryEngine that provides developers with the graphical capabilities and networking code to produce everything from indie to AAA titles. In addition to the graphical prowess of that CryEngine is known for, Lumberyard also allows devs to use Twitch.TV and Amazon Web Services (AWS) within the game engine itself. It is no wonder that Cloud Imperium was able to make the engine switch over the last 12 months without alarming the community.
Speaking about the switch to Lumberyard, Cloud Imperium Games’ Chris Roberts said:
“Lumberyard provides ground breaking technology features for online games, including deep back-end cloud integration on AWS and its social component with Twitch that enables us to easily and instantly connect to millions of global gamers. Because we share a common technical vision, it has been a very smooth and easy transition to Lumberyard. In fact, we are excited to announce that our just released 2.6 Alpha update for Star Citizen is running on Lumberyard and AWS.”
News about Cloud Imperiums’ switch to Lumberyard comes amidst news that Crytek Corporate would cease all studio operations save for two – their headquarters in Frankfurt Germany and one satellite studio in Kiev, Ukraine. This leaves the fate of Crytek’s expansion studios in Turkey, Bulgaria, South Korea and China facing an uncertain fate.
Star Citizen‘s recent 2.6 Alpha Update which includes the brand new FPS deathmatch mode is actually running on Amazon Lumberyard, marking the first major release from Cloud Imperium to do so.
Fans of Square Enix’s decade in the making Final Fantasy XV get to enjoy a holiday treat with a pair of DLC add-ons the company announced. A free Holiday Pack will be available for everyone and includes a special Warrior’s Fanfare, a band which stops the party from earning experience, admission to a special holiday carnival and a special Chocobo themed t-shirt. Owners of the Final Fantasy XV Season Pass are able to snag their own unique fanfare, an item which grants Noctis unlimited sprint, another accessory which increased the rate of loot dropped by enemies among other goodies.
Here is how Square described each item in the free Holiday Pack:
Warrior’s Fanfare – A scroll of sheet music containing a song of jubilation that provides additional AP for earning an A+ in Offense outside of training. Nixperience Band – A device that stops experience points from being tallied, preventing the party from leveling up for an added challenge. Carnival Passport – Adorably adorned ticket that whisks the bearer away to a fun-filled carnival for a limited time. Choco-Mog Tee (available late January) – An exclusive T-shirt featuring everyone’s favorite fluffy and feathery friends. Colorful, comfy and appropriate for any carnival-goer.
Those with the season’s pass will be receiving all of this:
Ring of Resistance – A protective piece of jewelry that renders the entire party to be resistant to magical friendly fire. Tech Turbocharger – A device for Noctis that accelerates the tech bar replenishment rate, but freezes the Armiger bar. Armiger Accelerator – A device for Noctis that accelerates the Armiger bar replenishment rate, but freezes the tech bar. Blitzer’s Fanfare – A scroll of sheet music containing a song of jubilation that provides additional AP for earning an A+ in Time outside of training. Tactician’s Fanfare – A scroll of sheet music containing a song of jubilation that provides additional AP for earning an A+ in Finesse outside of training. Key of Prosperity – A lucky charm that increases the rate at which fallen foes leave behind items of value. Stamina Badge – A device that enables Noctis to sprint and hang without expending stamina. Carnival Passport – An adorably adorned ticket that whisks the bearer away to a fun-filled carnival for a limited time. Festive Ensemble (available late January) – A fancy and fun outfit perfectly suited for enjoying the festivities. The darling design puts all who see it in high spirits. Holiday Pack + Exclusive Photo Frames (available late January) – Additional themes the player can add to Prompto’s photos when sharing over social media.
This latest update to Final Fantasy XV also adds the addition of New Game Plus which allows players to restart their journey over but with all of their other gameplay data intact!
Overwatch’s heroes are walking in a winter wonderland with the recently released festive update to the game for PS4, Xbox One and Windows PC. This limited time event not only offers holiday themed maps, a brand new seasonal event and a set of Winter Wonderland loot boxes that can provide those sweet skins we all crave, or the Overwatch equivalent of coal with a duplicate spray.
For the seasonal brawl Overwatch’s Mei is getting into the spirit by hosting Mei’s Snowball Offensive on Echopoint: Antartica. This mode pits teams of 6 against each other using the single elimination ruleset, Mei’s blaster has also been modified to allow only one shot at a time – so you won’t be spamming icicles of death. Players still have access to Mei’s ice wall, healing and ultimate as per usual. Like the other elimination modes Snowball Offensive is a best of 5 competition.
Players will find a free loot box wrapped under the title screen for their enjoyment upon first booting up the Overwatch update. Free boxes are also available in the Arcade for player’s Mei’s Snowball Offensive and Winter Mystery – a festive reskin of the Mystery Heroes brawls. As always free loot boxes can be earned by either getting 3 wins in the Arcade (capping out at free boxes per week) or by progressing through the level-up system for 20,000 experience points.
There are some wonderful things to be found in the latest loot boxes: Elf Tracer, Santa Tjorborne, Nutcracker Zenyatta and Icicle Pharah being my favorites so far.
Here is a small sampling of what you can find in this latest update:
343 Industries has released the highly anticipated Monitor’s Bounty update for Halo 5: Forge on PC and Halo 5: Guardians that features among other changes, the ability to search for custom games via both games’ multiplayer options.
The titular Forge Mode gets a significant update with the Forge Scripting update allowing creators to make some truly innovative and amazing game modes. Action Target allows forgers to modify up to sixty four objects all at once using a variety of different filters to select just the ones that they want to modify. Forgers also have the ability to modify how their Forge Scripts are executed with the new script action flags – these can be activated the Map, Object or Script level.
Here is a video tour 343i outlined in regards to the Forge specific changes that Monitor’s Bounty brings:
Collectors of Halo 5’s REQ cards should be happy to know that Monitor’s bounty adds a selection of new weapons for Warzone, two new WASP variations and a new set of unlockable armor for player Spartans as well.
New Weapons:
M313 Grenade Launcher
Pro Pipe
New Vehicles:
ONI WASP
Hannibal WASP
New Customization Pieces:
Icarus Helmet
Icarus Body Armor
Don’t forget that even players of Halo 5: Forge can use the Halo Waypoint website to unlock new customization parts for their Spartan – even if the other cards for modes like Warzone are irrelevant for PC only players.
Probably the most requested feature from players of the Halo 5: Forge edition on PC has been the ability to find custom games. This has been a feature that 343i promised back in September and fans have been waiting months for its inclusion.
The Custom Games Browser isn’t traditional matchmaking – instead of having an algorithm form groups of similarly skilled players and then creating a match the Custom Games Browser allows you to see any games that are open to the public and have already been started. Once players join an in-progress match they’ll automatically be added to the hosts FireTeam so that groups of players can stay together between rounds.
Here is how the devs describe the new Custom Games Browser:
Halo 5 players on Xbox One and Windows 10 will have a new way to find matches and teammates with the addition of the join-in-progress Custom Games Browser. This new browser enables players to search for in-progress games from the main menu and utilizes the Content Browser to filter for any map or mode your heart desires.
It feels like I’ve barely scratched the surface about the changes and additions that Monitor’s Bounty brings to the Halo 5 multiplayer experience. Stuff like brand new maps for Warzone, detailed information on the new Forge Mode mini-games and the new premium Req packs are all available on 343’s Halo Waypoint site. If you’re downloading the PC update the file-size is just over 8GB so be prepared to wait a little bit.
Here’s hoping that Halo 5: Forge has a large and long lasting community thanks to the Custom Games Browser.
