Destiny 2 is due to get its first proper trailer later today, but ahead of that, another rather substantial leak for the game appears to have occurred. The post, since deleted, was apparently obtained via a Spanish retailer (man, those guys really seem to like leaking Destiny), and clues us in to a whole lot about the upcoming highly anticipated sequel.
For starters, it seems as though Destiny 2 will indeed be coming to PC (you can check out an image confirming this below)- so this time around, PC players won’t have to sit out on one of the most popular games of the generation. It also sounds like the story takes you to hitherto unvisited places within the solar system, and fight off the Red Legion.
Finally, we have some information on the game’s collector and limited editions (and via them, the DLC planned for the game).
If all of this holds true, it seems as though Bungie has addressed a fair few of the problems that plagued the first game- though whether or not they did so properly, and whether or not this holds true at all, is something that remains to be seen.
Destiny 2 Collector’s edition includes
Destiny 2 game
Expansions I and II including quests, coop activities, multiplayer content and tons of armour and gear (idk the pricing but seems it’s basically the same as Destiny 1)
Legendary sword DLC
Legendary emote DLC
Cabal empire emblem DLC
“Frontier” physical bag you can carry around with a 15″ tablet pocket
“Frontier” kit including USBcharger with solar panel
A paracord
A solar rug
Limited edition steelbook
Collector’s edition cabal themed premium box, including a notebook, a map, and collectibles such as postcards and “pawns from the Empire” (idk what this actually means)
A brand new trailer for the upcoming Injustice 2 is now out- and this trailer showcases some of the biggest, most terrifying villains from the DC roster, duking it out against each other. Considering the rich lineup of iconic villains DC has, that truly is saying something.
So everyone from Gorilla Grodd to Bane can be seen fighting it out here- and of course, these characters are all going to be playable in the final game, too. You can see what their fighting styles are going to be like, and how these characters will wreak havoc upon the beloved DC superheroes (or other villains) that they square off against.
Unfortunately, the biggest DC villain ever, The Joker, is still not confirmed for the game- here’s hoping a confirmation for him is coming soon. Maybe on April Fools? That would be fitting. Injustice 2 is available on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 when it launches on May 16.
A new hotfix is live for Bungie’s Destiny following the release of Age of Triumph, the game’s final live event. It’s nothing too special but does fix a couple of issues. For instance, you no longer need to complete the Normal mode of a raid in order to play the Hard mode. Petra of the Reef has also had an issue fixed which saw too many Class items being given via faction rank packages.
Meanwhile, on the PvP front, the dev has added invisible physics and kill volumes on Bannerfall to prevent players from leaving the actual map space to gain an advantage. Ammo option problems in private Elimination matches has also been fixed and spawning on Last Exit and Floating Gardens has been changed to minimize dangerous spawns.
Finally, the Knuckles of Eao – which can be used to gain extra rewards for the returning raids – can now be transferred to the Vault and between characters.
It’s not as good as a brand new PS4 WipEout game, but at least it is something- the previously announced WipEout Omega Collection, which will include fully remastered versions of WipEout HD, WipEout Fury, and WipEout 2048 (from the PS3, PSP, and PS Vita respectively) will be hitting the PS4 on June 6 this year, Sony has confirmed.
The big selling point here is the remastered graphics- the textures in particular have been reworked substantially, leading to a startlingly clear look for the game. That, plus 28 new music tracks, full 60 fps gameplay, and PS4 Pro enhancements are a part of the package. The original games have also made it through the remastering unscathed- everything you remember is here, exactly as is. No content or modes that had to be removed.
While this is not a new WipEout game, buying this may be your last chance to demonstrate to Sony that there is still a market for the series- so go out there and buy it if you were ever a WipEout fan!
It was speculated upon before and now it’s confirmed – EA’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 will have its “galaxywide” premiere at next month’s Star Wars Celebration. The first trailer for the game will be showcased on April 15th, 11:30 AM PST/2:30 PM ET/7:30 PM UK time.
DICE, Criterion and Motive Studios will hold a special panel to discuss the game along with debuting the trailer. EA showcased the first Battlefront at last year’s Celebration with an in-engine trailer. Gameplay footage would be released at E3 2017. Could that be the same pattern this year?
Star Wars Battlefront 2 won’t just have more locations, heroes and characters from across different films (like the recent Episode 7: The Force Awakens or upcoming Episode 8: The Last Jedi). It will also have a single-player campaign, addressing complaints many had with the original.
Are you looking forward to it? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information.
Bungie’s worldwide premiere trailer for Destiny 2 is finally available to watch. It showcases the Last City in ruins, the Vanguard ousted from the Tower and Guardians banding together to take back the city. Inspiring speeches from Cayde-6 and Zavala along with confirmation of the newest villain Gaul and the Red Legion are also included.
The trailer’s description also notes that players will travel to “mysterious, unexplored worlds of our solar system” to find new weapons and abilities to combat the Red Legion.
More importantly, the tail-end of the trailer confirms the game’s release date – September 8th. Pre-ordering will grant you early access to the beta. This seems to imply that the beta will be open to all. Hopefully it won’t have 20 percent of the game’s total content like vanilla Destiny did.
Destiny 2 is in development for Xbox One, PS4 and PC as well apparently. The platforms weren’t exactly confirmed at the end of the trailer. Regardless, what are your thoughts? Let us know below.
Earlier rumoured to be releasing by late April, Telltale Games has announced that episode 1 of Guardians of the Galaxy would be out on April 18th for Xbox One, PS4, PC, iOS and Android. The episodic adventure series will be based off of Marvel’s hit sci-fi property.
Titled “Tangled Up in Blue”, episode 1 of the game will cost $5 standalone at launch. A physical disc will be available with immediate access to the first episode (with access to the other four) on May 2nd in North America. You can also catch the new trailer the game on March 30th at 9 AM PT/12 PM ET.
At this point, we know that Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy will not be directly based on the upcoming movie sequel. The latter is out in May for fans of the original. Will you be picking up “Tangled Up in Blue” next month? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
One of the many criticisms of Bungie’s Destiny is the year-long exclusive agreement with Sony for additional content. This resulted in the infamous exclusives from Year Two still not being released for Xbox One players.
Unfortunately, it looks like that trend is going to continue As per the Destiny 2 teaser (aka “Last Call”) on the official PlayStation channel, the sequel will have “Content exclusive until at least Fall 2018.” More details will be shared in the Summer which sounds like something for Sony’s E3 2017 press conference.
As for current Destiny players, Year Two and Rise of Iron content exclusive to PS4 will likely hit the Xbox One by this Fall. Whether anyone will still be on Destiny by then remains to be seen.
Destiny 2 is rumoured to be out on September 8th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. What are your thoughts on PS4-exclusive content? Let us know in the comments below.
Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch added a new hero last week with Orisa. The robot tank has become fairly popular thanks to her utility and range. However, she was excluded from Competitive Play to allow players to learn her mechanics.
This was only for a week though. As per the official Overwatch Twitter, Orisa is now available for Competitive Play. Given how the meta has shifted over the past few weeks (with more changes coming for heroes like Lucio), it should be interesting to see how Orisa fits in.
The PC version of Overwatch has also received a new update that prevents Orisa from deploying Supercharge inside of the payload. Her movement is also slowed a bit when firing in midair. Sombra’s “Boop” voice line should also play normally now.
What are your thoughts on Orisa and how will she fit into Competitive Play? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information.
Bethesda and Arkane Studios have released a brand new trailer for their upcoming Prey, which shows off some of the weapons and power combos that you will be able to use in the game. You might find yourself facing long odds in this game- but you’ll at least be well equipped to take them on.
You will have 24 upgrades for your human powers, and 20 alien powers, to choose from- and Arkane have thrown in some risk and reward for building different kinds of characters. For instance, alien abilities will make you more capable of being on an even foot with the Typhon, but human weapons and facilities, such s turrets, will automatically detect you as a hostile alien entity, and shoot at you.
So Prey seems to be a nice blend of a horror first person shooter, and light RPG elements. The game launches on May 5 on Xbox One and PS4.
Ubisoft has unveiled plans for Watch Dogs 2 content in the coming months. Perhaps most interesting is that four player co-op, originally meant for the No Compromise DLC, will be released for free across all platforms.
Watch Dogs 2 live producer Kris Young said there were two main factors for making Showd0wn free for all. “The first is that we want everyone to be able to participate and play it. We really wanted to have as many people as possible playing the mode for a better challenge, better matchmaking time and quality, and a healthier, more active community.
“The other is community feedback we’ve received since we announced the original plans. Our community asked for more multiplayer content, and that’s also a reason why we’ve decided to make Showd0wn accessible for free for all players, while replacing it with more single-player content in No Compromise.”
No Compromise’s single-player content include more story missions, time trials, new nonlethal weapons and some emergency service-themed vehicles and clothes. Showd0wn will be available on April 17th for all platforms while No Compromise releases on April 18th for PS4 and May 18th on Xbox One and PC.
Bungie’s final live event for Destiny will be going today. Age of Triumph marks the return of Vault of Glass and Crota’s End with all PvE end-game activities being brought up to 390 Light level. Update 2.6.0 will be going live today at 10 AM PDT/1 PM EDT/6 PM BST/7 PM CEST. The overall download size hasn’t been revealed but expect it to be several gigabytes given the new raid gear, record book, sandbox changes, returning raid weapons and much more inbound.
The weekly reset, which usually takes place at 2 AM PDT/5 AM EDT/10 AM BST has been postponed as a result of the update. The Heroic Strike and Nightfall playlists won’t be available until the update has dropped. If you’re playing with other people and receive the Sheep error, then make sure everyone actually has the updated game.
Meanwhile, Bungie has already begun hyping up Destiny 2. More information including gameplay footage should arrive en route to E3 2017 so stay tuned.
Nintendo’s Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has received some short new videos that highlight its Battle Modes. These modes include Balloon Battle, Bob-omb Blast, Coin Runners, Piranha Plants vs Spies mode and Shine Thief respectively. Check them out below.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is essentially the Nintendo Switch version of the Wii U kart racer. It includes all previously released DLC, encompassing every single track and kart.
However, five new characters will also be added along with Splatoon-styled karts, new Smart Steering control and a new feature that lets you hold two items at one time. Battle Mode has also been changed and supports local and online play with eight different courses.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will be heading to the Nintendo switch on April 28th via retail and the Nintendo eShop. Will you be picking it up? Let us know in the comments below along with how you’re enjoying the Nintendo Switch thus far.
We knew it was happening, and now it has happened - Bungie and Activision have confirmed Destiny 2, the long expected, discussed, speculated about sequel to the original shared world shooter. Bungie confirmed Destiny 2 via a Twitter post, with some art and ‘Destiny 2’ splashed all over it.
As of right now, this is literally all that we have in the way of information- we don’t know the release date (though we can speculate), we don’t know the platforms (we can probably speculate on those, too), we don’t know any details about the story or gameplay, and we have no official media- no trailers or screenshots.
That said, that information is probably forthcoming- for now, many fans are doubtless excited that Destiny 2 is a thing, and it’s enough that it will be a substantial step up (hopefully) over the first game’s unfulfilled promise.
Epic Games has released another update for its hero shooter/MOBA Paragon. Update v.38.5 for the game introduces a fair few new variations for Loot Crates, as well as adjustments to game balance. That apart, new skins, as well as your standard fixes and tweaks to UI and all, are also part and parcel of this new patch.
You can check out the full list of updates below- but if you’re an ardent player of the game, a lot of this should hopefully not be much of a surprise, given just how engaged Epic is in a dialog with its community. At this point, you should have known these changes are coming.
Expansive Worlds and Avalanche Studios’ theHunter: Call of the Wild, their hunting simulation game, is already available on PC- however, they’ve now announced that the game will be heading on over to consoles, too. Specifically, you should be able to play the game on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 later this year.
The console versions of the game are being handled by a separate team dedicated to console development created by developer Expansive Worlds. Expansive Worlds hopes that the game’s exposure to a larger audience via its console release will let it do ‘even more cool stuff long term.’
For now, not much else is known about the console specific release- all we have is a promise that information will be shared soon. However, we can assume that the console release will be kept as close as possible to the largely positively received Steam release of the game. Stay tuned for more information.
Hangar 13’s Mafia 3 continues to be updated with its first major DLC pack out today along with a free demo of the base game. The demo varies in size from 24 to 27 GB on PS4, Xbox One and PC. It covers the first act of the campaign, setting up the events to occur throughout and offering a fairly decent look at what’s in store. As is per the norm, if you purchase the game, your progress from the free demo carries over.
The new DLC is Faster, Baby which adds more cars and story missions to the game. It even throws in some new features like proximity mines that the cars can deploy as traps. If that’s not enough, players can throw grenades while driving. Faster, Baby retails for $15 standalone and is part of the $30 DLC Pass and Deluxe Edition of the game.
Mafia 3 will see two more DLC packs in the coming months with Stone Unturned and Sign of the Times so stay tuned for more information on their releases.
Final Fantasy VII Remake director Tetsuya Nomura has recently been talking about the upcoming remake’s gameplay quite a bit recently, sharing details about the action based combat system and the cover system in the game, and now, we have some more details about the game thanks to him.
Nomura has said that maps and environments in the game will be destructible, and that players will also have the ability to break or destroy parts of bosses in the middle of battles to give them advantages. “Map and object destruction will also happen, and there are part-based destruction elements like breaking the Guard Scorpion’s legs,” Nomura said in an interview with Famitsu.
It remains to be seen just how destructible the environments in the game will be, but it seems like a very interesting idea for the RPG, especially considering the fact that players will also be able to use cover in the game.
The idea of knocking off boss’ parts in the middle of battles also seems an appealing one, especially in light of just how well it was done in the recently released Horizon: Zero Dawn. We do not know if the mechanic in Final Fantasy VII Remake will be as in-depth as it was in the Guerrilla RPG, but we sure hope it takes cues from it.
Though it’s still less than three months away, Microsoft has been teasing its E3 2017 plans for some time now. We know that Project Scorpio will be a major part of the presentation but it seems the company wants to give more time for its games as well.
This is according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer on Twitter who noted that, “I want to give our games more time on stage at E3. I sometimes feel like we rush telling the story of our games at E3.”
This could be in reference to certain projects – like ReCore, the eventually-cancelled Scalebound and so on – not getting as much information at past E3 shows compared to other games. Regardless, we’ll find out how much that software focus will tie into Scorpio’s reveal.
Microsoft’s E3 presser will take place on June 11th. What are you hoping to see at the conference? Let us know in the comments below.
Persona 5 is finally almost here. After years of delays, it is not just a week or so away from official launch in the western markets. Several media outlets have already started coming out with their reviews for the highly anticipated JRPG. Gaming magazine EDGE is among them, and they’ve given the game a pretty solid score of 8/10 in their review.
In contrast, EDGE gave both versions of Persona 4, the base version as well as Persona 4 Golden for the PS Vita, a 9/10, which means that Persona 5 has scored lower than them. Persona 3, meanwhile, got a score of 7/10 from them when it first came out. Persona 5 has been getting some pretty solid initial reviews, which is to be expected given the great scores it received in Japan upon release in that region last year.
UK gaming magazine GamesMaster recently awarded the game a 9.5/10, calling it better than Final Fantasy XV.
Overwatch players have come across a new bug – yes, another one – and this one is actually pretty annoying, from the looks of it. This one usually happens to players in Control mode on several maps, and while it’s nothing more than a visual bugs (from the looks of it), people have regardless been noticing it, and complaining about it.
What essentially happens is that the hold percentage displayed on the top of the screen starts accelerating towards its cap at an alarming pace, and once it reaches 100 per cent within seconds, the game still keeps on going. The percentage being displayed, essentially, isn’t a visual representation of the hold percentage in the game, and the bug means that players have no idea what the actual percentage is and just when the game will be finished.
Plenty of people have been reporting this, but Blizzard have not yet responded. Have you encountered this bug? Chances are you have, because it seems it’s a pretty common one. Let us know in your comments below!
Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 15 has two updates currently live – update 1.06 and 1.07. The former is a major update and contains the much-anticipated changes to Chapter 13. The latter contains bug fixes. Update 1.06 weighs in at 5.6 GB and features Chapter 13, Verse 2 which is an alternate route with Gladiolus (not to be confused with the upcoming Episode Gladiolus DLC).
There are also enhancements to Arcana spells like Alterna, Holy and Death; the temporary conclusion of Timed Quests (which will go back up later on); compatibility for Episode Gladiolus releasing on March 28th; gameplay enhancements and the usual bug fixes. Keep in mind that your updated saves will not work with former versions of the game.
Final Fantasy 15 will be seeing more DLC in the coming months including an episode focused on Prompto, a multiplayer-focused expansion and so on. What are your thoughts on the most recent update? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more updates.
After five years in development and possibly having a budget that surpasses the $40 million used for Mass Effect 3, it’s quite easy to understand why fans are disappointed with Mass Effect Andromeda’s animations. Unfortunately, other than the stifled animations and a host of glitches and bugs it’s easy to forget the other graphical parameters that make Andromeda a great looking game at times. The animations of the game are so downright awful and admittedly they look so last gen that much of the gamer discourse has shifted away from the other graphical parameters of the game. But believe it or not, a game is much more than its animations and Andromeda makes some impressive use of DICE’s FrostBite engine. But we wonder why the game was shifted to the new engine to begin with?
The original trilogy ran on the Unreal Engine so Andromeda is the first ever game in the series to run on DICE’s popular framework. We have already seen what the engine is capable in last year’s Battlefield 1 which was undoubtedly one of best looking games of this generation. But with each game, requirements change, the way different developers use the same engine may differ, heck this isn’t even Bioware’s engine to begin with so they probably never even got the chance to master it completely compared to say someone like DICE who actually developed the engine. After playing through the first hour or so, we were repeatedly questioning ourselves – why did Bioware had to change the engine when the Unreal Engine 4 could have worked just fine for them?
Epic Games have been doing some amazing work in the past couple of years and last year’s Gears of War 4 on the Xbox One is arguably the best looking game on that console. So why try to fix something that has been working quite well? Perhaps the answer lies in EA’s strategy to bring all their games under one framework. It makes game development rather easy and there is no need to pay anything extra since using Unreal Engine will require licensing fees. In our playthrough we did not found the level of visual fidelity that we found in FrostBite’s other offerings such as Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefield 1. What is done is done now but in our opinion, FrostBite doesn’t seem to be quite ready to embrace the open world genre yet.
If there is anything that Frostbite engine really does well is the various post processing, alpha and volumetric effects. Mass Effect is a sci-fi series and these three effects are the core pillars of the graphical fidelity these titles aim for. The amazing lighting effects as you navigate Ryder through the Nexus or the dust floating around when you first land on the planet of Eos or the dazzling effects players encounter in the vaults…all of this comes together to create a really amazing experience at times. The game utilizes temporal anti-aliasing solution on both the PC and PS4 which may result into ghosting artifacts at times but does a way better job than the FXAA option provided in the PC version’s graphical settings. HBAO is also implemented on both the versions resulting into smoother and softer shadows and edges.
As if there was any surprise, Andromeda is best played on the PC. Bioware has provided players with a decent number of options which include Ambient Occlusion, Anti-Aliasing, Chromatic Aberration, Effects Quality, Film Grain, Lighting Quality, Mesh Quality, Post-Process Effect Quality, Resolution Scaling, Shader Quality, Shadow Quality, Terrain Quality, Texture Filtering Quality, Texture Quality, and Vegetation Quality. All of these can be toggled from the Low to the Ultra settings. The game can also auto-detect the best setting for an optimum 1080p/60fps experience based on your PC’s hardware. For example, while using a AMD FX 8350 configuration along with an R290x 4GB GPU card and 8GB of memory the game auto-selects the High settings with frame rates reaching up to 60. Dial it up all the way to Ultra using a GTX 1080, i7-7700k and 16GB of Memory and you should have no problems at all running at a consistent 60 frames per second.
On the console side, we found the PS4 Pro to be an interesting proposition. It doesn’t render a native 4K resolution which to be honest is expected but Bioware have managed to use a checkerboard solution to render a 1800p image buffer. Note that this is not native 1800p resolution but according to DICE the checkerboard approach helped them to save a lot of rendering budget across various parameters such as G-buffer, shadows and lighting. There is a slight softer look to the final image quality but it looks very close to a native 1800p image quality. Unlike the PC version, the Pro version is capped to 30 frames per second and for the most part it’s a rather stable experience. However, we witnessed drops during the vehicular sections in the game’s open world.
It seems that the PC version is using bokeh depth of field compared to the Pro’s use of a slightly inferior effect. The Pro version also does a number of compromises in terms of shadows quality, screen space reflections quality and draw distances. If you are playing on a 1080p TV and the PS4 Pro, you can expect a supersampled image resulting into slightly better looking game. It seems that assets, textures and lighting wise, the Pro version and the PC at Ultra settings are pretty close.
Overall, there is a lot to like about Mass Effect: Andromeda from a graphics perspective. The game has some really great art style in some of its worlds, a really vibrant color pallete and a superb PC port that runs quite well provided you have the hardware. The Pro version, surprisingly provides an experience that comes somewhere between the High and Ultra setting of the PC version, with the frame rate capped at 30fps.
But honestly, when we look back we can’t help but wonder…would it really hurt Bioware and EA that much if they would have put in a couple of months’ effort more into Andromeda? Granted that it has been five long years since the last game came out and some players may be getting impatient but the Mass Effect brand name would have made them profit regardless. With a bit of polish in the animations department and the reduction in bugs and glitches would have gone a long way in ensuring a far better product then it’s now from a visual perspective.
Microsoft has announced three new games being added to its list of Xbox 360 backward compatible games running on Xbox One. They’re three AAA Xbox 360 games, and while they’re not ever going to be topping any lists, they’re all reasonably cool games that more people should play and try out.
The games in question are Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Darksiders, and Darksiders 2. Now to be fair, we already knew about the former two- they had been announced as Games With Gold games for the month of April. Darksiders 2, however, is the new one here- and it’s hard to deny that together, this is a compelling trio of Xbox 360 games to be made playable on Xbox One.
Assassin’s Creed Revelations is widely considered to be the weakest of the Ezio era of the series- but it’s still a good game, and better than the games that came after. Darksiders was a great Zelda clone, and while Darksiders 2 messed things up a bit, it still remains a compelling game. If you can, try giving all of these titles a shot.
Bioware’s Mass Effect: Andromeda has already received its first free multiplayer APEX mission along with a new weapon and new character to unlock. “Drack’s Missing Scouts” will be available till March 27 and will see players visiting a new map Firebase Paradox to investigate missing Krogan Scouts. Naturally, you’ll battle the Kett (and the presence of Remnant artifacts isn’t a good thing either). The newest character is the Ultra-Rare Krogan Gladiator and you also get a new shotgun called the Ruzad. Check out gameplay footage from the mission below.
Mass Effect: Andromeda’s post-launch multiplayer content will be completely free and so we can expect other such missions and characters to release in time. The game has thus far received above average reviews with the majority praising the new multiplayer mode (despite its reliance on peer-to-peer matchmaking).
What are your thoughts on Mass Effect: Andromeda? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information.
The latest PTR update for Blizzard’s Overwatch is now live. The developer had deployed changes last week to adjust Lucio’s viability, reducing his overall area of effect healing and speed boosting but buffing his speed, rate of healing and projectile speed.
In the update, Lucio sees his Sonic Amplifier doing 25 percent more damage. His Heal Song now does 33 percent reduced self-healing, which means Lucio’s ability to stay alive forever while dodging has been reduced. This won’t affect healing done to other players though but is a decent way to combat his increased speed.
Finally, Wall Ride’s bonus speed has been decreased from 30 percent to 20 percent to further prevent him from dodging and running around all over the place.
Previous Competitive Play map rotation in the PTR only featured Eichenwalde and Hanamura to test out changes to the new tie breaker system along with Eichenwalde’s new attack route. The map rotation has now been expanded to include all maps.
