Revisit The Past In Diablo III’s Darkening Of Tristram Anniversary Event
For the first time ever, the Nintendo Switch version of Diablo III: Eternal Collection will play host to the Darkening of Tristram anniversary event. This limited-time event – which runs until 31st January – allows veterans and newcomers alike the chance to explore the franchise’s past history by playing through the original Diablo levels and slaying multiple classic bosses.
The anniversary event will give you the chance to unlock unique transmogrification effects, achievements, portraits, pets and more. Some rewards will be harder than others to find and may require you to unlock multiple achievements before they can be obtained. Here are some of the rewards on offer:
Below is Blizzard’s official rundown of the event:
Your journey begins on the trail of a group of mysterious cultists causing trouble in Sanctuary. As you hunt them down in Adventure Mode, you’ll uncover clues leading to a portal into Tristram’s past, and the terrifying darkness that took hold of the town so many years ago. . . .
Follow the clues and you’ll soon find yourself in a realm of glorious RetroVision™, where an all-too-familiar cathedral looms. Explore the depths and you’ll discover familiar enemies and iconic items, all brought to life in the Diablo III engine. Meanwhile, deep beneath the catacombs, the Dark Lord himself awaits any intrepid adventurer who dares to challenge him. . . .
Will you be returning to Hell to participate in this event? Tell us in the comments.
NIS Delays Western Release Of RPG Maker MV, Due To Ongoing Development Issues
NIS America has announced the western release of RPG Maker MV for the Nintendo Switch has been delayed.
In a news announcement on the company’s website, it was revealed the game’s launch was being pushed back in order to deliver the best product possible. The update cited ongoing issues with development as the main reason behind the delay. Here’s the post:
“We always strive to deliver the best product possible to you, the fans, with each title we release, and RPG Maker MV is no exception. With this goal in mind, we wanted to give you all an update on the current state of this title. Due to ongoing issues with development, the release RPG Maker MV will be delayed. We are working to resolve these issues, we anticipate the release date to be later in 2019. We apologize for any inconveniences caused to those who were looking forward to the release of RPG Maker MV, and when a new release date is confirmed, we will be sure to update our channels accordingly.”
The Nintendo Switch version of the game was originally due out in North America on 26th February 2019. The European release was also scheduled for a 2019 release. As noted in the above post, NIS will lock in a new release date in the near future. Hopefully, it’s not too far off.
Have you played the RPG Maker series previously? Were you looking forward to playing MV early this year? Tell us below.
IGF Awards Finalists Revealed; Winners To Be Announced At GDC 2019
The 2019 Independent Games Festival has announced the finalists for its awards ceremony. The winners for each award will be announced on March 20 during GDC 2019.
There are several awards that over a dozen different games have been nominated for. Titles can be nominated for Excellence in Visual Art, Excellence in Audio, Excellence in Design, Excellence in Narrative, Best Student Game, the Nuovo (Innovation) Award, and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Each winner for the first six awards also earns a cash prize worth several thousand dollars, with a grand prize of $30,000 USD going to whoever receives the Seumas McNally.
Return of the Obra Dinn is the most nominated game for IGF by far, with the title up for five of the seven awards. Obra Dinn was one of the three indie games to earn a spot in our 10 favorite games of 2018 list, alongside Dead Cells and Into the Breach. It captured our eye with its superb story-telling and unique murder mystery mechanics. Although they haven't received as many nominations, other notable standouts for the IGF awards include Forgotton Anne, Minit, Opus Magnum, and Unavowed.
We've compiled the full list of finalists below, which you can also view--along with the honorable mentions for each category--on the Independent Games Festival's blog.
Independent Games Festival 2019 Awards Nominees
Excellent in Visual Art
Forgotton Anne
Alto's Odyssey
Hypnospace Outlaw
Just Shapes & Beats
Mirror Drop
Return of the Obra Dinn
Excellence in Audio
Ethereal
Hypnospace Outlaw
Moss
Return of the Obra Dinn
Alto's Odyssey
Paratopic
Excellence in Design
What the Golf?
Do Not Feed the Monkeys
Noita
Return of the Obra Dinn
Dicey Dungeons
Opus Magnum
Excellence in Narrative
Wandersong
Genital Jousting
Unavowed
Seers Isle
Watch Me Jump
Return of the Obra Dinn
Nuovo (Innovation) Award
Circle0
eCheese Zone
Noita
Mirror Drop
Black Room
Paratopic
Do Not Feed the Monkeys
Nth Dimension[al] Hiking
Best Student Game
It's Paper Guy!
Grace Bruxner Presents: The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game
Gaming Analysts Predict ‘Switch Pro’ And ‘Switch Lite’ Revisions For 2019
A mock-up of how a Switch Mini or ‘Lite’ model could look
In March, the Nintendo Switch will have been on the market for two whole years. With advancements in technology being as fast as they are, and with demand for bigger and better gaming experiences growing at a similar rate, seeing console revisions midway through a system’s life has become almost guaranteed in recent years.
Of course, it’s impossible to know for sure whether or not Nintendo is planning to release a revised edition of the Switch in the near future; we certainly expect to see something in the next year or two, but that would be pure speculation on our part. We’re not alone in these predictions, though, as gaming analysts appear to be thinking the same thing, albeit with much bolder claims.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Kantan Games, and Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities, have shared what they think Nintendo will do in 2019. Toto expects to see ‘Pro’ and ‘Lite’ models of the system (or at least a price cut), while Pachter expects to see a revision which does away with the switching nature of the console altogether.
Dr. Serkan Toto: Switch Pro and Lite – “While the 2019 Switch Pro has been already reported to be in development by the Wall Street Journal, I also think Nintendo will offer a “Switch Lite” (or just keep the current version at a lower price) to cover the lower end of the spectrum and offset sinking 3DS sales.”
Michael Pachter: Nintendo will launch a fully handheld version of the Switch at $199. “I expect the device to have the same screen, but with Joy Cons built into the body and no docking station. Since it can’t “switch” from handheld to console, it’s hard to guess what they will call it, but let’s assume Game Boy (kidding).”
Dr. Serkan Toto also believes that the Switch will benefit from “at least one new game from the mega-franchises owned by EA, Activision or Take-Two” as part of his expectation that the console will see “a lot more games” from third-party developers this year. You can read the full thoughts of both analysts here if you’re interested.
Do you agree with any of these predictions? Do you think Nintendo will release a new Switch in 2019, similar to how the 3DS has seen multiple revisions over the years? Let us know in the comments below.
According to mobile tracker Sensor Tower, Pokemon Go generated an estimated $795 million in revenue worldwide in 2018--a 35% increase over 2017. US players sunk the most money into the game last year, spending an estimated $262 million in 2018, although Japanese players weren't far behind, spending approximately $239 million.
Daily spending in Pokemon Go was up as well last year. The game generated an average of about $2.2 million per day in 2018. Players also spent more than $75 million on the game in the month of December alone between Google Play and the App Store, up from $57.2 million spent during the same month in 2017.
These impressive figures can likely be attributed in part to the regular stream of new Pokemon, events, and features that Niantic introduced to Pokemon Go throughout 2018. Early in the year, the developer kicked off a new monthly series of events called Community Days, which give players around the world a chance to catch rare Pokemon and learn exclusive moves for one day every month.
On top of that, Niantic implemented a host of new features in the game. Last summer saw the long-awaited arrival of friends list and trading, while PvP trainer battles finally arrived in December. Niantic also introduced Adventure Sync, a feature that allows Pokemon Go to track your distance walked even when idle, making it easier to hatch Eggs.
Pokemon Go's latest in-game event, the Adventure Sync Hatchathon, is currently underway. The event runs until January 15, during which time you'll earn twice the normal amount of Candy and Stardust for hatching Eggs. Meanwhile, the next Community Day is scheduled to take place on January 12 and will feature the Gen 2 starter Totodile.
Beyond Pokemon Go, Niantic is also co-developing a Harry Potter mobile game with Warner Bros. titled Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. The game was originally slated to launch in 2018, but it will now arrive sometime this year. The studio also recently launched an enhanced version of its original mobile game titled Ingress Prime.
Some Regional Exclusive Pokémon Might Soon Swap Locations In Pokémon GO
If you’re a keen Pokémon GO player, you’ll no doubt be aware that some of those elusive critters can only be obtained in certain parts of the world. While it hasn’t been confirmed just yet, it looks like some of those exclusive to particular regions could be about to have a bit of a swap around.
As reported by Serebii.net, a recent newsletter received by some Pokémon GO players contains a special note about a New Year Surprise. The newsletter states that something strange is happening which could affect the migration of certain Pokémon, specifically mentioning the region of Hoenn. No more information has been provided, but this certainly hints towards a location swap for several Pokémon.
This has happened before – Seviper and Zangoose have been known to switch places, as have Solrock and Lunatone – so there’s no reason to believe that this wouldn’t be the case once again. Other Hoenn regional exclusives include Torkoal, Relicanth, Illumise, Volbeat, and Tropius; perhaps these Pokémon might benefit from a swap this time around?
We’ll keep an eye out for more information on this as it happens but, until then, let us know if you’d like to get your hands on some different regional exclusive Pokémon in your game in our comments section below.
We know you’re busy and might miss out on all the exciting things we’re talking about on Xbox Wire every week. If you’ve got a few minutes, we can help remedy that. We’ve pared down the past week’s news into one easy-to-digest article for all things Xbox! Or, if you’d rather watch than read, you can feast your eyes on our weekly video show above. Be sure to come back every Friday to find out what’s happening This Week on Xbox!
Xbox Celebrates Your Year in Gaming This is our favorite time of year when we can all come together and celebrate community shenanigans. We marvel at how one million of you managed to reach the top 10 in a battle royale without panning anyone, just as much as we relish… Read more
New Games with Gold for January 2019 Welcome to another Games with Gold reveal for Xbox One and Xbox 360! In January on Xbox One, play the highly acclaimed platformer Celeste, then show off your mud-driving skills in WRC 6 FIA World Rally Championship. On Xbox 360 and… Read more
Celebrating Gaming, Community and What #MyXbox Can Mean for You Xbox recently hosted a celebration of gaming with a #MyXbox holiday event at the Flagship Microsoft Store in New York City. I’m on the Xbox Community Team and had the pleasure of serving as event emcee and helped lead this gathering that… Read more
Operation Absolute Zero Brings a New Kind of Cold War to Black Ops 4 Hello, Xbox fans! Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Operation Absolute Zero starts December 18. This second free season of content introduces a new Specialist to the line-up, along with tons of gameplay and customization items. In Blackout, winter has arrived… Read more
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is the journey of a broken Celtic warrior on a vision quest to save the soul of her dead lover from Viking Hell. Hellblade was developed and published independently by a small team with a limited budget. As such, our developers… Read more
What’s Hellfront: Honeymoon and How to Be Really, Really Good at It Now that Hellfront: Honeymoon has launched on Xbox One, it’s time to ask yourself: What is it, and more importantly, how do you get better at it than your friends? No worries! The developers of SkyGoblin are here to help answer these profoundly important questions… Read more
39 Days to Mars Coming Soon to Xbox One I’m excited to announce that 39 Days to Mars will be coming to Xbox One in 2019! 39 Days to Mars is a co-operative steampunk puzzle-adventure game, that’s been designed from the very start to support two people playing together. You step into the shoes… Read more
Journey to Find The First Tree, Available Now on Xbox One I never thought I’d say this, but after all the blood, sweat, and tears, The First Tree is available today on Xbox One. Why is that unbelievable? I started this project as a simple way to tell a story and deal with the ideas of death, loss, and hope, and I didn’t think… Read more
State of Decay 2 Soundtrack Available on Vinyl Today As 4 million players have been writing their own survival story in State of Decay 2, they’ve been enjoying BAFTA award-winning and Billboard / MTV VMA nominated Danish composer’s Jesper Kyd soundtrack, which is available on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon… Read more
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Now Available with Xbox Game Pass As if you needed any more reason to pick up Xbox Game Pass – Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is now available for Xbox Game Pass members! With its release into the catalog today, Xbox Game Pass members will have the chance to join Senua… Read more
Today we’re unveiling lists of the top selling and top played games on Steam in 2018! Like last year, we’ve built five lists – Top Sellers, Top New Releases, Top Selling VR Titles, Top Early Access Grads, and Most Played Games.
Top Sellers
We started with the basics by looking at overall Top Sellers. This is a list of the games that earned the most revenue in 2018, which includes all different kinds of Steam revenue; game sales, in-game transactions, and DLC. The resulting list includes a mix of free-to-play and premium games.
This page highlights the 150 top-selling games released in 2018, split out by their month of release. To build this list, we looked at a combination of first-week revenue and overall revenue in 2018 to create a list of games that had achieved a sizable level of commercial success, regardless of when during the year each title released.
We find it pretty interesting how much variation there is from month to month. For example, December is a busy month and a lot of activity to compete with, so it’s understandable that it might be a less desirable month to release in. But April only had 5 releases that made our list and July only had 6, whereas February was the busiest month with 22 popular releases.
This year again saw over 1,000 new releases with Virtual Reality support, with almost all of those (over 900) being VR-only experiences. Top VR sellers included new releases such as Beat Saber, Blade & Sorcery, Budget Cuts, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR, plus some of last-year’s top hits including Fallout 4 VR and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality. There were even some classics appearing in top for the third year in a row, such as RAW DATA and Arizona Sunshine.
Our list this year highlights the leading VR titles by sharing the 100 top selling VR titles of 2018, plus a new section on the page for the top 20 VR releases of 2018.
This year’s batch of notable titles launching through Steam Early Access includes the hugely popular games Raft and SCUM, and the VR-only experience Beat Saber. Meanwhile many popular titles such as DayZ, The Forest, and RimWorld made their transition from Early Access to full release in 2018.
We wanted to recognize the games that have worked hard to build happy communities and make the transition from Early Access to full release this year. So, we’ve put together a list of the top 50 games that transitioned out of Early Access to full release during 2018, as measured by revenue earned during 2018 (during Early Access and after full release).
The Most Played Games list contains games that had more than 15,000 simultaneous players at some point during the year. To fully recognize the games that have built a significant community and player base, we’ve excluded a number of games that only had short-term spikes in player count due to running giveaways.
We don’t disclose specific revenue for the lists, but top sellers are broken into four categories in order to give you an idea of how they placed:
Platinum: 1st – 12th Top Seller Gold: 13th – 24th Top Seller Silver: 25th – 40th Top Seller Bronze: 41st – 100th Top Seller
Thanks for reading, and for another great year on Steam! We’re constantly surprised by the amazing new games that seem to come out of nowhere, delight their audiences and end up on these lists (and in our Steam libraries) by year-end.
Also, don’t forget to check out the Steam Winter Sale, on now through January 3rd. Many of the titles in the lists above are on great discounts, and these lists are a great way to see which games were resonating the most with players this year.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 01-05-2019, 09:05 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Player Support Report – 1/3/2019
Things are just beginning to spin back up here at Bungie. Team members are slowly returning from holiday break, and This Week at Bungie will return on January 10 when we’re at full force. Until then, the Player Support team is here with an update on our current investigations.
Helping Hands
Ghosts of Dawnings Past
With the Dawning in the rear-view mirror, here are a few notes we’d like to make about the inventories of participating players.
Eva’s Holiday Oven has been removed from the Pursuits inventories of all players.
Along with Eva’s Holiday Oven, all ingredients for Dawning recipes have been removed from the inventories of all players.
Incomplete Dawning Cheer Sparrow upgrades have been removed from the Pursuits inventories of all players.
Leftover Essences of the Dawning have been removed from the Consumables inventories of all players.
The Dawning Cheer Sparrow perks “Happy Dawning” and “Dawning Dare” are no longer active following the conclusion of the Dawning.
All incomplete or unclaimed Triumphs from the Dawning have expired, and have been hidden in the Triumphs screen.
If dismantled, eligible players may reclaim the following Dawning rewards from their respective collections: the “Dawning Cheer” Sparrow, the “Affinity’s Gift” ship, and the “Holiday Treats” and “Delicious Benefactor” emblems.
Dawning armor from the Winterdrift Engram, which feature randomized perks, cannot be reclaimed from collections if dismantled.
Players encountering other issues following the conclusion of the Dawning should report to the #Help forum.
Destiny 2: Forsaken and Season of the Forge Vital Information and Known Issues
In addition to the items listed above, Destiny Player Support would like to remind players of the currently tracked vital information and known issues which players should be aware of in Destiny 2.
Forge Key Issues: We are investigating an issue where forge keys may not be counting toward the Mysterious Box, and players aren’t able to obtain another key.
Ada-1 Weapon Frames: In addition to the existing issue where players may lose access to weapon frames during the week, we are investigating another issue where weapon frames are not received when a player’s Pursuit inventory is full, but materials are consumed anyway.
Calculated Trajectory: We are investigating an issue where the Calculated Trajectory medal is not appearing in Iron Banner.
No Feelings: We are investigating an issue where the No Feelings Scout Rifle does not correctly track kills when Masterworked.
Ace of Spades: We are investigating player reports indicating that Memento Mori is cancelling early when reload is initiated, then interrupted by sprinting.
Braytech RWP Mk. II: We are investigating player reports stating that the Braytech RWP Mk. II Scout Rifle cannot be infused above 600 Power.
Blast Furnace: We are investigating player reports describing Blast Furnace losing extra ammo on trigger pull when its magazine is overloaded by Ambitious Assassin.
Through the remainder of the week, I’ll be deep in the Destiny 2 and Feedback forums on Bungie.net, collecting your thoughts to pass on to the team. Have feedback on the Forges, Iron Banner, or other topics? Sound off!
Alright, Alright, Alright. 2019 on the field. Be notorious.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 01-05-2019, 08:55 AM - Forum: Lounge
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TickTock Studios acquired by Rebellion and rebranded as ‘Rebellion North’
Sniper Elite and Strange Brigade developer Rebellion has acquired Yorkshire-based studio TickTock Games for an undisclosed fee.
TickTock will become Rebellion’s fourth UK studio — joining Rebellion Liverpool and Rebellion Warwick as sister studios to the company’s headquarters in Oxford — and will be known as ‘Rebellion North’ moving forward.
For those unfamiliar with TickTock, the company has recently worked on a couple of Rebellion titles including Rogue Trooper Redux and the Switch version of Battlezone Gold Edition.
“Bringing more great people to the company is a great way to start 2019,” said Rebellion CEO and co-founder Jason Kingsley OBE in a press release.
“The company continues to grow and it’s important we bring in the right people as part of that process. We’ve worked with the team at TickTock Games for a while now, and we know they’ll continue to prosper as Rebellion North.”
