With 2018 coming to a close, we here at Xbox Wire decided that now would be the perfect time to start looking ahead to some of the big games coming out in 2019. There are already a lot of them on the books, many of which will be coming out during the first few months of the year. While there’s already a decent amount of info on these titles, we’ve found that it can be tough to figure out details with all of the information spread out across the web. So, with that in mind, we’ll be spending the rest of the year taking a closer look at some of 2019’s biggest games and pulling together as much info as we can into one place. Today, we look at Anthem from Electronic Arts.
When was Anthem announced?
Anthem was originally announced at E3 2017.
When will Anthem be released?
Anthem launches on February 22 on Xbox One.
What sort of game is Anthem?
Anthem is a multiplayer action RPG that thrusts you into a savage world filled with threats. You’ll assume the role of a Freelancer, a job that entails using your super-powered exosuit to take down enemies and save humanity – all while exploring the marvelous terrain along the way.
Who’s making it?
Anthem is being developed by BioWare, the same studio behind the “Mass Effect” and “Dragon Age” franchises.
What is the story about?
Gods known as the Shapers have harnessed a tool called The Anthem to create the world in which the game takes place – a planet rife with creatures and monsters. However, the gods disappeared before their work was completed, leaving behind the various instruments they’ve used to construct the world. The overwhelming power that these tools contain, known as The Anthem, have caused insanely strong cataclysms to occur, posing threats to mankind.
This is where those javelin exosuits come in. The handcrafted armor endows you with superhuman abilities and was created to help humanity survive the harsh conditions created by the planet’s ancestors.
That might sound like an enormous undertaking, but you won’t be tackling this challenge alone. Your crew is well-equipped to help you navigate these missions, with each member offering its own advantage and perspective. Haluk is a legendary Freelancer that younger Freelancers look up to, while Fay Navine possesses the rare gift of mental communication. Owen Corely is a new Freelancer largely defined by his ambition and enthusiasm.
Tell me more about these javelin suits.
The world of Anthem includes four different types of javelin exosuits, which players can unlock as they progress through the game. Each javelin is equipped with its own unique characteristics, and players will be able to jump between them to upgrade the skills of their pilot as well as their javelins.
Players start the game with the versatile combat-ready Ranger javelin, known for its focus on precise damage and access to a wide variety of weapons. The Colossus javelin is a powerhouse with an appetite for destruction that’s ideal for fending off hordes of enemies, while the small and sleek Interceptor offers superior evasion and agility. The Storm javelin is powered by elemental forces that enable pilots to float above the ground, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of defense making it best-suited for experts.
What will multiplayer gameplay be like?
Anthem is designed to be played with a team, especially when it comes to combat. With a full team, you can divide and conquer rather than spending most of the match dodging hits from enemy waves. You’ll be able to jump into a friend’s mission at any point and won’t be disadvantaged if you’re at a significantly lower power level than the people you’re playing with. And if your whole team wants to use the same type of javelin, that’s also totally fine. Anthem doesn’t require specific roles to be filled on a team like some traditional RPGs.
What’s the combat like?
Your javelin exosuit provides a range of tools to help you in battle, enabling you to move effortlessly throughout the battlefield to attack enemies at range and up-close. Striking an enemy’s weak spots will deal bonus damage, and Ultimate Abilities such as the Colossus javelin’s Siege Cannon can result in devastatingly effective blows. Javelins are also designed to be highly customizable so that you can adjust its qualities based on your play style. As you progress through the game, you’ll collect equipment that can be used to upgrade your javelin’s capabilities.
Will I be able to play it before launch?
Yes, there will be a VIP Demo and an Open Demo prior to launch. The VIP will take place from Jan. 25-Jan. 27, and there are three ways to gain access: pre-ordering Anthem, subscribing to EA All Access or subscribing to Origin All Access during the demo period. The Open Demo will take place from Feb. 1-3 that will be available to everyone on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.
Is Anthem Xbox One X Enhanced?
It sure is!
What versions of the game will be available?
Standard Edition which includes a pre-order incentive which includes the Legion of Dawn Ranger Armor Pack and Legendary weapon, Founders banner, plus VIP access to pre-launch demos. The Legion of Dawn Edition gives you the complete set of Legion of Dawn Javelin Armor Packs, Legendary weapon and gear attachment, and digital soundtrack. Pre-orders also receive the Anthem Pre-Order Bonus, which includes VIP Access to pre-launch demos.
Previous Xbox Wire coverage:
On Wednesday we’ll take a look at Ubisoft’s The Division 2.
Daily Deal – Planetary Annihilation: TITANS, 75% Off
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.
Origins developer Stardock has been engaged in a lengthy legal battle with Reiche and Ford over the trademarks and copyrights to the Star Control franchise, and criticized the duo for choosing to “bypass” the legal system “by issuing vague DMCA take-down notices to Steam and GOG.”
“We attempted to get a preliminary art injunction to prevent them from issuing more false DMCA take down notices. Unfortunately, the court ruled that it wasn’t the courts’ place to intervene in the area of DMCAs. Thus, here we are.” wrote Stardock on the Steam forums.
“To my knowledge, never in the history of our industry has anyone attempted to use the DMCA system to take down a shipping game before. For those not familiar with copyright law, you cannot copyright ideas, individual or short phrases, concepts, mechanics, or game designs.”
With Stardock having said its piece, Reiche and Ford have now shared their version of events, and reiterated their view that Star Control: Origins is “substantially similar” to their work on Star Control II.
Starting from the top, the designers confirmed they agreed to refrain from serving new DMCA notices while a judge looked at an injunction filed by Stardock, but that after the studio’s motion was denied, they had every right to push forward with their DMCA takedown against Origins.
“As you might guess, we are going to continue defending our copyrights against what we feel and contend in the lawsuit is infringement by Stardock, so we served new DMCA notices late last week,” commented Reiche and Ford.
“[Stardock CEO] Brad Wardell has said repeatedly ‘you can’t copyright a word’ which seems to mean that that if you break down creative work into its component parts, those component parts are too trivial to be protected.
“Of course that’s crazy. Copyright protects original literary and artistic works that are simply specific combination of words, or images, or other content.”
The pair also emphasized the importance of understanding what Stardock actually purchased when it acquired the ‘Star Control Franchise’ in Atari’s bankruptcy auction. Indeed, they claim Star Control only actually bought the registration to the trademark ‘Star Control,’ and the copyright to the original parts of Star Control 3.
“The bankruptcy paperwork was very specific that anything not listed was excluded. Not Star Control, Star Control II, the unreleased Star Control 4, packaging art — none of that was included in the auction,” they added.
Getting to the nitty gritty, the duo also claim Stardock received a copy of their 1998 contract with Star Control 3 developer Accolade so it could understand the exact terms under which material had been licensed.
That contract apparently didn’t grant any additional property to Stardock, but the studio now claims it holds all of Accolade’s rights and has also applied for “tons of trademarks” on the names of aliens Riche and Ford invented in Star Control and Star Control II.
What’s more, Reiche and Ford also assert that Star Control: Origins has copied certain gameplay and design elements from Star Control II, thus directly infringing upon their original work.
“Besides the evidence of infringement identified in our most recent filings with the court, let’s compare the expression in a very limited part of the gameplay — interstellar travel. One would presume that Stardock would either make entirely new gameplay for Origins or base it upon the original parts of SC3,” they wrote, referencing the comparison table pictured below.
“It’s clear to us that Stardock chose to make Origins substantially similar to Star Control II instead of using the original material they purchased in Star Control 3. We don’t claim to have a copyright on all interstellar travel, but we do have a copyright on the specific way we expressed interstellar travel in Star Control II.
“We see many such examples in Star Control: Origins where its expression is substantially similar to and/or derivative of our copyright-protected work, without our permission.”
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 01-07-2019, 05:37 AM - Forum: Lounge
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First Look At New "Mad Box" Gaming Console's Design Revealed
Earlier this week, Slightly Mad Studios CEO Ian Bell announced his company was developing the Mad Box, a new standalone video game console to rival the PlayStation and Xbox. Bell has now revealed a few more details about the mysterious platform, including how an early version of it looks.
The first images of the Mad Box were shared on Bell's official Twitter account, which you can see below. The console resembles a PC, with an M-shaped tower and the Slightly Mad Studios logo etched into one side. The system's internal components have been blurred out in the images, however, as Bell says the team is "still in discussions" regarding that. He also notes this is "not the final design."
According to Bell, the Mad Box is very light and features a deployable carry handle on the top so you can easily transport it. He also says the system "will talk to other Mad Boxes without cables," although he didn't elaborate any further on that.
Bell claims the Mad Box is "the most powerful console ever built," featuring specs that "will be equivalent to a very fast PC two years from now." Speaking with Variety, he said the system "will support most major VR headsets" and allow up to 90 frames-per-second "per eye" for virtual reality play. He also says the system will offer 4K visuals.
Pricing and release details for the Mad Box have yet to be announced, but Bell says the system will ship around the world in about three years and be "competitive with upcoming console prices."
Random: Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 Pays Respects To The Nintendo Switch
In February last year, there was a rumour floating about Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 would be released on the Nintendo Switch. In the end, Treyarch’s design director David Vonderhaar ended up laughing off a question about the title possibly coming to the hybrid video game system.
Although Activision doesn’t appear to be bringing the popular first-person shooter across to the Switch anytime soon, the third-party industry giant has seemingly gone to the extent of paying respects to Nintendo’s latest hardware. In the latest entry, players can use real money and in-game currency to purchase unique gestures. One of these emote-like actions is called “Mobile Ops”. Using this action during a match will have your character pull out a portable game system and start playing it.
According to a post on ResetEra, this portable device is apparently a tribute to the Nintendo Switch. As you can see in the first image, it’s matte black, has two analogue sticks, a control pad, shoulder buttons and four circular buttons. We would go to the extent of saying it even looks somewhat similar to an earlier Wii U GamePad prototype.
The game featured on the device is Dead Ops Arcade 2: Cyber’s Avengening, a playable retro-style game from past Call of Duty entries. Disappointingly, it’s not directly playable on this device. It’s sad to say, but at this rate, this might be the closest we ever get to seeing Call of Duty on the Nintendo Switch.
Do you agree think this is a subtle reference to the Switch? Would you like to see a Call of Duty game eventually released on Nintendo’s new device? Tell us below.
DOOM Eternal Composer Recruiting Heavy Metal Choir For Unspecified Project
Last year, Bethesda announced DOOM Eternal would be coming to the Nintendo Switch at QuakeCon. Once again, the studio handling the Switch port will be the specialists at Panic Button.
The hellish soundtrack for the game is being handled by the returning composer Mick Gordon. In what is quite possibly related news, Gordon is calling on the help of a heavy metal choir for an unspecified project.
Providing more information in the below video, Gordon said it wasn’t a contest, but rather an “open invitation”. Candidates will need to be at least 18 years of age and be able to provide a demo of their “killer metal” voice. They’ll also have to fund their own trip to Austin, Texas. The recording session will be a paid and credited gig. If you’re interested, you’ll need to apply before 1st February, with the recording taking place in the first week of March.
As noted by Polygon, Bethesda Softworks officially announced Mick Gordon as the DOOM Eternal composer during E3 2018. With the game expected to arrive later this year, it seems highly likely the hellish choir he requires is for this upcoming release.
What do you make of this? Are you willing to lend your hellish vocals to this unspecified project? Tell us below.
The Entertainment Software Ratings Board has provided another indication that Catherine, Atlus' narrative-driven puzzle game, will be released on PC. The Catherine ESRB listing has been updated to include PC alongside PS3 and Xbox 360, the platforms on which the game was originally released back in 2011. The listing also has Xbox One included in the platforms section, suggesting it may also make its way to Microsoft's console at some point.
This follows a teaser that appeared on the Steam page for Bayonetta, another game published by Atlus' parent company Sega. The teaser was a picture of a sheep, an animal used in Catherine to represent male characters that aren't the protagonist, Vincent. These sheep are usually vying for the affection of Vincent's love interest, Catherine, by way of competing in block-pulling puzzles.
Catherine is set to be re-released on PS4 and PS Vita as Catherine: Full Body, an updated version of the game that will feature new content. Since it's the ESRB listing for the original version of Catherine that's been updated, it could be that the PC release will be the vanilla version of the game, should it materialize.
In GameSpot's Catherine review, Kevin VanOrd said the game is "mature and occasionally profound, exploring themes like sexual fidelity, personal responsibility, and trust. Catherine doesn't just challenge your hand/eye coordination: It challenges your intellect and your emotions."
Nintendo Banked $348 Million In Mobile Revenue Last Year
We’ve already heard how Pokémon GO captured close to $800 million in global revenue last year and now the marketing analysis firm Sensor Tower reports Nintendo’s mobile games made a total of $348 million in 2018.
According to the firm, $117 million was made in the fourth quarter alone – resulting in a 47 percent increase compared to the same period in 2017. This surge is thanks to the release of Dragalia Lost in September, which made around $58.4 million, even though it had a limited launch in five territories.
Fire Emblem Heroes was still Nintendo’s top performing mobile game in 2018, accounting for 66 percent of the Japanese company’s mobile revenue. The game was originally released in February 2017 and has continually proven to be the biggest moneymaker out of all of Nintendo’s smartphone offerings.
Other Nintendo mobile releases include Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Super Mario Run. Pocket Camp made an estimated total of $48.6 million in 2018 – with its revenue down by 44 percent exactly a year after its November release in 2017. Super Mario’s paid version of Run made around $10 million last year and originally arrived in September 2016.
In 2019, Nintendo is expected to release the Mario Kart Tour “service” on mobile before the end of March.
The Messenger was one of the indie highlights of 2018. The developer Sabotage poured a lot of love into this title while drawing inspiration from the original Ninja Gaiden game. If you haven’t already played it, you might want to hurry up. As previously announced, The Messenger will be embarking on a sunny holiday in the form of a free DLC pack titled ‘Picnic Panic’ at some point in 2019.
Based on a recent ‘Q&A’ video featuring the game’s director Thierry Boulanger, more content for The Messenger could also be on the way. The upcoming free DLC was described by Boulanger as an “experiment” to test the waters and was intended to be part of a bigger DLC pack, divided into three separate chapters.
If the free DLC pack ‘Picnic Panic’ can drive sales of the main game and increases its overall value, it could potentially allow the team to keep on releasing more DLC for the title. For more information about this content, view the full video below:
Are you excited to be going on a sunny holiday with The Messenger this year? Tell us in the comments.
Lots More PS4 Game Deals Added To PlayStation Store's EU Sale
Sony's big January PS4 game sale is still ongoing, and now the company has discounted even more titles. Big games like Assassin's Creed Origins, Far Cry 5, and Hitman 2 are going cheap in Europe in addition to the titles that were already discounted.
These deals are in addition to a plethora of discounts that went live in December. Those included such promotions as Battlefield V for £30, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 for £36, and God of War's deluxe edition for £25. The whole sale runs until January 18; for the full list of games on offer, head over to the PlayStation Store.
