Join over 10 million players in the award-winning online multiplayer RPG and experience limitless adventure in a persistent Elder Scrolls world. Be part of an ever-expanding story across Tamriel and travel to the stunning home of the High Elves in the latest Chapter of ESO to save the world from destruction.
First, do no harm. From the award-winning team behind Thomas Was Alone and Subsurface Circular comes another experimental short, the next mutation in text-based adventure. In the middle of a world-ending pandemic, a group of scientists discover the galaxy has been watching.
Ancestors Legacy is a squad-based real time strategy with a strong focus on tactics. Inspired by medieval European history, it brings to life four different nations and their conflicts, usually solved by war.
Inspired by the short called ?Kara?, Detroit is a neo-noir thriller set in the near-future city of Detroit. Androids, who look exactly like human beings, have replaced humans in most tasks: they are workers, babysitters, gardeners, nurses, teachers, clerks. The story of Detroit starts with an unexplained incident that begins to affect the Androids. Some disappear without any explanation, others have unexpected behaviors and strangely show signs of emotions. The rumors of ?deviant? androids start spreading, but no one seems to know what?s really happening... [Quantic Dream]
We Happy Few refused classification by Australian ratings board
The regulatory board that doles out ratings for games seeking release in Australia has refused classification to Compulsion Games’ We Happy Few, effectively banning the sale of the game in the country.
The game is one of just many to be slapped with ‘RC’ label through the years, alongside games like Saints Row IV and a host of mobile titles, as a result of the country’s infamously strict rating process.
Though Australia’s rating board has loosened up in some ways by adding an 18+ classification to its system, it’s still fairly common to hear of games being refused release based on violence, sexual content, or in-game drug use.
When refused classification, developers have the option of cutting offending content from their game and resubmitting to the board in hopes of receiving a rating the second time around, but, that isn’t always feasible for every developer.
In the case of We Happy Few, the Australian Classification Board explains that the game falls under section 1(a) of the National Classification Code’s computer games table covers games that “depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified.”
Electronic Arts announced its acquisition of the cloud gaming technology assets and personnel of GameFly today.
This will likely open up more possibilities for the company to expand its reach of games through streaming to more players on more devices.
The acquisition makes sense for EA, considering GameFly launched a game streaming service back in 2015 through Amazon’s Fire TV streaming box which featured a console-like controller with gamepad.
The service consisted of packages of games organized by genre, and offered unlimited access to seven titles for a monthly fee.
Before that however, GameFly acquired the Israel-based streaming startup Playcast Media in 2009, where the company launched a pilot program with Israeli cable networks to stream games directly to users’ television sets.
According to a press release announcing the deal, GameFly will join EA’s functional teams, including the central technology organization that is responsible for developing and operating the platform that powers EA’s games and services.
Build Your Streaming Library with These Indie Favorites
We’re living in the era of the live streamer and it’s never been easier to start broadcasting your gameplay to millions of viewers around the world through Mixer. Which is why ID@Xbox Game Fest Week 3 will feature some of our favorite games to stream, making this week a wonderful time to pick up that game for your favorite streamer (or yourself) who won’t stop talking about:
Descenders(Xbox Game Preview)– Launching into ID@Xbox Game Fest with stunning visuals and Mixer interaction. Descenders is extreme downhill free-riding for the modern era with procedurally generated worlds, and where mistakes have real consequences. In Descenders, your team is your life. When you pick a side — Enemy, Arboreal, or Kinetic — you’ll be bound together with other players who choose the same side as you. Grab your bike, pick your team, and attempt to live up to the legend of your Descender.
Darwin Project(Xbox Game Preview)–Darwin Project is an outdoor, futuristic, 10-player battle royale style deathmatch game with a strong emphasis on hunting, trapping, and survival. Not only will you be pitted against fierce rivals, but you’ll compete for the favor of an all-seeing Show Director. Featuring arcade-style third-person combat, the fighting system is at once primal, with the main weapons being an ax and bow, and futuristic with powers such as teleportation and energy shields. The twist is the addition of a Show Director, a player character that runs the show, spicing things up or balancing as need be.
Cuphead– Winner of nearly every video game design award under the sun, Cuphead is a classic run-and-gun action game heavily focused on boss battles. Inspired by cartoons of the 1930s, the visuals and audio are painstakingly created with the same techniques of the era, i.e. traditional hand-drawn cel animation, watercolor backgrounds, and original jazz recordings. Play as Cuphead or Mugman (in single-player or local co-op) as you traverse strange worlds, acquire new weapons, learn powerful super moves, and discover hidden secrets while you try to pay your debt back to the devil!
Friday the 13th: The Game – Now you can play as Jason Voorhees, one of the most infamous characters in horror films. Stalk your prey, ambush them whenever you see fit and strike fear in the hearts of so many hapless victims as you become the legend himself! Friday the 13th: The Game will include a variety of kills, new and familiar, that will help you set the tone for the Jason Voorhees that you want to be. You’ll even get to unlock various Jason incarnations from the movies! Jason will be equipped with a terrifying array of abilities, giving you the control of a hunter at the height of his game. These are his woods, and he knows them all too well. Jason will not only feed off the fear of his victims but will become stronger as the night progresses. The darker the night, the more terrifying Jason becomes!
Hello Neighbor – Hello Neighbor has generated over 1 billion video views. See what the sensation is all about in this stealth horror game about sneaking into your neighbor’s house to figure out what horrible secrets he’s hiding in the basement. You play against an advanced AI that learns from your every move. Really enjoying climbing through that backyard window? Expect a bear trap there. Sneaking through the front door? There’ll be cameras there soon. Trying to escape? The Neighbor will find a shortcut and catch you.
Subnautic (Xbox Game Preview) – Explore the beautiful and sometimes terrifying world of Subnautica, an underwater open world adventure game. Craft equipment, pilot submarines, and out-smart alien wildlife to explore lush coral reefs, volcanoes, and cave systems. Descend into the depths of an underwater world filled with resources, creatures, wonder, and threats all while trying to survive.
This is just a small sample of all the great games included in ID@Xbox Game Fest. The stream theme will run from May 15 through May 21, so pick up these great games now before it’s too late.
To see all titles included in the third week of ID@Xbox Game Fest visit Xbox.com and check back every week to see what’s new.
‘Oops’ is a word you’ll often see in N++, but it never quite epitomises the correct feeling of watching your tiny ninja avatar splatter into a thousand pieces from a landmine. Nor will it truly capture the frustration of watching them mulch into a pile of limbs because you missed landing a jump by a fraction. It does, however, give you a sense of the game you’re playing; one where you’re taxed by nimble movement, often unfair circumstances and rooms of death. Seeing the word ‘Oops’ on the death screen feels like the developer is giving you a mocking nudge in the ribs as it goads you into trying one more time, because after all, the concept of the game is very simple: run and jump.
There is no plot for N++ and there doesn’t need to be. The game spells this out clearly in the ‘story’ section of the main menu – you’re a ninja, you like gold, you’re incredibly fast, but this means your natural lifetime is only 1.5 minutes. You like exploring rooms and they come in sets of five. It’s obvious that the developer made a great game based around precision platforming, then stuck its tongue firmly in its cheek to add on a story. N++ doesn’t need a narrative, it needs good mechanics and interesting level design. And it has these in spades.
The aim of each episode is to reach a button which opens the exit to the level, thus ending the episode before your lifespan of 90 seconds runs out. This can be topped up by collecting gold pick-ups strewn around the room, each adding a small increment of time and giving you a little longer to reach the end. Not that there’s really an end in sight as the game features hundreds of levels and the ability to download more from creators across the world.
This is pure bitesize gaming. A level can take just a few seconds to complete, even with numerous deaths a room will be reset repeatedly until you finally land the movement you need, but it will take mere minutes. Rarely does a set of rooms require a marathon session, unless you want to play the ‘hardcore’ mode, which changes up the rules and puts more emphasis on balance. In ‘hardcore’, time restraints become stricter and deaths don’t reset the clock, it keeps ticking away piling on pressure and forcing you to decide between taking a chance to score more gold or just dash for the exit.
Of course, our tiny ninja has many obstacles in their way. There are turrets that blast lasers, others that launch homing missiles. Robots dash towards you intent on killing if you step into their line of sight, there are landmines everywhere and lots of glowing orbs that cause you to explode upon touching them. And all you’re armed with is a jump button.
Admittedly, that jump button is pretty special. A brief tap and you’ll effectively hop over gaps; hold it longer and the ninja will soar through the air. Get a bit of a run-up and momentum will launch you across the rooms with carefree abandon. Momentum is key to N++, without it your ninja will fall to their death or simply miss jumps resulting in a loss of time. Sprinting up ramps and hitting jump at just the right point is all there is to it, but it’s not that easy. If only it were.
Our ninja is a floaty little swine. He can be hard to control at points and often feels like a helium balloon on the loose. It’s easy for him to drift off course, especially if you prefer the stick to the D-pad and this isn’t ideal when running through tight corridors of bombs or landing on minuscule platforms. Considering this, N++ is still precision platforming at its best and its unforgiving angle is part of the charm.
Some rooms feel structured to drive you insane, leaving gold pieces in places that seem impossible to reach and you’ll want to try getting them all if your goal is to hit that lofty 100% mark in the stats screen. This screen, it must be said, is incredibly detailed. So if you like analysing where you go wrong or which levels you can better, the devs have you covered.
More gold and more levels means customisation. Change the colour of the ninja, give them a jaunty scarf that flutters through the air and you can even change up the music or colour palettes of the levels. These are purely cosmetic changes, the base controls never change, but it is nice to put your own spin on how things look. And while the game is very minimalist, it achieves a beauty in its simplicity. The animation of the ninja is just lovely and everything feels butter smooth. Some may find it hard to constantly watch such a small sprite move around, however. It can be a strain on the eyes.
That’s a small quibble because N++ is a joy to play. The difficulty ramps up slowly and steadily and even when the rooms become harder, you know that you just have to adapt your skillset. You can always rope in a friend or three for some co-op play or race through the obstacles. This spices up the playstyle greatly and brings a competitive edge to proceedings. As mentioned previously, there’s a lot of content here and while the servers weren’t online for community creations, there’s bound to be a wealth of new levels vetted by the developer itself every day.
Conclusion
Bags of levels and increasing difficulty will keep N++ refreshing for hours and days on end. The mechanics are simple and yet incredibly deep, which opens up a wonderful game brimming with customisation options and new modes to try out. Floaty controls sometimes hamper progress, but the deaths are always spectacular.
This week at Bungie, we lit the Iron Banner again.
Iron Banner 6v6 is back for Season 3. To celebrate its return, we added a reprised version of the Bannerfall map to the playlist. This was another fan favorite we brought forward by popular demand. It will be available in the Iron Banner playlist until the next reset, when it will become available in Quick Play, Competitive, and Private Matches for all players of Destiny 2. You also might see it in Trials this weekend, but we’ll know that for sure tomorrow!
Hive Annihilation
Escalation Protocol has been live for two weeks now. Ever since the launch of Warmind, we’ve seen Guardians bravely battling hordes of Hive on Mars. The bravest among you have gone on to defeat seven levels of bosses. As always, combat leads to feedback. Today, we’re responding to a popular request for new matchmaking systems that would unite nine players in battle. Lead Designer Jacob Benton has some comments about this new activity in Destiny.
What were the design goals for Escalation Protocol?
Jacob: Escalation Protocol was designed to be a high-difficulty endgame activity for a max-level, three-player fireteam. Other players in the world can contribute to make it easier, but they shouldn’t be required as long as your team is highly skilled and coordinated. We have received a lot of feedback since the original launch of Destiny 2 that players felt like reaching max Power was not satisfying. There weren’t enough activities that required and rewarded that level of commitment. Escalation Protocol was designed to fill that gap.
So this activity was not specifically designed for nine players?
Other than Raid Activities, all PvE activities and private spaces are optimized for three players to allow for multiple types of activities in the space. So no, it wasn’t designed for it, but it’s not a surprise that it’s easier with nine players, given how under-leveled most of us are right now. We knew that players would use the same creative workarounds to get nine players into a space similar to Court of Oryx, but we did not specifically tune the difficulty around requiring that many players.
Any plans to enable larger fireteams in the future?
We’ve had a lot of conversations here about what to do to answer the community’s feedback. We’re going to continue to monitor as more players progress up to max Power and are able to attempt Escalation Protocol at the difficulty it was designed for and we’ll determine what, if any action, is necessary. We also hear players are really enjoying large groups of players fighting against enemies, so we’ll use that feedback to inform our future plans.
Armor Updates
We kicked off the beginning of Season 3 with changes to Exotic Weapons. “What about the armor?” has been a popular question. Today, we’re going to start answering it. This is the first wave of changes—the next are currently slated to come in July. Sandbox Designer Victor Anderson has the facts on what you can expect on May 29.
Victor: We’ve received a lot of feedback on Exotic Armor in Destiny 2. With 1.2.0, we introduced changes to Exotic Weapons to make them punchier and more compelling, and with the 1.2.1 release, we’re taking steps to update some of the existing Exotic Armor.
It’s my hope that the changes to Exotic Armor will result in more interesting choices, whether you’re doing a strike or going for wins in the Crucible. When deciding to update the Exotic perks, our goal was to keep the identity of the Exotics the same, even if the way they influence your playstyle is slightly different.
With the release of 1.2.1, we’re updating six pieces of Exotic Armor, two for each class, and we will be updating more in the future. Please note that any mechanical changes are in addition to the already established effects unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Titan
Synthoceps
Mechanical Changes—Previously, the perk adjusted your melee damage depending on the number of enemies surrounding you. Now it grants a flat bonus to melee and Super damage when you’re surrounded by three or more enemies. The buff is retained for a short duration after you are no longer surrounded.
Although Synthoceps has gotten a fair bit of love in the Crucible, players are often focused on the increased lunge rate. The outgoing damage bonus was hard to appreciate and plan around with it being so variable in nature. With this change, you will be able to feel the impact more often in all scenarios, particularly in PvE.
Lion Rampant
Mechanical Changes—You can hipfire while Lift is active without interrupting it, and your aerial hipfire doesn’t have an aerial accuracy penalty.
The Lion Rampant was focused around Lift and how it impacts your playstyle and tactics, so we decided to push further in that direction, emphasizing fast moving aerial assault.
Hunter
The Dragon’s Shadow
Mechanical Changes—Dodging reloads all weapons simultaneously. The effects of Wraithmetal Mail now also include a bonus to mobility.
Although the Dragon’s Shadow does have a small following, we wanted to make it more useful in a general sense under even neutral conditions, while keeping in the theme of a fast-moving ninja.
Mechaneer’s Tricksleeves
Mechanical Changes—Swapping to a sidearm while critically wounded greatly increases its damage.
We went for the fantasy of a holdout weapon; the pistol tucked into your sleeve that you pull out in an emergency to save you. These changes should let you turn around a fight more easily.
Warlock
Lunafaction Boots
Mechanical Changes—Rift reload is automatic instead of being activated on entry/exit. Empowering Rift makes weapons more effective at extended ranges.
Players having to dip in and out of the Rift to reload their weapons was not consistent with other Rift effects, particularly with the overshield effect on Healing Rift. It’s been made automatic to be easier to understand and use. As this is a more offensive choice in terms of Rift Exotics, we also wanted to further reward players who want to double down with Empowering Rift instead of playing it safe with Healing Rift.
Sunbracers
Mechanical Changes—Original effect replaced with: Increases the duration of Solar Grenades. Solar melee kills grant unlimited Solar Grenade energy for a brief time.
While effective under some circumstances in terms of things like flat damage output with your Solar Grenade, Sunbracers didn’t feel flashy enough for gloves where your hands are perpetually on fire. So, while retaining the original flavor of “The Solar Grenade Exotic Armor,” we’ve scaled up the potential output significantly to give the player a strong taste of power on a more frequent basis.
Bungie Versus
A few weeks ago we kicked off a new type of stream where we have a friendly match against a predetermined team of worthy opponents. Our friends at Vicarious Visions have put their quarters down and called next.
If you are not familiar with VV, they have partnered with us to create awesome content for Destiny 2. They want to show off their Crucible skills and see whether they can defeat us in a friendly exhibition. Here are the details:
Bungie Versus Vicarious Visions
May 30 at 11 a.m. PDT
Team Vicarious Visions
1. Barry Morales, Production
2. Chris Pietrocarli, Art
3. Paddy Hennessy, Engineering
4. Dave Keenan, Art
Team Bungie
1. Dmg04, Community
2. Cozmo, Community
3. Kevin Yanes, Crucible
4. Victor Anderson, Sandbox
This will be a best-of-five match. Bungie will pick two game types, and VV will also pick two. The final game will be Mayhem on Bannerfall.
Good luck, have fun.
Fixing to Fix It
We have another update inbound. Destiny Player Support is here to tell you when your bits are scheduled to arrive and what you need to know about the upcoming patch.
This is their report.
Update 1.2.1 Release
Destiny 2 services will undergo maintenance on Tuesday, May 29, 2018. No downtime is expected. During this time, Destiny 2 Update 1.2.1 will become available to players. Please see below for the timeline of the maintenance window.
9 a.m. PDT (1600 UTC)
Destiny 2 server maintenance is scheduled to begin
No downtime is expected
Destiny 2 Update 1.2.1 will be available to download and install
1 p.m. PDT (2000 UTC)
Destiny 2 server maintenance is scheduled to conclude
Players who have not installed Update 1.2.1 will be removed from activities to begin the download and install process
Patch Note Preview
Here’s a quick overview of issues that should be resolved in Destiny Update 1.2.1:
Fixed an issue where players would lose Glory Rank Points for leaving a match too soon after the match ends
Fixed an issue where the Clan XP Milestone was not granting a powerful reward
Fixed an issue where Vanguard Boons would block progression of strike-specific quest steps and milestones
Fixed an issue where Shriekers would close too quickly during Warsat public events, thus blocking players’ ability to trigger a Heroic public event
Fixed an issue where Calus’s shields required too much damage to break after Destiny Update 1.2.0
Fixed an issue where players would experience long load times for Iron Banner matches on PC
The full patch notes will be made available on Tuesday, May 29. Stay tuned to @Bungie on Twitter for further announcements.
Bungie.net API Issue: Item Equip Currently Disabled
This week, we identified an issue where players could reach 385 Power within a short amount of time if characters had no items equipped in their weapon inventories. Characters could enter this state only by using the item equip functionality available through the Bungie.net API. As such, the ability to equip or unequip items through the API has been disabled until we can resolve the issue. While players may still transfer items from character to character, any item that is equipped will need to be unequipped within Destiny 2 before it can be transferred using the Destiny Companion App or any third-party application.
The ability to equip items is one of the most used features available through the API, and the decision to disable this functionality was not made without our weighing the impact it would have on the community. To preserve the meaning behind reaching max Power, we decided that this action needed to be taken.
Once a solution to this issue has been identified, we will provide updates on when to expect a hotfix that will allow us to enable these features once more. Stay tuned to @BungieHelp on Twitter for updates.
Please Recycle Your 3-D Glasses
It’s time for our Movie of the Week. This is a recurring segment where we find cool videos that the community has made and award their creators with a special emblem, the Lens of Fate.
Movie of the Week: Magic Bullet
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Honorable Mention: No Guns No Problem (warning: language)
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If you would like to enter a submission, post it to the Creations page and make sure you have your player name in the description of the video.
Twitch Master Scott wanted me to let you know that we have set up a Discord server that is attached to our Twitch account. We’re not using it for messaging; there are plenty of Destiny 2 communities for you to seek out on Discord. We wanted to ensure any subscribers who are supporting the Bungie Foundation can use our Twitch emotes while on Discord. For more info on how, go here.
