In 1997, Age of Empires changed RTS games forever. Today, twenty years later, Age of Empires: Definitive Edition begins that transformation anew with all-new graphics, remastered sound and music, and a smooth UI experience rebuilt from the ground up.
For the first time, the Oculus Rift is the leading VR headset on Steam
Valve’s monthly hardware survey reports that the Oculus Rift has risen in popularity on Steam, to the point that it has knocked the Rift from its usual position as the most used VR headset on the platform.
While the Rift’s new number one ranking is notable and bodes well for the headset’s presence on the typically Vive-led platform, game developers should keep in mind that participation in the hardware and software survey is entirely optional for Steam users, so the data shown doesn’t represent VR use of Steam’s entire user-base as a whole.
All in all, the Rift now boasts roughly 2 percent lead over the Vive. February’s numbers show the Oculus Rift accounting for 47.31 of the VR headsets on the platform, while the Vive is now only used by 45.38 percent of reporting VR users.
Both PC-bound headsets have received a fair number of price cuts during the last year or so that could be responsible for the slow rise in VR usage, and Oculus has notably been more aggressive than HTC when slicing prices.
The last cut from Oculus knocked $100 off of the price tag, bringing the Rift headset and controller bundle down to $399. One month earlier, the price of the Vive dropped from $799 to $599, though, even with the $200 cut, HTC’s headset is still a fair bit more expensive than the Rift.
Overall, roughly .28 percent of reporting Steam users have VR headset plugged into their PC. Looking at Steam’s entire reporting userbase as a whole, the Rift is now used by .14 percent of users, up .02 percent from January, while the HTC Vive is used by .13 percent, up .01 percent from last month.
While the percentages show an increase, Valve notably doesn’t release the number of users that use each headset or the number of people that opt into the hardware survey overall, so the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.
Echo takes players to a palatial space station, one eerily filled with clones of the heroine that shift and adapt to the player’s style, taking their actions as their own. Before long, players will have to learn how to defeat their own tactics and combat movements, constantly trying to stay ahead of themselves.
Gamasutra spoke with Martin Emborg of ULTRA ULTRA, developers of the Excellence in Visual Art-nominated title, to talk about creating the striking space station players will battle through, as well as the thematic and gameplay concerns that were addressed by the game’s art style.
What’s your background in making games?
After graduating from the Danish Design School, I got a job at IO-Interactive, and I ended up staying with them for almost 10 years! During that time, I got to try my hand at many of the disciplines that go into making a good gaming experience, learning from some wonderful people – a few of which actually ended up joining Ultra Ultra to make Echo!
How did you come up with the concept?
We’ve been asked this many times, but man, it’s a hard question… The Palace itself was probably the original spark, inspired in part by Jorge Luis Borges’ The Library of Babel, which Christel (who wrote Echo) had introduced me to. We both have a strong affinity for high concept science fiction, and especially the kind that confronts you with the unknown. We wanted that sense of awe and wonder, and the idea of a planet-sized splendid maze certainly had the potential to provide that. But what would you face in those maddeningly infinite halls? It’s hard to separate idea from process after the fact, but somewhere along the line came the idea of you coming face to face with yourself, and we ran with it!
What development tools were used to build your game?
We build the game in Unreal 4 – We shipped on a modified version of 4.11. It was awesome to be able to just download Unreal and then be operating at AAA levels from the word go. As for software packages, beyond that, we’re all over the map. People just use what they’re comfortable with.
How much time have you spent working on the game?
Around three years. A half year getting the company up and running, finding funding and being anxious about the decision, and then 2.5 years of actual production.
What drew you to use the striking art style of Echo? What thoughts went into creating the striking, palatial space station players explore?
Beautiful malevolence is just so much more unsettling than the decrepit kind, in our opinion.
The palace aesthetic tabs into many aspects of the game, both from a narrative and thematic perspective. I don’t want to give too much away by going into the culture that created the structure, but let’s just say it reflects their arrogant world-view. Hopefully the environments also convey a sense of having entered some kind of afterlife, one containing both the elevated and the outcast.
Thematically, the repetition and symmetry of ornamentations found in real world palaces like Versailles and the Winter Palace just fits perfectly in a game called Echo, where you play against replications.
What do you feel this style added to the unsettling experience of being stalked by clones of yourself? In setting the game’s mood?
As mentioned above, our objective was to transport players into the unknown, and they are completely used to the typical dark oil-rig/submarine style space stations, having experienced plenty of games and movies set in those! So, in order to take them out of that comfort-zone, we take them elsewhere.
From a more practical perspective, we wanted a bright location so that the effect of the blackouts would be clear, but at the same time we didn’t want the surroundings to be too easily read. We wanted the eyes and minds of the players to be continuously scanning and searching the surroundings, so the high frequency of detail in an ornate Palace hopefully achieved that.
There is a beauty in the UI that surrounds En (the heroine). How did you come to create this endlessly-shifting flow of information and give it a visual form?
Our design sensibilities with regards to the suit and HUD/UI was, very much in contrast to the surroundings, completely utilitarian, actually; it needed to be functional first and foremost. The idea for the radar “orb” arose during prototyping – we’d made arrows that pointed towards enemies, but it wasn’t really communicating anything about distance, so the basic task became to try and make a kind of holographic mirror-ball surrounding the character in game-space that would allow you to perceive what was going on around her.
Design-wise I think it’s one of our bigger achievements. Once you get used to it, you almost stop noticing that it’s even there, and it becomes a natural extension of your senses within the game world.
Being attacked by clones of yourself throughout the game should get visually dull. How did you work to avoid this in Echo?
Haha, I’m not sure we did! Perfect copies have no variation after all! In the beginning, as they evolve, and when you encounter one you killed earlier, rematerialized by the Palace, they appear as incomplete, twisted abominations, but we didn’t do this to battle visual dullness, but to tell the player something. The aesthetic throughout Echo is carefully anchored in repetition and symmetry.
Have you played any of the other IGF finalists? Any games you’ve particularly enjoyed?
Cuphead is just delightful! Insanely hard, yes, but delightful. The craftsmanship that went into that is impressive, and obviously done with a steady hand.
What do you think are the biggest hurdles (and opportunities) for indie devs today?
Being noticed is the biggest hurdle, definitely. You can make a super great game, and still, you’ll completely disappear in the throng. We were lucky to get quite a lot of attention from the gaming media as well as streamers, and still the most frequent thing we hear is “Why haven’t I heard of Echo before?!”.
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!
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition Now Available Worldwide on Windows 10 PCs Welcome back to history! Today is an exciting day for us at Microsoft, as we celebrate the legacy of Age of Empires with today’s release of Age of Empires: Definitive Edition worldwide on Windows 10 PCs. We created Age of Empires: Definitive Edition as a homage to all Real Time Strategy (RTS) fans and to PC gamers everywhere… Read more
New Games with Gold for March 2018 Welcome to another Games with Gold reveal for Xbox One and Xbox 360! In March on Xbox One, take control of Sergeant Rex Power Colt’s cyber commando kids as they drive and shoot their way through a variety of environments in Trials of the Blood Dragon, then experience one of the most innovative and award-winning shooters in Superhot… Read more
Save on Awesome Games During the EA Publisher Sale Xbox and EA fans! The Microsoft Store’s EA Publisher Sale is one of the most anticipated sales of the year, and it’s starting soon. Running for one week only, from February 20 to February 26, the sale offers the best prices on EA titles including Star Wars Battlefront II, FIFA 18, Madden 18, Battlefield 1 Revolution, Need for Speed Payback, Mass Effect Andromeda and more… Read more
Getting Started in Age of Empires: Definitive Edition If you’re like us, you’re excited about booting up Age of Empires: Definitive Edition available now on Windows 10. Perhaps, like some of us, your Age skills have gotten a bit rusty. Or maybe you’ve never played the classic real-time strategy game at all! Not to worry: the Age of Empires: DE team put together a quick primer to help you come out on top in this celebration of gaming history… Read more
Xbox One Storytellers: MachineGames Talks Wolfenstein It’s hard to match the narrative scope and immersive experience that a compelling story-driven game has over other storytelling mediums, allowing players not only to fall into the world of a well-crafted story but to experience it firsthand. These types of games can empower someone with a new perspective, or let us live a double-life as a superhero… Read more
Return to Albion for Free and Make Your Fable Fortune After seven months working closely with the feedback of our dedicated Xbox Game Preview users, we’re excited to not only announce Fable Fortune is graduating with version 1.0 from Game Preview to a full release — and the game will be free starting today, February 22 for Xbox One and Windows 10… Read more
Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Available Now on Xbox One Calling all Gun Gale Online Players! It’s been a long time coming, but Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet is finally available on Xbox One. In the newest video game of Reki Kawahara’s fan-favorite franchise, you will venture into the futuristic world of Gun Gale Online, a dangerous landscape fraught with peril like supersonic flying bullets, quick photon swords, and powerful rocket launchers… Read more
Fortnite Battle Royale – Battle Pass Season 3 is Live on Xbox One Season 3 of Fortnite Battle Royale has launched an all-new space-themed Battle Pass! We also released our massive v.3.0.0 update which includes a whole slew of new features and improvement that every Victory Royale seeker will appreciate. With v.3.0.0, all Xbox One and Xbox One X players will now be able to experience Fortnite at 60 fps… Read more
Mods Coming to Your Town in Cities: Skylines – Xbox One Edition Hello once again, mayors! We hope you’ve been having fun building new cities and infusing them with your own mixture of sensibility and style. Our favorite thing about working with Cities: Skylines – Xbox One Edition is getting to see the creative ways that our players bring their towns together, and we’ve enjoyed seeing what you’ve shared… Read more
Retro-Future Survival Management Game Symmetry Now Available on Xbox One The first time we thought about creating Symmetry was during one evening when we played a board game called “K2,” in which the main goal was to ascend the mountain summit and bring the whole team back to the base safely. Once we mixed the concept with our love to sci-fi themes, we could begin our work… Read more
The Ys Series is Coming Soon to Xbox One with Ys Origin We’re really happy that Japanese RPG lovers will soon be able to play this amazing game series on Xbox. Created more than 30 years ago by Nihon Falcom, Ys is one of the greatest game series ever — the first episode was originally released on the NEC PC-8801 — and as you can see by looking on the internet, this is some old-school hardware… Read more
Punishing Platformer Roguelike Xenon Valkyrie+ Available Now on Xbox One A few months ago, I was contacted by a Spanish game developer, Daniel Fernandez Chavez (Diabolical Mind), who had created an interesting game for the PC. Considering we use the same middleware (GameMaker Studio), he figured I could port and publish his game on consoles. I accepted! Xenon Valkyrie+ is a platformer roguelike in the same vein as Spelunky… Read more
Creators Corner: Dreaming Sarah Xbox Live Creators Program empowers passionate developers everywhere to share their games with the world. In the Creator’s Corner series, Xbox Live Creators Program developers will share what inspires and motivates them to design and create their games, what challenges and creative solutions they pursue to bring their games to fruition… Read more
Xbox CosPups Join Gaming Heroes to Celebrate the Year of the Dog February 16 marks the start of Chinese New Year; a 15-day season of festivities across Greater China and within Asian communities worldwide, seeing people celebrate with family, feasting, fireworks, and good fortune rituals shared. This Lunar New Year we celebrate the Year of the Dog… Read more
Turning Jurassic World and Jurassic Park into Prehistoric Pinball Perfection Greetings from Zen Studios! As you may know, we launched Pinball FX3 last fall alongside three great new tables in the Universal Classics Pinball collection. Half the fun of creating new experiences based on “Back to the Future,” “E.T.,” and “Jaws” came from conceptualizing how we would represent your favorite scenes from those movies in pinball form… Read more
Unleash Your Inner Ninja with an Exclusive New Avatar on Roblox It’s a well-established fact that ninjas are the coolest warriors in the entire universe. They’re stealthy, mysterious, and versatile in battle! Naturally, it only seemed fitting to introduce one of our own renegade ninjas on Roblox as a unique playable avatar! Sharpen those kunai and get ready to hone your fighting techniques, Robloxians… Read more
Five Tips to Mastering Single-Player in Metal Gear Survive With the launch of Meal Gear Survive, you can now experience the full depth of the game’s features, mechanics, and modes. Even if you already played co-op during Metal Gear Survive’s beta, the single-player experience brings new elements of exploration and survival accompanied by Metal Gear’s signature stealth-action gameplay… Read more
Sci-fi Mystery The Station Available Now on Xbox One I can’t express how excited I am for you to jump into the mystery adventure of The Station and solve what happened onboard a futuristic space station, sent to research a newly discovered sentient alien civilization. After losing contact with the crew, you’re sent to investigate and will discover a mystery that will decide the fate of two civilizations… Read more
JRPG-Inspired Detective Game Pixel Noir Is In Development For Nintendo Switch
Badland Games has revealed that SWDTech’s JRPG-inspired title Pixel Noir is now in development for Nintendo Switch after smashing its funding goal on Kickstarter.
Pixel Noir is a detective game set against a film noir backdrop which sees your character, who has been in jail for many years, finally get a chance to clear his name once and for all. For ten years you were haunted by unanswered questions and unspeakable horror, frightened by what you saw and what you did, leaving you with no choice but to take the opportunity to fix things.
The Switch version of the game is said to contain all of the features coming to other platforms, which you can check out below.
Features
– Solve a variety of mysteries as Pinnacle City’s cheapest Private Eye! From missing pets to murder investigations, your detective skills will earn you either fortune or face punches. – Fight enemies in turn-based combat. Unleash devastating combo attacks by teaming up with other heroes in your team! – Explore Pinnacle City–a wretched hive of scum and villainy harboring black market trade & hawked by colorful characters. – Use your investigation mode to reveal clues. Level it up over time to unearth new secrets and storylines! – Overkill mechanic: if you do too much damage, instead of knocking your enemy out, you can kill them. This will affect what type of spoils you get from battle! – New timed hit mechanics for skills including button sequences and d-pad rotation! – CRDTech card game… can you find Phil, the Dust Master?
While we have no confirmed release date as of yet, the fact that the game is now officially coming to the Switch (and at the same time as other platforms) is, of course, great news. Does this one look right up your street? Let us know in the comments below!
Following the release of the shmup Aero Fighters, several members of developer Video Systems left and formed a new company: Psikyo. Aero Fighters 2 still turned out rather well without them, but Psikyo would release some high-quality titles itself. Zerodiv has already brought some of those to Switch, but now it’s bringing Psikyo’s first game to the eShop: Samurai Aces (aka Sengoku Ace).
Like many of the games Psikyo produced, Samurai Aces is a shmup where you pick one craft from a selection of choices and then go through several levels shooting down anything in sight. It was also designed with a vertically orientated monitor in mind and should you be playing undocked this experience can be recreated by playing in TATE mode; optional scanlines can also be added to the image. Play on the big screen and the default display makes more sense than flipping your TV on its side, but naturally this restricts the action to the middle third of the screen.
There’s a similar art style to Psikyo’s later released (but already on Switch) Gunbird and Strikers 1945 games, with the same powerup and bomb icons and similar bullets, explosions and colour choices. The locations are different however, with a variety of rocks, greenery, water and villages flown over. There’s a wide range of enemies encountered with different aircraft types, insect-like attackers, tanks and turrets. In other instances statues rise from the water to attack and large armoured warriors appear on screen to unleash bullets or shuriken in your direction. Similar to the Strikers titles these enemies are more technologically advanced than the setting would normally allow, but aesthetically fit right in.
There’s also variety in the six aircraft availabl, with regular designs included alongside bird-like craft and a wooden X-Wing. Each has different attacks that become more apparent when you collect weapon upgrades as well as having different bomb and charged attacks. As is common with Psikyo shmups there are two buttons for shooting your primary weapon, where one is held down for the charged attack and the other is held for rapid fire.
Set across seven levels, gameplay is enjoyable as you move about the screen dealing with the various enemy attacks and movements. You need to keep alert as buildings can slide aside to reveal more dangers and other enemies can emerge from clouds. Bullets come from multiple directions and can crisscross to make safe passage tricky. The pace of the game alters too, sometimes enabling you to make slight adjustments to gently slide out of the way of a stream of bullets, where as other times enemies streak towards you requiring quick reflexes to if not shoot them down, then to at least get out of the way.
Boss battles put you up against large mechanical creatures or constructions and require you to blast pieces off before their ultimate destruction. They can be tense affairs when low on lives and/or bomb attacks, with the screen getting dense with bullets as you try desperately to navigate a safe pathway whilst also trying to get in attacks of your own.
If struggling with the game, there are seven difficulty settings available (default: five) and your three lives and two continues can be increased to nine and unlimited respectively. Whilst this can certainly aid in clearing the game it doesn’t completely remove the challenge as after the first few levels, failure sends you back to the beginning of the stage. After clearing the game (apart from on the easier difficulties) a much tougher second loop begins, although (unlike some Psikyo games) you can still use continues.
The game is fun to replay, with each craft having a different pilot that results in different between-stage dialogue and endings. Two-player mode is also available if you’d like to have a friend join you to help vanquish the enemy forces, whilst also adding an element of competition as you look to see who has the highest score at the end of it. Hi score chasing can add a lot of replayability to a shmup in single player mode, but here the scoring is flawed due to there being no score reset upon continue. Struggle on a stage and replay again and again and you will score higher than a player who has breezed straight through.
Conclusion
Psikyo’s Samurai Aces plays a lot like its Gunbird and Strikers titles. As they were both great shmups, however, seven more levels in that style is no bad thing. Dealing with attacks and utilising your own offensive options leads to varied and enjoyable gameplay and the changing pace of combat keep you on your toes as you anticipate the next attack. With no credit/life limited mode included, the hi score leaderboard is flawed unless you and those using your Switch agree on what settings to use. It is a well put together shmup however, so whether playing alone or with a friend Samurai Aces is fun to replay whenever you choice to boot it up.
A Vulkan-compatible driver for macOS and iOS, MoltenVK, is now available free of charge and open-source. Having invested into its development for more than a year, we have sponsored The Brenwill Workshop to donate MoltenVK for inclusion in the Vulkan graphics ecosystem. We’ve also continued our efforts with LunarG who is today releasing a corresponding update to deliver macOS support to the Vulkan SDK. Also as a result of that work, Dota 2 will be updated in the comings months to target Vulkan on macOS.
It’s been almost four years since we started contributing to Vulkan’s goal of becoming a cross platform solution. With support for Windows, Linux, and Android crossed off the list, this latest set of updates checks off one of the largest remaining targets, giving developers an easy yet robust way to also target their Vulkan-based engines and titles to run on macOS and iOS. By making the code to MoltenVK freely available and open-source, the goal is to enable developers to bring their games to macOS and iOS with minimal evelopment cost.
The LunarG Vulkan SDK is a key component for developers targeting Vulkan by providing tools such as validation layers, shader compilers, and a loader. Now available from LunarG, an updated Vulkan SDK now offers those same tools to developers targeting macOS, enabling them to efficiently develop Vulkan code on the platform.
Additionally, we exercised MoltenVK with real world workloads including Dota 2 and we’re seeing significant performance improvements over running on OpenGL.
We encourage developers to test their engines and titles with MoltenVK and the LunarG SDK and provide feedback. We are committed to making Vulkan a viable option for developers targeting all platforms.
Cold ruins can be found in cold, frozen, ocean biomes – regardless of depth
Warm ruins can be found in warm, lukewarm, and deep lukewarm biomes
Can generate alone or in a big ruined village
You can also sometimes find them slightly underground or slightly above sealevel
They can contain mysterious treasures! So mysterious that we haven’t even added the real treasure yet.
A few more things to come in a future snapshot…
CORAL
Pretty blocks! Or should they be mobs? I’m not entirely sure.
Comes in 5 colors: blue, pink, purple, red, yellow
Requires water to stay alive
If it dies, it dies. Sorry.
Currently only obtainable in the creative inventory
World generation to come in a future snapshot…
FIXED BUGS IN 18W09A
MC-118324 – One of magenta dye recipes is unlocked via getting Ink Sac
MC-118416 – Recipe for bowl not unlocked until bowl or mushrooms are obtained
MC-126111 – Furnaces don’t award recipes or experience when output is taken after a reload
MC-126150 – Furnaces don’t account for multiple recipes with the same output when giving experience and smelting recipes
To get snapshots, open your launcher and go to the “launch options” tab. Check the box saying “Enable snapshots” and save. To switch between the snapshot and normal version, you can find a new dropdown menu next to the “Play” button. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (In the “launch options” page).
Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com.
Snapshots can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds. 1.13 will have a lot of experimental snapshots that may break everything and smell funny. This may be one of those snapshots. This is what happens when Mojang are changing all the things!
Share your thoughts on how 1.13 is shaping up in the comments below!
This week at Bungie, the factions are rallying again. Future War Cult is aiming for its first win in the Faction Rallies event, but it won’t be taken easily. New Monarchy is eyeballing its third victory (in a row, mind you), with legions of dedicated players hitting the grind on public events, Crucible, and Lost Sectors. With a few new rewards to entice a change in pledges of loyalty, it’s up in the air as to who will claim victory. We’ll find out next week, once Faction Rallies comes to a conclusion and the Tower is decorated with the banners of the victor.
Course Correction
The most important element of making a plan is being open to the fact that it will change. We’ve updated the Destiny 2 Development Roadmap with some new information. Exotic repetition reduction and Nightfall Strike unique rewards have each been moved out to Destiny Update 1.1.4. Additionally, Exotic weapon and armor sandbox changes have been delayed to Destiny update 1.2.0, to grant proper time to test and implement these changes.
Teams are hard at work ensuring these upcoming features not only meet a proper quality bar, but also don’t endanger other aspects of the game with potential bugs or issues. We’ll keep you updated every step of the way to make sure you know when to expect items to be released.
Say My Name
Next week, Destiny update 1.1.3 will introduce Nightfall Strike Scoring, the first version of the Prestige Nightfall Challenge Card, and emblem variants. Two weeks ago, we went through how Nightfall Emblems are changing. Joining us again to go a bit deeper, here’s Senior Design Lead Tyson Green to talk about the upcoming emblem and aura changes:
Tyson: Emblems in Destiny have been positioned as a vanity collectible, with a few exceptional (and popular) emblems that reflect noteworthy achievements. In D2, we started to pivot emblems more towards the latter example by adding stat displays to some of them. Now, we want to go further in the direction of emblems as a means of exposing achievement.
First, we’re exposing more stats on emblems and making those emblems more available to players who want to display those stats. For example, the Crucible emblems that advertise wins or KDA can now be obtained directly from Shaxx after 10 Crucible rep packages (if you don’t get one earlier). We’re also deploying a new emblem that advertises your Crucible kills, which are broken down by class so you can see who find themselves in your crosshairs most often.
Second, we’re collapsing auras into emblems and removing them as standalone items. This means that existing Raid, Trials, and new Nightfall Emblems will provide the existing aura effects to players, and future emblems can also roll out new effects. These auras are conditional—for example, you still have to go Flawless or do a Prestige Clear to activate them. Some of these auras will also come with fireteam bonuses, so when they see that aura over you, they know who is giving them that benefit.
Lastly, we’re introducing variants to some emblems. If an Emblem indicates high achievement and lots of players use it, we didn’t want that to mean that everyone looks the same. But we still want achievement emblems to be recognizable as such. Variants are being introduced to allow visible achievement without losing the recognizable identity of the emblem. Some variants are unlocked via conditions—the new Crucible Kills Emblem unlocks some fun “class foe” variations after you down a thousand Guardians of that class. Others are drops from sources like destination chests or Nightfalls, and some of these might be quite rare.
An example that ties this all together are the new Nightfall Emblems. Obtained by completing specific Nightfall Strikes, these emblems display your highest personal score in that Nightfall. In the future, we hope to display your clan’s highest score too. These emblems have several variants each, which drop from that specific Nightfall, but in some cases only above certain score thresholds (and we expect some to be quite rare.) And finally, these emblems enable the purple Nightfall Aura as well as a fireteam bonus to Vanguard Token drops, but only if your personal high score is above a par-score. That will start off at a value selected from internal playtests but we plan to adjust it based on your (the community’s) posted scores each time a Nightfall comes around.
This is the first round of this new direction; we hope to do more, and to learn from your response to it. Future releases may revisit or add new emblems for underserved achievements, or more variants for popular emblems.
Bug Stompers
Whether it’s at deployment prep time or immediately after an update has shipped, Destiny Player Support is always on the watch for reports of rising issues. You can find them in the #Help forum, distributing helpful articles or collecting information to escalate to internal teams for investigation.
This is their report.
Destiny Update 1.1.3 Maintenance and Downtime
Next week, Destiny 2 services will undergo maintenance in preparation for Destiny Update 1.1.3. Please see below for the timeline of maintenance windows.
Monday, February 26, 2018
Destiny services will undergo backend maintenance. No downtime is expected. Maintenance will begin at 10 AM PST (1800 UTC) and is expected to conclude at 12 PM PST (2000 UTC).
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Destiny services will be brought offline for maintenance. Destiny Update 1.1.3 will also become available upon maintenance completion. Please see below for the timeline of the maintenance window.
8 AM PST – (1600 UTC)
Destiny server maintenance is schedules to begin
Players may no longer sign in to Destiny services
9 AM PST – (1700 UTC)
Players still in Destiny 2 activities will be returned to the title screen
Destiny 2 Update 1.1.3 will be available to download and install
10 AM PST – (1800 UTC)
Destiny server maintenance is scheduled to conclude
If you have any issues when downloading or installing Destiny Update 1.1.3, please post a report to the #Help forum detailing your experience.
Patch Notes Preview
The following are general patch notes from Destiny Update 1.1.3.
Fixing an issue where the Phoenix Dive ability can be used to get out of the intended playspace
Fixing an issue where players could receive a loss in Trials of the Nine if opponents leave multiple matches in a row
The Crucible Helmet Ornament will now gain unlock progress from Trials of the Nine wins in addition to competitive match wins
Projectiles from the Colony Exotic properly track enemies on PC when frame rate is set higher than 30 FPS
Stay tuned for a full list of patch notes, which we expect to make available alongside Destiny Update 1.1.3.
Interlinked
Last week, I was out with the flu. It’s absolutely horrendous this year, and I highly recommend getting a flu shot at your earliest convenience. It did give me some time to sit back and watch a plethora of community created content on the Creations page, though. These movies have taken the top spot for Destiny related entertainment this week, and their creators will be granted an awesome emblem in-game for their troubles.
Movie of the Week: First we dance, then we fight
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Honorable Mention: Crimson Days – Grenades and Fists Only
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Honorable Mention: Run from Acrius
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It’s always a pleasure to write the TWaB, and with this week’s announcement about my new gig, you’ll see me around these parts more often. We’re eager to hear your feedback on Nightfall Strike Scoring, and we will be watching for new threads in the #Feedback forum once the feature goes live. Thanks to all who stop by and share their thoughts, as player feedback is integral to the growth of Destiny 2. As we continue on the path of the roadmap, we’ll continue to keep you up to date on any forecast changes as they occur.
