Seems like it was only yesterday that 1.16 had released.  Regardless, I will be exploring the nether and remembering to not toss my gold at those pesky Brutes if I see them.

Piglin Brute

• Piglin Brutes are stronger versions of Piglins that live in bastion remnants and protect the treasures there
• Unlike their cowardly and greedy counterparts, the Piglin Brutes cannot be distracted by gold and aren’t afraid of anything
• Piglin Brutes attack players on sight, no matter how the player is dressed
• Piglin Brutes wield axes and don’t need any armor because they’re just that tough!

• Recipe Select button prompt shows when hovering over a non-craftable recipe book item using controller (MCPE-79725)
• Recipe selected items put in crafting input grid can now be hovered over with controller to see their tooltip names
• On controller, hovering over recipes will show them in the crafting grid when no recipe is selected
• On controller, you can deselect a selected recipe when hovering above that selection in the recipe book. You can also clear the crafting grid by clicking the right thumbstick

• Performance / Stability
  
  • Fixed a crash that occurred on PlayStation 4 due to other players using custom skins
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when pressing the Manage Account button in Profile settings
  • Loom blocks no longer cause an out of memory crash when using high resolution resource packs (MCPE-69848)

• General
  
  • Worlds can once again be uploaded to Realms on Nintendo Switch (REALMS-474)
  • Players can once again host 8 max player worlds on PlayStation 4 (MCPE-85009)
  • Fixed an issue where the Hot Tourist Destination trophy would not unlock after visiting the last required Nether biome on PlayStation 4 (MCPE-85496)
  • Meeting requirements for some achievements offline will now unlock it after reconnecting
  • Custom skins once again work properly in multiplayer (MCPE-48207)
  • Emotes can no longer be equipped before unlocking them (MCPE-84810)
  • Fixed notifications not appearing on iOS

• Gameplay
  
  • Breaking a Furnace will now drop the stored experience from smelting (MCPE-71651)
  • Boats are no longer slowed down by objects with no collision (MCPE-81316)
  • Legacy chunk upgrades will no longer cause chunks to become 100% air (MCPE-58514)
  • New Nether biomes, blocks, and structures no longer generates into worlds with a fixed version (MCPE-66357)
  • Parity: Fixed chests with loot tables not generating loot until opened or destroyed
  • Local split-screen players can once again see the Ender Dragon and Ender Crystal (MCPE-67596)
  • The bounding box of the player used for spawning is now the correct size, so we don’t think a player is in a dangerous spot when they are actually safe

• Mobs
  
  • Mobs max spawn radius is now 44 blocks (MCPE-79359)
  • Zombies can spawn underground again (MCPE-52743)
  • Dolphins, fish, and squid now spawn in bubble columns again (MCPE-73967)
  • Baby pigs now despawn properly (MCPE-76373)
  • Hoglins no longer attack on Peaceful mode when too close (MCPE-71939)
  • Piglins and Brutes can now spawn with enchanted weapons (MCPE-83536)
  • Piglins now spawn on Peaceful difficulty
  • Piglins no longer naturally spawn on Shroomlights
  • Piglin arms are now behaving more like the players arms and less like zombie arms (MCPE-74089)
  • Piglins killed with a single blow while admiring Gold Ingots now drop the admired the Gold Ingot
  • Gold Ingots given to baby Piglins are no longer consumed
  • Piglins no longer drop up to a full stack of Gold Ingots upon giving them one by right-clicking and reloading a world while they are admiring it, instead it drops something from its loot table
  • Piglins no longer pick up entire stacks of Gold (MCPE-76080)
  • Piglins no longer spawn with enchanted gear
  • Tweaked arm animation for mobs that have their weapons removed (MCPE-83581)
  • Tamed wolves no longer disappear when returning to overworld through a Nether portal
  • Husks now prefer iron armor over chain armor
    

• Blocks
  
  • Walls now connect to open trapdoors (MCPE-79490)
  • Walls now connect to glass blocks (MCPE-79483)
  • Pressure plates have been fixed to have no collision again (MCPE-80276)
  • Melon and pumpkin stems now break again when the block below them is destroyed (MCPE-79577)
  • Slime blocks pushed by pistons launch players correctly again (MCPE-62419)
  • Fixed an issue that prevented players from being able to place beehives or bee nests from their inventory after an update (MCPE-62067)
  • Soul Campfires now emit the correct light level (MCPE-73890)
  • Hyphae blocks now take as long as stem blocks to destroy (MCPE-72045)
  • Quartz Block can no longer be created from Chiseled Quartz Block and Pillar Quartz Block in a Furnace
  • Fixed recipes when crafting a Barrel from Warped or Crimson Slabs
  • Quartz Bricks can no longer be crafted from anything but Quartz Blocks on the Stonecutter
  • Target Block’s zones for particular redstone signal strength are no longer misplaced because of old Arrow geometry
  • Setting Soul Sand on fire no longer produces a placeholder Soul Fire block on pre-Nether version locked content

• Items
  
  • Netherite items no longer bounce on lava (MCPE-65372)
  • Using Bone Meal on flowers or grass blocks no longer consumes the item if nothing can grow (MCPE-73889)
  • Fixed issues around duplicating items when reloading a world while Piglin is admiring an item

• Audio
  
  • Zoglins now have sounds distinct from pigs (MCPE-73220)
  • Netherite armor now has a unique sound when equipped MCPE-69047)
  • Climbing vines now plays sound (MCPE-69741)
  • Corrected sound for placing Nether Wart
  • Placing or stepping on Warped or Crimson processed materials or planks now make wood sounds (MCPE-69029)
  • Ambient cave sounds are no longer played in Marketplace content prior to 1.16

• User Interface
  
  • Wither health bar no longer depletes to zero after half of the health is gone (MCPE-79661)
  • Wither health bar now reappears when returning from another dimension
  • The ‘Open’ tooltip is no longer displayed when looking at Piglins (MCPE-79376)
  • Speed of credits roll is no longer dependent on framerate

• Commands
  
  • Fixed an issue with several commands being used while cheats were disabled (MCPE-92557)
  • Made using the ‘/fill’ command more efficient, improving performance
  • Using the ‘/locate’ command to find a Ruined Portal will no longer return placeholder text (MCPE-79323)
  • The ‘/clear’ command now correctly removes all blocks with the same block name when no data argument is passed in
  • Making command selectors use the current position of an actor rather than the previous position of an actor
  • Fixed an issue that could cause Command Blocks to stop working unexpectedly

• Add-Ons
  
  • Updated Piglin geometry and entity files: Fixed issue with scaling carried item for baby humanoid mobs
  • Accessing a Beacon no longer spams the content log with warnings (MCPE-66357)
  • The ‘rider_can_interact’ field on ‘minecraft:rideable’ is now used again
  • Behavior animation components will no longer try to reload after a suspend resume and a mob/player rides something
  • Drowned geometry is no longer broken in content packs

David Gardner is a 30-plus-year game industry professional who spent 25 of those years at Electronic Arts where he built the publisher’s European business.

Today, he’s co-founder and general partner of London Venture Partners, a venture capital seed fund that specializes exclusively in the game industry and were early investors in Supercell, Unity, and other big names.

Listen now on iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify

On GDC Podcast episode 11, Gardner joins Gamasutra’s Kris Graft and Alissa McAloon to tell us what he and his team look for when investing capital. Here are just a few highlights.

“The first thing we’re looking for is the team. Is the team amazing? Because we’re only going to do eight investments in a year and we’re going to see 700 [projects]. And that was before the world became even more nervous about investing. So roughly 1 percent of what we see, we invest in…

“The start is always going to be the team, because you never know if the game is going to make it or not but you know the team is going to learn from whatever they do. And that learning is the critical process of improving the product…we definitely are looking for teams that want to build a company. And that generally is more than one project.”

“First of all, is the kind of capital that comes from the investing industry the kind of capital they want? Of course there is the joke about ‘vulture capital’ and the scary side of taking outsiders’ money. And I think that, largely, that is myth.

“But there is one thing that I always try to make sure that people are accepting of is that our business model in the investment industry is to make an investment, and then at some point to sell that investment. So we’re going to be with you for part of the journey, but your journey is going to be far longer, hopefully…but you have to understand that investors need an exit…so if you’re really trying to build something that you own and control completely and you don’t have to think about the responsibility you have to other investors, then maybe don’t take venture money.”

“…Definitely be honest and try to project who you are as a leadership team and what you want to build. Try to get to know that character of the investor to make sure it’s a good match…the plan you present [should] have some thoughtfulness to it and not just, ‘Hey, I need $80 million to build the next most amazing thing you’ve ever seen.’

“…Sadly, statistically, it’s not likely to even work. And I always ask people, ‘When this doesn’t work, because by the way, statistically-speaking, it’s not going to, what are you going to do next?’ And that helps me discover their longer-term thinking, what they’re really made of, and can they suffer through the unfortunate stress and pain of creating a startup.”

GDC Podcast music by Mike Meehan

Listen now on iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent Informa Tech

Lilith Games has announced that the loveable rogue from Assassin’s Creed, Ezio Auditore, is playable from today in AFK Arena. The Master Assassin is available for free during his first week, meaning you can try him out for yourself before deciding whether you want to purchase him for good. This character update comes after the news that AFK Arena recently reached 40 million downloads just in time for its first birthday.

“We’re excited to see AFK Arena’s core audience continuing to explode across the globe,” comments Xiao Dong, Producer of AFK Arena. “We’re thrilled to add Ezio from Assassin’s Creed to our hero lineup from today.”

For those that don’t know, AFK Arena is a fantasy idle-RPG well known for its unique art style. In the game, you build a party from a selection of 100 heroes belonging to seven different factions, and face off against enemy armies invading the land of Esperia. But as AFK is also an idle game, you can sit back and relax while doing this – letting your heroes fight for you to gain xp and rewards.

If you want to learn more, you can watch the snazzy live action trailer for the crossover below:

For those wanting to play AFK Arena, we’ve got plenty of content to keep you satisfied! Check out our AFK Arena tier list to know what characters are worth playing, and also our AFK Arena codes selection.

If you fancy checking out Ezio for yourself, you can download AFK Arena on Google Play and the App Store!

Yet another week has been and gone, and this one brought the anniversary of the Paper Mario series, stories of legendary industry figures smoking in the dark recesses of the office, yet more pleasant words about Nintendo from Xbox’s boss, and–surely the biggest story of the week–the mysterious disappearance of Mario’s nipples.

Members of Nintendo Life have recounted their plans for this weekend below, and we’d love for you to join in via our poll and comment sections. Enjoy!

Gavin Lane, features editor

I’m currently on a working holiday, meaning I’m continuing as normal, except I’m breathing fresh mountain air instead of stale office oxygen, and my WiFi is approximately one-quarter the speed I’m used to.

I packed my trusty Switch, of course, although I also through 4 AAs, my Game Boy and a handful of classics in my case, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to blast through Donkey Kong, Gargoyle’s Quest and play some more Mole Mania, too. As you can see, I am constantly at the very bleeding edge of gaming, me.

PJ O’Reilly, reviewer

Over the next few days I’m hoping to finish up the absolutely delightful Paper Mario: The Origami King which I’ve been plodding through slowly with my kids in the evenings, definitely one of my favourite Mario games in quite a long while, that one. Elsewhere I’ll be blasting through Minecraft Dungeons‘ Jungle Awakens DLC in preparation for next month’s Creeping Winter content and, if I get time, finishing off Carrion, which I’ve also really been enjoying. There’s just something about slithering up to a room full of terrified humans, observing their futile attempts to hide or prepare pathetic defences, then sweeping in for a gory kill that really relaxes me. Know what I mean? Have a good weekend everyone!

Austin Voigt, contributing writer

This weekend… is fairly similar to most weekends of late, to be quite honest. I’ve been stuck in this rut where I keep jumping around to different games in my backlog – Paper Mario: The Origami King, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, and even older titles and DLC like Luigi’s Mansion 3, Pokemon Shield… As always, I’m having difficulty focusing on just one game and completing it, and then I end up feeling overwhelmed and just play Animal Crossing or go korok hunting in Breath of the Wild. If anyone has suggestions to put an end to this video game ADHD, throw them in the comments below – I’m desperate.

Liam Doolan, news reporter

Over the past week, I’ve really found myself getting back into a lot of id Software games, probably because QuakeCon aired last weekend and there were a number of sales on the Switch eShop. As a result, most of my weekend will be spent in DOOM, DOOM II, the DOOM reboot, DOOM 64, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

When I’m not in any of these games, I intend to spend some time cleaning up my town in Animal Crossing – it’s got so messy! Apart from this, I might try and unlock some of the themes I missed out on in the latest limited-time Tetris 99 event.

As always, thanks for reading! Make sure to leave a vote in the poll above and a comment below with your gaming choices over the next few days…

As much as we love the themed events in Tetris 99, we don’t always catch or complete them in time.

The good news is Nintendo is running a special week-long event in the game from 14th August – 22nd August, allowing players to unlock three existing themes that they may have missed out on.

As you can see in the tweet above, it marks the return of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons theme, the Luigi’s Mansion 3 theme, and the Ring Fit Adventure theme and is broken up into three rounds.

Instead of the usual 100 event points required to unlock rewards, this upcoming Maximus Cup will only require you to reach 50 events point. Did you miss out on any of these themes previously? Will you be trying to grab them this time around? Tell us below.

The hidden Apple deal features a $30 discount that stacks with $100 bonus in-cart savings at Amazon, bringing the Mac mini price down to $669.99 and total savings to $130 off MSRP.

New lowest Mac mini price

Apple hardware deals

Since Nintendo announced it would restart development of Metroid Prime 4, Retro Studios has been recruiting talent non-stop.

In saying this, there are still currently ten positions advertised on the Nintendo careers page for the company. One of these is for a lead producer to oversee the entire project and make sure deadlines are met. Retro obviously wants to fill the position as soon as possible, as it’s now put out its second major tweet of the year, since a “Happy New Year” post on 1st January.

According to the careers page, the job was originally posted on 11th May 2020 but has only just been mentioned on Retro’s social account now. A number of other positions also appear to have been recently listed in June and July.

After the restart and all the disruptions this year due to the global pandemic, having an individual who would be “responsible for maintaining project timelines”, providing “studio-wide risk reports” and who is “responsible for studio-wide communication of project status” sounds like a great idea.

At the very least, it’s a reminder that the game is still probably a while away. When do you think we’ll get our first glimpse of Metroid Prime 4 for the Nintendo Switch? Tell us down below.