The move contrasts with recent pushes from companies such as Call of Duty maker Activision and League of Legends studio Riot Games, who seem keener to get staff back in offices - leading to Covid safety concerns. Bungie has said it will allow remote work from a number of US states (likely due to local tax laws - thanks, Kotaku) including the developer’s home of Washington, plus others including California, Florida and Texas....
Confirmation came way of a tweet from the Destiny 2 studio, which acknowledged the armour permitted Hunters to dodge “an unintended amount of times”, including during competitive matches in its Gambit and Crucible playlists. “Due to an issue that allows Hunters to dodge an unintended amount of times in a row, we have temporarily disabled the Radiant Dance Machines Exotic Hunter leg armor in Gambit and all PvP activities,” the studio said....
In a post on Bungie.net, the developer said halo.bungie.net goes offline permanently on 9th February. Almost nine years ago, stats and files from Bungie’s Halo games stopped getting updated on Bungie.net. Since then, all stats, files and other data from Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach lived on at halo.bungie.net. From 9th February, all those stats go dark, but, Bungie signalled, everyone is welcome to save their stats and files before then....
The settlement, announced in September, saw Activision Blizzard agreeing to set aside $18m USD for affected employees after an EEOC investigation stemming back to 2018 found staff at the video game publisher had been sexually harassed, discriminated against for becoming pregnant, and had suffered retaliation by the company after complaining about the behaviour. The EEOC investigation, although long in the works, only hit headlines after a California Department of Fair Employment and Housing lawsuit sent shockwaves across the industry in July, alleging sexual harassment, discrimination, and a “frat boy” work culture at Activision....
As reported by Bloomberg, the assistant chief counsel for California’s Department of Fair Employment, Melanie Proctor, has quit her role in protest after California Governor Gavin Newsom “abruptly fired” the agency’s boss, Chief Counsel Janette Wipper. A representative for the two attorneys has since confirmed the firing and resignation to Bloomberg. In an email to staff seen by the publication, Proctor claimed Governor Gavin Newsom and his office had begun to “interfere” with the Activision lawsuit in recent weeks....
And now, when playing Call of Duty’s most recent offerings of Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0, you may well see this move in play once more. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s just your teammate channelling their inner Clark Kent. Today’s version of the Superman exploit was recently shared by prolific Warzone 2 player Wuqi. In a compilation, the gamer can be seen bouncing off certain points on the maps while diving in the air, giving them a soaring boost....
The claim comes as part of a fresh war of words between Xbox and PlayStation, as Microsoft seeks to finalise its eye-opening $68.7bn buyout of Activision Blizzard. Specifically, it comes in response to Sony’s recent objections to the deal - in which it argued that Call of Duty could not be rivalled, and that the franchise was vitally important to PlayStation as it influenced players’ choice of console. Microsoft previously said it had no immediate plans to make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive, and has now doubled down on this by adding that it did not make business sense....
Her 2.9 metre/9'6" frame has been spotted in retail outlets across Hong Kong, where the intimidating figure towers over everyone and everything else in the store, as proudly shared by Capcom Asia’s Facebook account (thanks, The Gamer). Here, take a look: As yet, she’s not popped up closer to home, but I’m sure there are plenty of thirsty Dimitrescu fans hoping the marketing campaign will extend beyond Asia. Last week, saw a number of Resident Evil announcements, as the franchise celebrates its 25th anniversary....
Spotted by PC Gamer, YouTuber PrestigeIsKey is a big fan of Geoff Keighley’s award show and was looking for a replica trophy. Instead, he found an actual award on eBay for $500. The seller said the award “came from one of our liquidation sources, other than that we don’t have any other information on the origin of this item”. PrestigeIsKey had his bid of $375 accepted. Once the trophy arrived, he checked the bottom to find out it was the award for Best Independent Game won by Celeste developer Extremely OK Games in 2018....
Exploring the “origins of the game, including exclusive interviews with the game’s creators, music composers, and some of its amazing voice talent”, the BTS documentary also includes conversations with the soundtrack creators, Elvira Björkman and Nicklas Hjertberg of Two Feathers. You can check out the 15-minute video – which includes a sneaky peek at Two Feathers’ “huge live concert” at Gamescom – below: Metal: Hellsinger is a superb rhythm game in which you play a voiceless demon battling her way out of hell, slaying demons to the beat of an original metal soundtrack performed by the likes of Serj Tankian (System of a Down), Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy), and Randy Blythe (Lamb of God)....
Colt Canyon is described as an “atmospheric and punchy” rogue-like shooter set in a pixel-art Wild West, where players can root and toot their way toward saving their kidnapped partner from ruthless bandits. “Take your gun and TNT,” explains developer Retrific, “and shoot your way through a hostile canyon full of hidden treasures, weapons, obstacles and all kinds of bloodthirsty scum.” Eurogamer hasn’t scanned a critical eye over Colt Canyon, but with a Very Positive rating over on Steam, the masses appear to think this one is pretty good!...
Ahti believes that you’re his new assistant and clearly isn’t going to listen to any arguments to the contrary. He also has a holiday coming up, so you might as well help him out. Completing these missions will reward you with more Materials, new Mods - both Weapon and Personal - and more Ability Points for upgrading Jesse’s powers. So head down to the Maintenance Sector and see what Ahti has in store for you....
Remedy itself has already revealed the full specifications of the new versions, which essentially boils down to this: PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X run at a native 1440p resolution (with no dynamic resolution scaling) with a temporal upscale to 2160p output. Graphics and performance modes are essentially a toggle for ray tracing support, which adds RT reflections on opaque and glass surfaces. RT locks users to 30fps gaming, while disabling it removes the frame-rate cap, with performance only limited by 60Hz v-sync....
The historical strategy threequel originally launched for PC in September 2020, and has long been set for a console launch at some point. As expected, this console version will be released exclusively for current-gen machines, which developer Lab42 previously said would allow “super-fast load times”. Today, Paradox said that Crusader Kings 3 on console had been adapted so that its interface and controls were tailored to larger screens and gamepads....
Prolific Cyberpunk modder Scissors123454321 released their gameplay rebalance megamod today on NexusMods, and it makes a huge number of changes to the balance of the game. Perhaps the headline change is the removal of scaling. In the base Cyberpunk, V and their enemies gain stats as you level up. This means, without any upgrades, V ends up much weaker than enemies at the level 50 cap than they are at level one....
Issues identified by users and now under investigation by CD Projekt include “the disc version not launching on PS4 after applying the patch” and the game “crashing on launch on PC”, something believed to be audio software-related. On the latter point, CD Projekt has recommended that affected users disable certain audio drives using a provided tutorial. Beyond these issues, CD Projekt is also looking into the possibility of allowing PS4 Trophies to transfer to PS5, and a bump to the current 30 FPS frame-rate cap on Xbox Series S....
The game was announced during the Edgerunners Special livestream earlier this week, where details of the upcoming expansion Phantom Liberty were revealed. The livestream also included information on the Edgerunners update, which added the aforementioned arcade cabinet to the game. I’ve taken the plunge and installed the game on my phone to see how it is, and it’s… fine. The comparisons to Google’s Dinosaur Game are fair. Instead of a T-Rex it’s Geralt’s horse Roach....
Days Gone - which initially launched on PS4 before making it way to PC earlier this year - was the studio’s first crack at a new IP since its acquisition by Sony in 2000; prior to that game, the developer was largely known for adapting the likes of Uncharted and Resistance for Sony’s handheld consoles, the PSP and Vita. Announcing its next project in a statement on Twitter, Bend wrote, “We are beyond grateful for your support with Days Gone and are truly honoured by the amount of passion our community has shared with us for our world and characters....
Reacting to the news that Sucker Punch’s PlayStation exclusive Ghost of Tsushima has now sold over 8m copies, Days Gone director Jeff Ross said that when he left Sony in late 2020, the zombie game had already sold over 8m copies - and it has since gone on to sell even more, plus over a million sales on Steam. But despite Days Gone’s sales success, Ross said: “Local studio management always made us feel like it was a big disappointment....
When The Good Life successfully reached its Kickstarter goal back in 2018 (following a failed Fig crowdfunding campaign a year earlier), the expectation was that it would release in Q4 2019. However, that initial launch window was shifted back to spring 2020, and then to summer 2021, before receiving one last delay to this autumn. But now, with a release date finally confirmed, The Good Life is almost here, meaning players will soon be able to step into the shoes of New York photojournalist Naomi, as she moves to the “vast and sprawling” backwoods British town of Rainy Woods to pay off her massive debt....
