Month: March 2018

Sea of Thieves promises plenty of opportunities for sailing the seas and raiding treasure, but it promises more of those opportunities for those insanely dedicated players who can get max reputation with all three factions. Recently, a player became the first person to become a Pirate Legend–and some fans are not pleased.

Streamer Prod1gyX has played the game voraciously since its release, racking up dozens of hours already in his quest to hit the highest rank. And he accomplished the feat today, gaining max reputation in the Gold Hoarders, Merchant Alliance, and Order of Souls factions. He was awarded Pirate Legend. However, he leveraged his Twitch fanbase to farm treasure for him so he could boost through the ranks quicker.

Not surprisingly, this has caused some consternation among other players. For example, the top post on the Sea of Thieves subreddit right now is titled “#NotMyPirateLegend” and is filled with players arguing that he doesn’t deserve the status of the first player to reach Legend, since he boosted ranks.

Further adding to the controversy is confusion and annoyance over what reaching Pirate Legend gets you. It unlocks a new area, called the Tavern of Legends, that is full of merchants and other NPCs. This is where players can accept the special quests that unlock when Legendary status is reached. However, it appears at this moment that these quests are similar to normal quests, but are long and feature stronger skeletons. Prod1gyX appears to have acquired some unique rewards, but pre-launch quotes from Rare make it sound like there would be much more in store for Legend-ranked players.

There’s a possibility that Rare may be planning on tweaking and adding to Pirate Legend rewards and gameplay in the future. The studio has said it’s heard player feedback about the overall game and is working on a number of improvements. For now, though, it’s focused on performance improvements and fixes to issues that have plagued Sea of Thieves since launch.

With the mainstream success of Fortnite Battle Royale, the introduction of Dying Light: Bad Blood, and news about upcoming AAA games having battle royale modes, one thing has become clear: it is no longer just a mode. It is becoming its own genre.

In the video above, we sat down with Brendan Greene, aka “Playerunknown,” to talk about the success of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, how it spawned out of a series of mods, and how it plans to stay relevant with increasing competition in the future.

In the video below, you can watch the full chat with Greene and Mike Mahardy. For more news and interviews out of GDC, stay tuned to GameSpot throughout the weekend.

Bungie has been steadily updating Destiny 2 with a variety of big changes; most recently, it added unique Nightfall rewards to the game and made some broader weapon changes. It also has several more updates in the works including an overhaul to some Exotic weapons. Today, Bungie revealed some of the tweaks it has in store for a particular pair of weapons.

Sturm and Drang are two guns that actually have complementary perks. In other words, they work best when carried together. Drang, a Legendary Sidearm, will reload Sturm, an Exotic Hand Cannon, on kills and will overload it above its magazine capacity upon consecutive kills. Sturm, meanwhile, also reloads Drang upon kills.

In its weekly update, Bungie acknowledged that the pair of weapons aren’t the greatest in the Destiny 2 arsenal. In its words, the guns don’t have “that exotic flare.” In response, the studio is significantly overhauling the guns. Both will get their base stats improved, and Drang is getting a larger magazine and the Rampage perk. Sturm is receiving a new perk, as well, that gives a 1.8x damage modifier to overloaded rounds. You can see the modified weapons in action in the embed above.

The Exotic weapons changes are currently scheduled for release in an update that’ll come when Destiny 2’s Season 3 begins. Update 1.2.0 will include with a Prestige Mode for Eater of Worlds, seasonal Crucible rankings, private matches, more Vault space, Exotic Masterworks, and more. It’s slated for launch in May.

Far Cry 5 has some dark and gritty moments as you infiltrate a doomsday cult, but much more of the open-world exploration is light and even wacky. That extends to the Easter eggs Ubisoft inserted into the game, which reference other Ubisoft games, Uwe Boll, and even President Trump.

Many of the references to other Ubisoft games are kept in the family of Far Cry itself. You can find bobbleheads of characters like Vaas (Far Cry 3) and Pagan Min (Far Cry 4), and cave paintings as a subtle wink toward Far Cry Primal. Plenty of references are also made to the sci-fi spin-off DLC, Blood Dragon. You can find a movie set for making the campy schlock-fest, or dress up as one of its Cyborg Soldiers.

Then there are moments when Far Cry 5 borrows liberally from the real world. One mission has you obliquely securing a video tape to avoid embarrassing a powerful man. As it progresses it becomes more clearly a reference to the rumored Donald Trump “pee tape.”

For more Easter eggs, including this latest iteration of the famous Far Cry “see credits in five minutes” secret ending, check out the full video above. And be sure to check out GameSpot’s full Far Cry 5 review for more on this romp through Montana on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Fortnite: Battle Royale got a big new patch today that implements a bunch of changes and brings back an old limited-time game mode. The update also includes a new weapon, the Guided Missile, which has provided an unexpected high point of the new patch.

This is because the Guided Missile moves slow enough to ride on. That’s right, you can now surf on one of the giant, slow-moving missiles. This is actually the second weapon that players can ride on; the Pumpkin Launcher is also surf-able. But the Guided Missile is much more fun because the person who launched it can control its flight. Twitch streamer and esports athlete Myth demonstrated missile surfing, and you can see it in action in the video below.

It’s pretty hilarious, and it shows another example of some of the wackier strategies and stunts that Fortnite players come up with, both to get an advantage and just to have fun. We have no idea if missile-surfing will ever be used strategically–but it’s fun to imagine a player launching a missile and their teammate toward an enemy’s location.

The Fortnite 3.4 patch is also headlined by the return of Sniper Shootout, which features the addition of the Hunting Rifle and Crossbow and the removal of the Magnum Revolver. Further, the game’s 30 FPS option has been removed. You can see the full Fortnite 3.4 patch notes here.