Fortnite‘s newest patch has been delayed. Update 3.3 was supposed to go live on March 14, but developer Epic ran into an unspecified “issue,” so the studio is delaying the patch until it can fix it. Epic added that it is currently working on a solution and will announce more details on its progress as information becomes available.
There is no word about everything in the 3.3 update, but the developer did tease that players will be able to come across a Supply Llama in Battle Royale. The update may also include remote explosives, a newly revealed item that players will be able to detonate from a distance.
We discovered an issue that will prevent us from releasing v3.3 tomorrow, March 14. We’re working on solving that problem now and will update you once we know more.
Teams of 20 has been available in Fortnite since earlier this month. The mode pits five teams against each other, with each team containing 20 players. You can watch a trailer for the mode in the video embed above.
Developer Epic releases limited-time modes for Fortnite on a semi-regular basis. One of the previous ones was called Solid Gold, which made every item in the game Legendary. We can only imagine what limited-time mode will come next.
Epic recently announced it is bringing Fortnite: Battle Royale to mobile. Those with iOS devices can now sign up for a chance to take part in an exclusive invite event. If you’re curious to see how the game runs on mobile, you can check out the first gameplay footage of Fortnite on iOS here.
Capcom has finally detailed the first major free update for Monster Hunter World. It arrives later this month and introduces the much-anticipated Deviljho monster–along with accompanying gear to craft–plus a variety of other changes and additions.
Prior to World’s release, Deviljho (a returning monster for the series) was confirmed to be the first big addition through free, post-launch updates. Aside from having a different foe to hunt, you’ll be able to use the parts from it to craft two full armor sets, Vangis α and Vangis β. Additionally, there will be a new “entry” for all 14 weapon types, which Capcom says on its blog include brand-new designs for Sword and Shield, Hunting Horn, Bow, Insect Glaive, and Charge Blade. You can see some of this gear below.
Deviljho will be released as part of a broader update launching on March 22 for PS4 (version 2.00) and Xbox One (version 2.0.0.0). The patch will also make balance changes to almost every weapon type, primarily those of the melee variety. For instance, Great Sword will get a buff to damage with Charged Slash abilities, while Gunlance will get an attack damage increase and a reduction to the amount of sharpness lost when shelling.
Capcom is also addressing complaints about online griefing, where players prevent their teammates from carving, thus robbing them of rewards. With this update installed, allies can no longer interrupt the carving animation, and players become immune to all hit reactions while carving after a quest is complete. Additionally, a new option to return to the gathering hub in single-player or to disband and return to the gathering hub in multiplayer have been added to the Return Destination menu after finishing a quest. You can see a full list of announced changes at the bottom of this post; full patch notes will be shared closer to the update’s release.
Before the update arrives, Capcom will distribute a free Character Edit Voucher on March 16. This will be available from the PlayStation Store and Xbox Store as a one-use item that lets you modify your character’s gender and physical appearance, but not you or your Palico’s name or your Palico’s appearance. Additional vouchers will be available for purchase “at a later date” if you decide you want to make changes again after using the freebie.
Finally, Capcom unveiled details of the game’s Mega Man crossover gear (available through a quest from April 13-27) and the winner of the community’s weapon design contest (available starting April 6). These will come during the Spring Blossom event that runs from April 6-20 and offers “daily fun activities” and a new look for the Gathering Hub, as seen in the images below.
Monster Hunter World March 22 Update
Weapon Balance Changes
Great Sword: increased the damage for Charged Slash abilities.
Long Sword: improvements to Foresight Slash input timing and hitbox detection.
Sword & Shield: Roundslash damage increased and improved slinger usability
Dual Blades: adjustments to help maintain Demon Gauge active
Hammer: adjusted the stun values on charged attacks
Hunting Horn: general attack power increase
Lance: Counter-thrust adjustment to increase ease of use
Gunlance: Reduced sharpness loss for shelling, and made some attack power increases
Switch Axe: Zero Sum Discharge adjustments to increase ease of use
Charge Blade: balance adjustments to Impact Phial and Power Element Phial
Insect Glaive: improvements to extract attack power increase and extract effect length
Bow: fixed various bugs
Light Bowgun: no adjustments were made
Heavy Bowgun: no adjustments were made
Other Changes
Attacks from allies no longer interrupt you during the carving animation. Additionally, players are now immune to all hit reactions, including bombs, during carving animations after quest completion.
Added “Return to Gathering Hub” (single player) and “Disband & Return to Gathering Hub” (multiplayer) to the options for “Select Return Destination” after a quest has been completed.
Added the “Text Size” setting for changing subtitle text size, under Start Menu > Options Game Settings.
Now that the digital release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi has arrived, the film’s deleted scenes are available for everyone to see. Whether you were a fan of the movie or not, the deleted material provides some interesting insight into director Rian Johnson’s original vision for The Last Jedi.
For instance, while the final version of the film didn’t show much of Luke Skywalker’s (Mark Hamill) reaction to learning that Han Solo was dead, one of the deleted scenes fixes that. The removed moment finds the wayward Jedi sitting in his hut on Ahch-To, crying over what is believed to be the loss of his friend.
Another scene on the planet finds the Caretakers having a celebration in Luke’s tiny village, which the elder Jedi uses as a ruse to convince Rey (Daisy Ridley) they’re being raided. When she runs to the rescue, he points out her kind of heroism is what the Resistance needs–not an old and dead belief system like the Jedi. This particular piece of film may not seem all that important but would have gone a long way in showing the fracture between Rey and Luke before she finally leaves his planet to return to her friends.
While those two scenes are deeply invested in the movie’s plot, others would have injected some silliness into the film–especially one that includes a cameo from Venom star Tom Hardy. It’s been reported for over a year that Hardy had filmed a small appearance in the movie before a photo of him in a stormtrooper costume surfaced.
In Hardy’s appearance, his stormtrooper recognizes Finn (John Boyega) from their time training together in the First Order while the Resistance member is infiltrating Snoke’s (Andy Serkis) ship with Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and DJ (Benicio del Toro). While they think their cover is blown at first, the rather charismatic stormtrooper instead congratulated Finn on becoming an officer and slaps him on the butt.
It’s a very funny scene that would have felt out of place in the final film, but it does hammer home a point made in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Under their intimidating armor, the stormtroopers are people. It’s easy to view them as a faceless legion of evil, but this scene and Finn himself show that’s just not the case.
You can take a look at all of The Last Jedi‘s deleted scenes, including an alternate opening to the film, now through digital release. The movie will release on Blu-ray on March 27.
A lot of new content is on the way soon to Monster Hunter World. In addition to the game’s first big update next week, which adds the returning monster Deviljho and makes an assortment of balance changes to almost every weapon type, players have a few new events to look forward to in the near future.
Early next month, Capcom will kick off the Spring Blossom Fest, the first seasonal event in Monster Hunter World. The festival begins on April 5 at 5 PM PT / 8 PM ET (12 AM GMT on April 6) and runs until the same time on April 19.
During the Spring Blossom Fest, the Gathering Hub will be decked out with flowers and other springtime decorations. Players will also be able to participate in “daily fun activities.” Capcom will share more details closer to the event, but in the meantime, you can take a look at some screenshots of the made over Gathering Hub below.
Capcom will also hold two new Event Quests during the Spring Blossom Festival. The first is for the Wyvern Ignition Great Sword, the winner of the community Weapon Design Contest. The event coincides with the start of the Spring Blossom Fest on April 6. You can take a look at the concept art and in-game render of the sword below.
Following shortly after the Wyvern Ignition Great Sword, players will be able to take on an Event Quest for the retro Mega Man armor. Capcom hasn’t shared any details yet about what the quest will entail, but it will be available from April 13-27 and reward players with tickets to craft the voxel-style gear for their Palico; when equipped, it will play different classic Mega Man tunes depending on what weapon you’re using. You can take another look at it in the trailer above.
Capcom is rolling out the first big update for Monster Hunter World on March 22. The publisher also recently announced a set of Devil May Cry-inspired armor and weapons, although there’s currently no word on when its corresponding Event Quest will be available in the game. Until then, players have one last chance to get the Horizon Zero Dawn gear and the stylish Shadow Shades α sunglasses.
Microsoft has revealed when and where it will host its E3 press conference this year.
As detailed on a recent blog post, the Xbox E3 2018 Briefing will be held on June 10 at 1pm PT / 4pm ET / 9pm UK (June 11 at 8am in Australia) in the Microsoft Theater, located across the street from the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Along with the press conference, the Microsoft Theater will also host various Xbox FanFest activities, hands-on gameplay and demos for attendees, and more throughout E3. Microsoft promises this new venue will allow the company to “include even more fans and partners in the Xbox E3 2018 Briefing than ever before.”
Grand Theft Auto V has topped the UK physical sales charts once again this week, according to sales monitor Chart-Track. For the week ending March 10, the open-world game was the best-selling game in the UK, and it’s the 15th time the game has reached No.1 since its original launch in September 2013.
You can read the full top 10 sales chart below, courtesy of UKIE and Chart-Track. Note this table does not include digital sales data, and so should not be considered representative of all UK game sales.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s release date appears to have been leaked. The official Tomb Raider website is currently displaying a countdown, presumably to a full reveal, but the site’s source code shows the game will launch for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on September 14, 2018.
“Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the climactic finale of Lara’s origin story,” the source code reads. “Available September 14, 2018.” Additionally, the code lists PS4, Xbox One, and PC as available platforms, which is interesting given the most recent game in the series, Rise of the Tomb Raider, launched on Xbox One before coming to other systems.
Elsewhere, the code mentions a “reveal date” of April 27. It’s possible the game will be officially announced on the date displayed on the website itself–March 15 at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET / 1 PM GMT / 11 PM AEST–before a full gameplay reveal next month, though that remains to be seen.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider hasn’t yet been revealed, but Square Enix did say in December that a new game was on the way after rumors had surrounded the third game in the series for a while. “Driven by our goal of putting our fans first, we want you to know that it won’t be long between the official reveal and when you can play,” read the company’s statement. “Our journey will begin with a major event in 2018. We simply can’t wait to take you on Lara Croft’s defining adventure.”
Tropico 6 was revealed back at E3 with a very silly teaser video, and that tone has continued with the latest trailer. It shows a Statue of Liberty stolen and put right in the middle of the tropics, for example, thought it does also give a glimpse into the game’s new features.
There’s palace customization, additional transportation and infrastructure options, and the ability to steal landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, or the Colosseum. We saw the game at E3 last year, and its “El Presidente” dictator made it clear that Tropico 6 is channeling the absurdity of modern politics.
The most recent game in the series, Tropico 5, launched in 2014, initially for PC only before later coming to Xbox 360, PS4, and Xbox One. We enjoyed that entry in the management sim franchise: our critic, Maxwell McGee, awarded the game an 8/10.
“Whether you’re playing alone or with up to three others online, the game strikes a good balance between style and substance that is easy to digest for all types of strategy fans,” he wrote. “The constant power struggle between the game’s various factions–both internal and abroad–creates an ever-changing challenge for you to manage as El Presidente, whether through force or appeasement. And while the rest of the world tears itself apart with World War-this and Cold War-that, the simple-minded Tropicans are there to kick their feet up and take it easy for all us sinners.”
Tropico 6 is not developed by the studio that made the previous game, Haemimont Games, but instead by Might & Magic studio Limbic Entertainment. For more on the upcoming strategy game, watch the trailer above or check out our preview of Tropico 6’s new features here.
Shadow is a streaming service that grants you access to a full-on, high-end Windows 10 PC in the cloud. This means that you can stream PC games from a gaming rig located on a remote server to any cruddy old computer you have lying around. While this might sound a little like the now defunct OnLive service, OnLive was marred by issues like heavy compression, latency, and poor game selection. Shadow, developed by the Blade Group, has largely mitigated most of these problems. And since it streams a full-on desktop PC and not just a curated library of games, you could also use it to launch all your Steam games and for productivity tasks like video editing. In addition, you can stream it to numerous devices such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, MacBooks, and more.
Shadow suggest that the PCs in its server farms are the equivalent to a $2,000 gaming PC. The monthly subscription service starts at $35 per month, and might be a compelling option given the current cost-prohibitive price of GPUs (thanks, cryptocurrency).
Currently, it does have some issues, however. We’ll give you our impressions and tell you if Shadow is worth your time and money.
Specs
Shadow’s PCs are equipped with Nvidia’s Quadro P5000 professional graphics cards. In terms of gaming performance, Shadow asserts that this GPU is roughly as fast as Nvidia’s consumer-based GTX 1080. Its systems also have 12GB of RAM, but the lone 256GB hard drive doesn’t provide a lot of storage. The company does plan to roll out different storage payment tiers in the near future that will allow you to pay extra per terabyte each month.
Here’s one of the Blade Group’s servers.
The company’s data centers are located in Paris, the UK, and Santa Clara, CA at the moment. In the United States, Shadow is currently only currently available in California, but the company has plans to roll out several more data centers across the country.
Requirements
Since streaming gameplay has to be done in real-time with minimal latency, you don’t have the same buffering safety net as you would on a video streaming service like Netflix. Shadow requires an internet connection capable of at least 15 megabits down. For reference, this is three times faster than Netflix’s HD tier, which requires a five megabit per second connection. It is less than Netflix’s 4K streaming standard, however, which requires 25 megabits per second down. The Blade Group also recommends that subscribers use a wired internet connection for better/consistent performance.
Price
Shadow starts at $35 per month if you commit to a one-year subscription. A three-month contract costs $40 a month, and users can also subscribe month by month for $50. The company will soon allows users to buy a physical “Shadow Box” for $140 or to rent one for $10 per month that you can stream to. The Shadow Box measures 7.5×7.25×4.3 inches and comes with a wide variety of ports that include two DisplayPort, two USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, Ethernet, microphone jack, and headphone jack. It also comes with an HDMI adapter and supports 4K streaming.
The Shadow Box
Shadow is certainly more expensive than Netflix, but the Blade Group asserts that it would take subscribers over 4.7 years to pay off its supposed $2,000 cloud-based PC at its cheapest rate. In addition, the company says that it will periodically upgrade its rigs, and users will reap the benefits of these hardware enhancements at no extra cost.
Performance
The company asserts that Shadow’s response time is fast enough to fool a CS:GO pro. Because we noticed occasional performance hiccups on our end playing CS:GO and Street Fighter V, we wouldn’t say it’s that good from what we’ve tested thus far. But we do think Shadow is responsive enough for most games. A non-competitive single-player game like Rise of the Tomb Raider, for instance, felt nearly indiscernible from playing a locally downloaded copy. We occasionally noticed some slight compression, but it was largely a non-issue.
In terms of graphical performance, when we ran the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark, the PC achieved a 59.1 average FPS on max settings at 1080p. While that’s very playable, it isn’t on par with an actual GTX 1080, which should be able to hit over 100 FPS pretty consistently.
One counterintuitive benefit that Shadow does offer is access to internet that’s probably faster than your own. The company says that its servers are outfitted to reach one gigabit per second; you’re essentially getting a mirrored image of a computer that has super fast internet. While we didn’t come close to hitting that theoretical max speed, we were able to download games above 40 megabytes per second, which is still quite fast.
While it’s not recommended, we ran Shadow on a laptop over Wi-Fi. Your mileage will vary depending on your internet connection and router setup, but we did notice more performance hiccups running on a wireless 25-megabit connection. Games were still largely playable, but we wouldn’t couple Shadow and Wi-Fi to play competitive games.
Issues
While there’s a lot to like about Shadow, we encountered several little annoying issues during our tests. We came across an instance in which the service said, “We could not reach your Shadow. Please try again later.” The company informed me that the computer on the other end encountered an issue with a Windows update, and needed to be restarted. Luckily, the Shadow app does allow you to restart the PC on the other end to mitigate these issues.
We also encountered a problem where our wired Xbox 360 controller wasn’t working when we connected it to our PC. The Blade Group tells us they are aware of the issue and are trying to solve it and said that a wireless Xbox One controller that supports Bluetooth should work. While we could get one to work, we still experienced occasional bouts with it, too.
Beyond that, we had problems where the mouse cursor would randomly disappear and reverse issues where it annoyingly wouldn’t go away. In addition, one time when we were playing CS:GO, we couldn’t get our mouse to look up or down.
We also experienced audio bugs where sound would work on the desktop, but not in-game and vice versa. You can restart the Shadow desktop app or your respective PC in the cloud to mitigate these issues, but all of these issues pile up and make the service feel more like a promising beta rather than a polished, finished product.
In addition to using Shadow on a desktop PC and a laptop, we also tested it on an Android phone. Pairing Microsoft’s Bluetooth Xbox One controller to a Pixel 2 XL, we were able to access Steam on our phone and play Rise of the Tomb Raider on it. It was kind of surreal seeing such high quality graphics come from a mobile device. One hurdle that immediately becomes clear here, however, is that the Windows 10 user interface was not designed for a phone-sized screen. We found it cumbersome to navigate the desktop with our fingers, for instance. The company is refining a pinch-to-zoom feature to improve functionality, however.
Lastly, we tried running Shadow on Nvidia’s Android TV Shield device. While we were able to install the app from the Google Play store, we weren’t able to navigate Windows with the Shield controller. To properly get it working, you effectively have to connect a keyboard and mouse to the set top box.
Conclusion
While Shadow is currently only available in California, the Blade Group has plans to roll it out across the US. In its current state, it feels like a good open beta. While Shadow offers surprisingly good latency and minimal compression, it is marred by a bunch of little technical issues that currently hold it back.
The good news is that the company is aware of all of these issues and are trying to fix them. When Shadow works though, it’s great. It’s very promising technology that’s worth paying attention to, especially given how costly it’s become to try and build your own gaming PC.
Square Enix is teasing a reveal for their new game, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, that looks scheduled for tomorrow, but the source code for the site reveals a lot more – including a possible release date and platforms.
The image on the website is accompanied by a date and time that indicates we can expect some sort of news on the title tomorrow, March 15 at 6AM PDT/ 9AM EDT/ 1PM GMT. But if you take a look at the page’s HTML, there’s a lot more lurking below the surface.
