Month: April 2018

As part of its big effort to continue to improve Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Microsoft is inviting community members to test new updates in a “flighting” program. Invitations are now going out for the Halo Community Feedback Program, and specifically the MCC Insider Program.

Plenty of people signed up for the program, apparently, as developer 343 said in a blog post that it has been “thrilled to see so much interest and excitement” for the program. The first wave of invitations were sent out last week. If you signed up already and don’t see your invite, be sure to check your junk and spam folders. If you haven’t signed up, it’s not too late–you can do so here.

This process begins with a survey that should take around 5 minutes to complete. Note that this survey, and the testing program, is subject to Microsoft’s confidentiality agreement, so you can’t talk about it. If you’re invited to join, you will also need to be a member of the Xbox Insider Program to test updates on Xbox One–you can find out how to sign up here. Eventually, 343 will push out updates to Halo: MCC to Insider Program members.

Some other things to bear in mind is that even if you do get into the MCC Insider Program, you might not get access to every update. 343 cautions that “the participation audience will be intentionally small” at the start before expanding to more players later down the track. You should also expect some “hiccups and bumps,” but that is to be expected given that it’s the whole purpose of this.

“We look forward to your participation and feedback but we also ask for your understanding and appropriate expectations as we share work-in-progress builds directly with you,” 343 said.

Back in October, Microsoft spoke frankly about why Halo: MCC struggled and laid out a bold and ambitious plan to address its lingering bugs and improve it on the whole. Because this effort came across as sounding like a serious and time-consuming effort, some believed it would impact the development of the next mainline Halo game. However, 343 later explained that its efforts to improve Halo: MCC won’t impact the development of the next Halo FPS.

While the next Halo FPS has not been officially announced, we definitely know it is coming. And thankfully, it’s going to have split-screen support. As for when Microsoft may finally announce it, that could happen at E3 in June, but we don’t know anything for sure yet.

In addition to the big new Spring sale happening on Xbox Live, Microsoft is offering a pretty sweet deal on Xbox Live Gold. If you’re a new subscriber, you can get 3 months of Gold for only $10.

That’s a pretty nice deal, considering 3 months of Xbox Live Gold normally goes for $25. You need Xbox Live Gold to play Xbox One games online (for the most part) and to take advantage of other subscriber-only benefits such as deeper discounts on deals. You can sign up on Xbox.com right here (via Slickdeals). Again, this deal is only available for new subscribers to Xbox Live Gold.

With Xbox Live Gold, you also get free games every month on Xbox One and Xbox 360. The first of April’s free Xbox One games is The Witness, from Braid creator Jonathan Blow–here’s how to get it now.

As for the Xbox Live Spring sale, a lot of big games are on sale, including Call of Duty: WWII, Star Wars: Battlefront II, Destiny 2, FIFA 18, and Assassin’s Creed: Origins, among others. Check out GameSpot’s roundup of all the big deals here.

Breakaway, the competitive video game developed by retailer Amazon’s internal game studio, has been canceled. The developer, Amazon Game Studios, announced over the weekend that it has canceled the game “after a lot of soul searching,” and is now instead moving on to pursue “new ideas” instead.

“While we have developed many ideas and made a lot of progress, we are also setting a very high bar for ourselves,” Amazon said. “In spite of our efforts, we didn’t achieve the breakthrough that made the game what we all hoped it could be. After a lot of soul searching, the team decided to focus on new ideas. As a result, Breakaway is no longer in active development.”

The cancellation statement continues: “We remain exceptionally proud of the team’s work, and feel privileged to have been a part of such a dedicated and enthusiastic community.”

Amazon Game Studios left the smallest glimmer of hope for Breakaway, saying it could return to the project “if a thunderbolt of inspiration strikes.” The official word is that “Breakaway is no longer in active development.”

This is no big surprise, as Kotaku reported back in October 2017 that Breakaway, a 4v4 game, was canceled. The shutdown of the project came after Amazon reportedly held multiple public tests. Presumably the feedback was not as enthusiastic as Amazon would have wanted.

So now Breakaway will join the ranks of canceled games that includes titles like Scalebound, Star Wars 1313, Titan, and others.

While Breakaway is canceled, Amazon Game Studios has multiple titles in the works, including an open-ended sandbox game called New World and a third-person sci-fi game called Crucible. Amazon had a big hiring push years ago, bringing on Portal designer Kim Swift and Far Cry 2 director Clint Hocking, though they left the studio without releasing anything. Now, former Sony Online Entertainment boss John Smedley is heading up Amazon Game Studios in San Diego.

PC gamers know that there are dozens of new games that come out on Steam each week, and aside from the big, obvious releases, it’s hard to tell if something that looks promising really delivers the goods. We’re here to help you find those hidden gems that might’ve flown under the radar, and boy, this week is a good one!

We dive into the Banner Saga inspired tactical RPG Ash of Gods: Redemption, and the unsettling NSA spying adventure Orwell: Ignorance is Strength. Then, we dive into the nitty-gritty of building and maintaining complicated things, first with awful cars in Jalopy, and with real-life gaming rigs in PC Building Simulator.

Have you been playing any fantastic new PC games that we missed? Let us know on Twitter: @EdmondTran + @JessMcDonell

Steam store links: Ash of Gods: Redemption | Orwell: Ignorance is Strength | Jalopy | PC Building Simulator

After 20 years off TV, Roseanne returned with a revival on ABC last week. It was a massive success, picking up 25 million viewers and an astounding 7.3 rating for adults 18-49, according to numbers posted by The Hollywood Reporter today.

25 million includes people who watched the episode live on March 27, as well as 6.6 million people who watched later. The total figure is even bigger, as it does not include the 4.3 million people who watched the re-broadcast on Sunday evening, nor does it count people who will watch it on Hulu or ABC’s other streaming destinations in the days ahead.

The first two episodes aired on March 27, while the third is coming on Tuesday, April 3, and THR mentions that it will be telling to see how the next episode fares in terms of viewership. Nine episodes in all are planned for the first season of the revival. ABC quickly renewed the show for a second season after the huge success of the premiere.

What might have buoyed Roseanne’s appeal, especially the follow-on viewers, was the subject matter. It was revealed in the first episode that Roseanne the character is a Trump supporter, just like Roseanne Barr the actress. Sara Gilbert, who plays Darlene Conner and is an executive producer of the reboot, told Watch Watch Happens Live that Roseanne’s character is a Trump supporter but the family as a unit is not.

“She’s the only one–and we never say his name, actually, in the show,” Gilbert explained.

Trump spoke with Barr over the phone to congratulate her on the show’s success. For her part, Gilbert says the new Roseanne is “not about politics.”

“It’s really about what happens to a family when there’s a political divide, which is something that I think the entire country can relate to and something we need to talk about,” Gilbert said. “So, with our show, it’s never about ‘doing an issue’ or ‘doing politics,’ it’s ‘how do these things affect a family unit?'”