Month: January 2019

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THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT ASSASSIN’S CREED ODYSSEY DLC

Ubisoft recently generated controversy when it was revealed that the newest Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey expansion, Shadow Heritage, would force players into a straight relationship for a period of time. Now, creative director Jonathan Dumont has apologised, and he also explained why it happened.

At the end of the content, Kassandra or Alexios, depending on who you’re playing as, has a child in a heterosexual relationship. Dumont said in a forum post that it was important for the game to establish how “your character’s bloodline has a lasting impact on the Assassins.” However, Dumont acknowledged that Ubisoft “missed the mark.”

“We want to extend an apology to players disappointed by a relationship your character partakes in,” he explained. “Alexios/Kassandra realizing their own mortality and the sacrifice Leonidas and Myrrine made before them to keep their legacy alive, felt the desire and duty to preserve their important lineage. Our goal was to let players choose between a utilitarian view of ensuring your bloodline lived on or forming a romantic relationship. We attempted to distinguish between the two but could have done this more carefully as we were walking a narrow line between role-play choices and story, and the clarity and motivation for this decision was poorly executed.”

Players do not to need to continue this relationship in the next chapter of the DLC, Dumont added. He also said that this has been “a learning experience” for Ubisoft; he promised that Ubisoft will “do better” to make sure that player choice–which Ubisoft had hyped as one of the core tenets of the game–stays intact going forward.

The move to force players into a heterosexual relationship was especially grating for some because, as mentioned, it ran counter to what Ubisoft had promised up until this point: that you could make your own choices in regards to romantic partners.

At E3 2018, Odyssey’s narrative director Melissa McCoubrey stressed how the game would allow players to choose their romantic partners. “If you want to be a woman and romance a woman, you can do that. If you want to be a man and romance a woman, you can do that. If you want to be a man and romance a man and a woman, you can do that,” she told Stevivor at the time.

The title of the achievement/trophy for Shadow Heritage that unlocks after the childbirth is “Growing Up,” and that name is stirring controversy as well. [Update: the name of the achievement will be changed in a forthcoming patch, according to Kotaku]

Shadow Heritage is part of the Legacy of the First Blade paid DLC for Odyssey. In addition to new story content, it added a new Hunter ability, Rapid Fire, which allows players to fire arrows rapidly without reloading. You can watch the opening minutes of Shadow Heritage in the video embedded above.

From Software has revealed that boss battles will play out slightly differently in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice in comparison to both the Dark Souls series and Bloodborne. Although Sekiro will contain encounters just as challenging as its Soulsborne predecessors, its new mechanics offer different ways for From Software to create unique fights.

In an interview with Game Informer, From Software director Hidetaka Miyazaki said that the new traversal mechanics–with the exception of swimming–have been used to create boss battles that have never been seen in a Soulsborne game before. “The traversal options allow much more dynamic movement within the boss arena, both for yourself and the boss character themselves,” Miyazaki said. “Previously, you would have just had to run around a huge boss’ feet and hack away at his ankles, but now you have all these movement options; you can both fully use the extent of that arena.”

Not every traversal mechanic will be available to you during bosses though. Some bosses will be huge, hulking monsters that are reminiscent of what’s seen in Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and you’ll defeat them similarly to how you would in From Software’s older games. There are also bosses who simply won’t give you the room to zip about the arena with your grappling hook, allow you to stealth behind them for an instant kill, or rely on any of Sekiro’s other traversal mechanics. But each boss does have a weakness you can exploit to make the fight easier.

You won’t be alone when it comes to figuring out how to defeat a boss. In place of messages from other players, you can find clues in the world that hint at certain bosses’ weaknesses. Whether you search out these hints is entirely up to you, but Miyazaki said that they do help, especially for enemy bosses that “use really dirty tricks” and “underhanded techniques.”

New types of boss battles aren’t the only change From Software is putting into Sekiro. The game won’t have multiplayer of any kind, and as a result, you’ll be able to actually pause whenever you want. Unlike Dark Souls III and Bloodborne, Sekiro will also have an interconnected world that directly links back to its hub area. 

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice launches on March 22 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. The standard version of the game releases alongside a Collector’s Edition, both of which are available for pre-order.

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The WestWorld mobile game that Bethesda claimed was a “blatant ripoff” of Fallout Shelter is shutting down following the lawsuit that Bethesda brought against its developer. A statement posted on the game’s Twitter page confirms the game has been removed from App Store and Google Play, with a final closure taking place on April 16, 2019. Additionally, all in-app purchases have been switched off, and you’re recommended to spend any remaining currency before the final shutdown.

It’s not immediately clear if refunds will be available, but it doesn’t sound like it. “We are sorry to see the Westworld mobile game go, and had an incredible time creating new content and events for players to enjoy. We deeply appreciate our community’s enthusiasm and participation in the game,” developer Behaviour Interactive said.

Nowhere in the statement is the lawsuit from Bethesda mentioned. Bethesda reached what was described by the company as an amicable settlement with Behaviour and Westworld studio Warner Bros. earlier this month. Terms of the settlement deal between Bethesda and Behaviour were never made public, so it’s impossible to know if shutting down the Westworld game was part of the deal, but that could be the case.

Behaviour worked on Fallout Shelter, and Bethesda alleged that Behaviour “illegally” used the same copyrighted source code from Fallout Shelter to developer the Westworld game. Not only that, but Bethesda claimed Behaviour “copied Fallout Shelter’s game design, art, animations, gameplay features, and other elements.

Bethesda was suing Behaviour and Warner Bros. for “copyright infringement, breach of contract, and misappropriation of [Bethesda’s] intellectual property.”

343’s commitment to expanding and improving upon Halo: The Master Chief Collection continues with a new update available now for all players of the Xbox One game.

Following the big update in November that added the very-excellent “match composer” feature, the first big update of 2019 introduces a new “modern aiming” option, more skulls for Halo: Combat Evolved, a lot of bug fixes, and more.

The first thing you’ll notice with the update is that the Halo: MCC menu screen now has a winter makeover. The animated menu screen shows snow falling on a warthog. It’s peaceful and serene. This new title screen replaces the Flood-inspired screen that was launched to mark celebrate the game’s Flood event that started back in October. Going forward, 343 said it plans to release more “menu takeovers” that are based on and inspired by in-game events and challenges.

When you actually get into the game, one of the first things you may notice is the new “modern aiming” option. Some players remarked that Halo: MCC’s aiming feels a little bit off for some games. You’ll find the new setting in the “Aim Control” section of the controller settings tab for each game in Halo: MCC. With modern aiming turned on, aim acceleration zones are “smoothed” out so the game feels more like Halo 4 or Halo 2 Anniversary. You can revert to “Classic” aim control if you don’t like how it feels.

There are also new skulls for Halo: Combat Evolved. You can see a full rundown of these below as written by 343, but some of them include “Anger” (enemies fire weapons faster and more frequently), “Catch” (enemies throw and drop more grenades), and “Tough Luck” (enemies go “berserk,” basically).

New Halo: CE Skulls

• Anger – Enemies and allies fire their weapons faster and more frequently.
• Bandana – Fixed a bug with this skull so now energy-based weapons have infinite ammo as well.
• Catch – Enemies throw and drop more grenades.
• Ghost – A.I. characters will not flinch from attacks, melee or otherwise.
• Sputnik – the Mass of objects is decreased, making them more easily displaced
• That’s Just Wrong – Strengthens the hearing of both allies and enemies. They will now notice the slightest sound of reloading or drawing a weapon, footsteps, etc. A.I. also have increased accuracy.
• Thunderstorm – Field Promotions to the ranks of all A.I. characters so they are more difficult to fight, smarter, and more dangerous.
• Tough Luck – Enemies always go berserk, always dive out of the way, and never flee.

Additionally, 343 has released a new playlist–Super Duper Fiesta. This new playlist includes Fiesta game types for Halo 2 classic and Anniversary, as well as Halo 3 and Halo 4. The new playlist replaces Team Action Sack.

What’s more, 343 has made changes to Halo: MCC’s match composer. In addition to replacing Action Sack with Super Duper Fiesta, the changes include the following:

Match Composer Settings Changes:

• Removed Action Sack and replaced with Super Duper Fiesta
• [4v4] Added a Super Duper Fiesta! Game preset.
• [4v4] [H2, H2A, H3, H4] Added Super Duper Fiesta! Entries.
• [8v8] [H3, H4] Moved BTB Heavies entries from Action Sack to Slayer at low weighting
• [8v8] [H4] Moved Dominion entries from Action Sack to King of the Hill.

In other news, the Halo 3 hardcore team doubles playlist has been removed from all matchmaking playlists. 343 pulled it because “engagement has slowed” and because tournaments that used it are now over.

As for the bug fixes, there are many, spread across the entire game and the specific titles within it. For Halo: CE, the update fixes a bug that caused “inconsistent hit detection” when aiming at players with poor connections. In Halo 2, the update addresses a problem related to the Bandana skull, and in Halo 3, the update fixes an issue related to the Shade Turret not appearing in post-game reports. A full rundown of changes is below as written by 343.

Halo: MCC Bug Fixes:

Global

• Cleansed the Flood infection from the main menu
• Added error handling to prevent users from joining each other from different versions of the game
• Fixed an issue where players could not enter gameplay using custom map or game variants in offline LAN
• Fixed an issue where menu music volume slider changes were not respected while in a squad
• Fixed some navigation inconsistencies in the main menu
• Fixed an issue where the descriptions for some campaign killstreak medals were inaccurate in the medal chest

Halo: CE

• Fixed an issue that resulted in inconsistent hit detection against players with poor connections
• Fixed an issue where the Bandana skull did not grant infinite ammo to energy weapons in Campaign

Halo 2

• Fixed an issue where the Bandana skull did not grant infinite ammo to energy weapons in Campaign

Halo 3

• Fixed an issue where the Shade Turret was not appropriately displayed as the tool of destruction in the post-game carnage report

ODST

• Improved messaging around which playlists support co-op play

Forge & Films

• Fixed an issue where incorrect file sizes were being displayed for films
• Fixed an issue where the character limit for map variant names was displayed inaccurately in Halo 3
• Fixed an issue where players were forced to re-enter a map variant name after inputting an invalid description

The update doesn’t fix all the problems in Halo: MCC, however, as some of the known issues 343 spoke about included checkpoint loss in Halo: CE and Halo 3 campaigns, as well as career stats pages showing as blank or otherwise bugged.

This won’t be Halo: MCC’s last update, as 343 teased that there is “plenty more MCC goodness coming” in 2019. In the future, 343 plans to add the much-request custom game browser to the game, improvements to the post-game carnage report, and updates that help fix issues related to vulnerabilities that bad actors can exploit to kick people out of games.

Halo: MCC got off to a very rocky start when it launched back in 2014. It was nearly unplayable for some. 343 never gave up on the title, however, and all of these updates demonstrate the studio’s ambition to constantly and significantly improve the experience. And it sounds like 343 will continue to improve the game in 2019 and beyond.

“We look forward to continuing this open dialogue and partnership through 2019 and beyond. We would like to offer our heartfelt thank you everyone in the community who has supported and helped improve MCC by playing, critiquing, and providing thoughtful feedback,” 343 said.

Head to Halo Waypoint to see a full rundown of the January update for Halo: MCC.

Halo: MCC is free with Xbox Game Pass, and its inclusion there has surely helped keep player figures at a decent level. All these years after release, it’s still easy to find a match, and that’s great to see for Halo fans.

The next big Halo game is Halo Infinite, which is in development for Xbox One and PC. Little is known about the game, however, and it sounds like it still may be a long time off.