Month: January 2019

There will be no new mainline Assassin’s Creed game coming out in 2019, and as such, Ubisoft is supporting Assassin’s Creed Odyssey with heaps of extra content to keep players busy and coming back. Now, Ubisoft has revealed what’s coming to the game in January–and it’s a lot.

Starting off, the second episode of the Legacy of the First Blade DLC, Shadow Heritage, will launch on January 15. In this new expansion, players will “investigate a blockade initiated by the Order of the Ancients around the port city in Achaia.”

The description goes on: “You’ll discover a group of stranded citizens whose lives are being threatened by a fierce naval commander, the Tempest, who is in charge of the blockade. Steal the Tempest’s top secret weapon, help the citizens escape, and destroy the blockade once and for all…with your ship! An epic maritime battle awaits you at the Aegean Sea.”

To play Shadow Heritage, you need to finish the first episode, Hunted, complete the Naxos questline from chapter 7 of the main story, and hit level 28 or higher.

The Legacy of the First Blade DLC is paid, but Odyssey’s Lost Tales of Greece DLC is free, and it continues in January with the Daughters of Lalaia expansion. In the Daughters of Lalai content, you’ll travel to a village left defenseless after all the men left for battle. Players will train the townspeople to prepare them for “incoming danger.”

The other new Lost Tales of Greece content is called Poet’s Legacy, and it introduces players to Greece’s “most scandalous poet.”

“During this questline you’ll learn that she isn’t quite what she seems as you become increasingly involved in her risqué performances,” Ubisoft said.

Additionally, Odyssey is adding a new mythical creature, a cyclops named Bright One. Players who defeat the beast will get his weapon, the Hammer of Hephaistos. You can find the Bright One on Arges; this is a challenging quest, so Ubisoft recommends that you’re at least level 50 before facing off.

The new Athena gear

Additionally, Ubisoft Club members can bring Aya from Assassin’s Creed Origins to their ship in January, while a bunch of new items are coming to the game as well. The Dionysos Character Pack adds a new gear set, a big cow mount, and a “legendary dagger.” The Athena Pack is also on the way, and it adds some snazzy new gear; you can see it in the image embedded above.

In addition to all the new content, Ubisoft said it continues to work on more title updates for Odyssey that add new features. One of these is new Mercenary tiers–two more are coming to the game, and they should be extra challenging. Defeat them and you’ll earn “new benefits worthy of a demigod,” Ubisoft said. Additionally, a new vendor is coming to Odyssey that will allow players to view and purchase new engravings, upgrade them, and also perform the engravings themselves on gear you already own. The new shop, Hephaistos’s Workshop, is located int he Myson Cave in the Malis region.

Finally, Ubisoft is addressing enemy scaling. With the new title update on January 10, players can select an enemy-scaling system that suits their playstyle. The options (which aren’t available when in Nightmare difficulty mode) include:

• Heavy – All enemies remain at your level.
• Normal – No change in the difficulty settings.
• Light – Content is around two levels below your level.
• Very Light – Content is around four levels below your level.

In other news about Odyssey, the game is nominated for outstanding achievement in writing at the Writers Guild Awards.

Treyarch has released a Reddit post that details new updates for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. One update has already gone live, adding new featured Multiplayer playlists. The rest are scheduled throughout January and mostly patch Zombies and Blackout.

The January 8 update adds Endurance Chaos Moshpit to the Featured playlist. It also puts Mercenary Capture Moshpit, Mercenary Hardcore Moshpit, Deathmatch Moshpit, and Map Pack Moshpit into the Featured category.

Treyarch will add League Play to Black Ops 4 later this month. The new feature transforms competitive multiplayer into something more along the lines of what’s seen in professional matches with skill-based matchmaking putting participants into 50-player groupings. League Play events will typically last for three days, much like a tournament, with unranked scrimmage matches taking place in between each event for you to sharpen your skills.

There are also scheduled plans for implementing new Zombies features and content as well. Gauntlets is launching first in Voyage of Despair sometime next week, and three new Elixirs are coming to the PS4 version of the game. Treyarch also teased new details about the major changes coming to Zombies mode this year will be shared next week during a “very Zombies-specific date.”

Also next week, Treyarch will release an update on consoles that makes it easier to loot in Blackout. You’ll be able click through your inventory, instead of having to move a pointer, and more easily select the item you want to pick up off the ground if you’re near multiple weapons and equipment.

All the changes that are currently live in Black Ops 4 are listed in the full patch notes below. Black Ops 4 is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 January Update

Multiplayer

Featured Playlists

• Added Endurance Chaos Moshpit as Featured Playlist.
  • 6v6 with higher score limits.
  • Team Deathmatch with 150 score limit, 15 minute time limit.
  • Domination with 200 score round limit, 400 score match limit.
  • Hardpoint with 500 score limit, 10 minute time limit.
  • Kill Confirmed with 150 score limit, 15 minute time limit.
• Added Mercenary Capture Moshpit, Mercenary Hardcore Moshpit, Deathmatch Moshpit, and Map Pack Moshpit to Featured category.

Stability

• Improved stability with Torque’s Barricade and its effects on enemy players.
• Improved stability with the Mantis Scorestreak, particularly when firing rockets.
• Improved stability when killing Strike Team members as they rappel out of the helicopter.

Zombies

Miscellaneous

• Dead of the Night
  • Addressed an issue that occasionally prevented a gravestone marker from appearing during the Main Quest.
  • Addressed an issue that could prevent progression of the Stake Knife quest.
  • Addressed an issue where players were able to pick up the Savage Impaler while their Special Weapon was in use.
  • Addressed a rare stability issue involving the clock step in the Pack-A-Punch Quest.

IX

• Addressed an issue that could prevent progression of the bull head portion of the Main Quest.

Stability

• Improved stability when multiple Sentries are active.

The new live-action Barbie moving starring Margot Robbie in the title role is now finally official. Movie giant Warner Bros. and toy company Mattel have announced a partnership for the film, and also confirmed that Robbie will be a producer on the film.

According to Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich, the new Barbie movie will “bring Barbie to life on screen in a fresh and relevant way for today’s audiences.”

He added that the new Barbie movie is the first in a new partnership with Mattel’s new film division, Mattel Films, which suggests some of the iconic toy company’s other brands may get spun into films someday. Barbie is arguably Mattel’s biggest brand, but the company also owns the American Girl Doll, Hot Wheels, Hot Wheels, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Fisher Price brands, among many others.

Mattel’s share price has plummeted over the past year, and the company also cut more than 2,000 jobs in an effort to improve its profitability, according to CNBC.

Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz said in his own statement that the company is trying to become an “IP-driven, high performing toy company,” and the new film division is one part of this. The new Mattel Films division is led by Robbie Brenner, who shared the Best Picture Oscar nomination for Dallas Buyers Club.

As for Robbie, who earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her leading role in I, Tonya, said she is “honoured” to be playing Barbie in the new film.

“Playing with Barbie promotes confidence, curiosity and communication throughout a child’s journey to self-discovery. Over the brand’s almost 60 years, Barbie has empowered kids to imagine themselves in aspirational roles from a princess to president,” she said.

According to Variety, the story is along the lines of Enchanted and Big, in that the main character finds herself kicked out of Barbieland and thrust into the real world.

Amy Schumer was originally lined up to play Barbie in the movie when it was set up at Sony. Before the studio changeover, it was expected to open in Summer 2018, but the date has been pushed. Reports now say that Barbie is slated for a May 8, 2020 release date.

GameStop was once a total juggernaut in the video game space, but thanks to the rise in digital game sales and other factors, it’s been relatively tough sledding for the company of late. Last June, the company announced that it was exploring the option to sell itself to another company, and now it appears a deal might be coming soon.

The Wall Street Journal reports that at least two companies are bidding for GameStop, and a deal to buy the retailer could become public by the middle of February. Citing a person familiar with GameStop, WSJ reported that private equity companies Sycamore Partners and Apollo Global Management are interested in buying GameStop.

Both companies declined to comment when approached by WSJ, and GameStop itself refused to elaborate on acquisition discussions.

Sycamore, which raised a further $4.75 billion USD in capital last July, specialises in consumer and retail investment, so going after GameStop makes sense.

Apollo, meanwhile, is a firm that prides itself of making investments in companies that have fallen out of favour–and this would also cover GameStop in theory. Apollo Equity co-president and lead partner Scott Kleinman says Apollo is looking for investment opportunities that “others are unable or willing to figure out.”

An example of a company Apollo might go after would include one that has missed earnings for a few quarters, or a company that the market has given up on, or a company that operates in sector that has fallen out of favour. In periods of transition, some investors pull back, but Kleinman says Apollo is an investor with “conviction.”

Longtime GameStop CEO Paul Raines died in March 2018 at the age of 53. He was replaced by Michael Mauler, who himself left after just three months for “personal reasons.” Shane Kim, the former boss of Xbox during the Xbox 360 days, is GameStop’s current CEO.

One of the benefits of subscribing to Nintendo Switch Online is that you get access to a library of classic NES games to play as much as you want. Nintendo is adding two (or three, depending on where you live) to the service in January, and now they’ve been announced.

Arriving January 16 are two games from 1998: Blaster Master and Zelda II: The Adventures of Link. In Japan, subscribers get a third game, Joy Mech Fight.

The NES library for Switch Online subscribers launched with 20 big-name games, including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Dr. Mario, Ice Climber, Metroid, and Donkey Kong.

Nintendo Switch Online costs $4 USD/month or $8 USD for three months. A 12-month subscription goes for $20 USD, while a Family Membership for up to eight Nintendo Account members costs $35 USD for a year. New subscribers can sign up with a seven-day free trial. In addition to free NES games, subscribers get access to cloud saves, online player for many titles such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Mario Kart 8 Ultimate.

Nintendo has announced the release dates for two upcoming exclusives games. First, the adorable-looking Yoshi’s Crafted World will launch for Nintendo Switch on March 29. Another game with a handcrafted style, Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn, is due out on March 8 for 3DS, Nintendo announced.

You play as Yoshi, of course, in Yoshi’s Crafted World, with the goal of solving puzzles, collecting eggs and throwing them, and jumping around to make it through levels. Stages can be played backward for another challenge, while the game also supports two-player co-op.

Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn, meanwhile, is an “enhanced” edition of Kirby’s Epic Yarn from the Wii. As its name suggests, Kirby is brought to a universe where everything is made of cloth and yarn, and the objective is to use the yarn to defeat enemies and solve puzzles.

All of the stages from the Wii version are included in the 3DS edition, while the game also boasts new features like “Ravel” abilities and new mini-games. There is also a new “Devilish” mode that makes each stage more challenging.

In other Nintendo news, some Nintendo Switch and 3DS games are now available through the Humble Store in the United States.