Month: February 2019

Following a delay, Epic Games is now rolling out update 7.40 for Fortnite. The downtime has begun and, alongside it, the company has released the full patch notes detailing exactly what’s being added, tweaked, or changed. The headline features for the update are the start of the Valentine’s Surprise event, which rewards those that complete 13 Overtime Challenges with a free Battle Pass for Season 8.

Another big new feature added as part of the update is Gifting which, for a limited time starting now and lasting until February 22, lets players send the Heartspan Glider to someone else for free. The Glider will be free until Friday, February 15 at 7 PM ET. Finally, an Infantry Rifle has also been added to the game.

You can check out the full Fortnite: Battle Royale update 7.40 patch notes below. To see what’s changing in the Creative and Save The World modes, head to Epic’s website.

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Limited Time Mode Rotations

• As mentioned last week, we’re continuing with rotate through LTMs at a faster pace throughout the week moving forward. The first mode is detailed below, check the in-game client on Thursdays and Saturdays to see what other modes are available!

Limited Time Mode: Catch!

Summary

• In this mode, all guns have been removed. The only weapons are grenades and other items that can be thrown or tossed. Get in there and throw the enemies back to the lobby!
• Available grenades/items:
  • Smoke Grenades
  • Clingers
  • Remote Explosives
  • Port-a-Forts
  • Impulse Grenades
  • Shockwave Grenades

Mode details:

• Chest spawns and Floor Spawns set to 100.
• Can only get consumables out of Chests, Floor Loot, and Supply Drops.
• Increase Supply Drops throughout the game.
• Faster circle times.
• Increased drop stack counts.

Limited Time Mode: Team Rumble

Summary

Two large teams fight for the Victory Royale in an action-packed mode where the first team to get 100 eliminations wins!

• Reduced likelihood of Storm ending up near the center of the map.

Overtime Challenges & Rewards

• Looking to earn a free Season 8 Battle Pass? Starting with the v7.40 release, complete 13 free Overtime Challenges by February 27 to receive the upcoming Season 8 Battle Pass for FREE! Additionally, unlock 5 new rewards including the Valentine Wrap and Vines Contrail for completing these Challenges.
• And for current Battle Pass owners, the Overtime Challenge rewards will include new unlockable styles for the Trog, Powder, and Onesie outfits.

Weapons + Items

• Infantry Rifle
  • Available in Common, Uncommon and Rare variants.
    • Deals 41, 43, 45 damage. 2x headshot multiplier.
  • Can be found from Floor Loot, Chests, and Vending Machines.
  • Uses Medium Ammo.
  • Fires quick-moving projectiles without damage falloff.
• Improvements to the Bush consumable.
  • Now absorbs one instance of weapon damage before being removed from the owner. Fall damage will not remove the Bush.
  • Now translucent (for the Bush wearer only!) in order to allow for better visibility of surroundings.
• Hand Cannon
  • Epic rarity
    • Reduced environmental damage from 150 to 100.
  • Legendary rarity
    • Reduced environmental damage from 157 to 105.
• Rocket Launcher
  • Shifted availability of Rocket Launchers out of Chests and into Supply Drops.
    • Removed Rocket Launchers from Chests.
    • Increased the chance of receiving a Rocket Launcher from Supply Drops from 25% to 50%.
  • Epic rarity
    • Reload speed increased from 2.66 to 3.42.
    • Now only available from Vending Machines
  • Legendary rarity
    • Reload speed increased from 2.52 to 3.24.
• Unvaulted
  • Clingers
  • Cupid’s Crossbow – Limited Time Item
    • Epic Rarity.
    • Infinite ammo.
    • Bodyshot Damage: 79.
    • Headshot Damage: 197.
    • Can be found in Floor Loot and Chests.
    • Does 1 environmental damage.
• Vaulted

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue causing projectile weapons to fire inaccurately when aiming at other players from very close range.
• Fixed an issue that was causing explosive splash damage to be blocked when players didn’t actually have cover.

Gameplay

• Added Pop-Up Cup settings to default playlists
  • We’re introducing a few larger changes into the default Fortnite playlist as a test. We’ve seen these settings in pop-up cups result in more engaging fights and allowing players to gain more consistent rewards for the risk of engagement.
  • Based on the positive feedback we received during these specific Pop-Up cups, we’re implementing the following adjustments:
    • 50 Health (or Shield) based on your health when the Elimination occurs.
    • 50/50/50 materials dropped on Elimination
    • 500/500/500 Cap on materials
    • Harvest rate increased by 40%
  • We’ll be closely monitoring feedback on this change – play a couple matches and let us know what you think!
• Removed the ability for the X4 Stormwing to break through structures and large objects.
  • Small props will still be destroyed from direct hit from an X4 Stormwing.
• Changes to Ziplines
  • Ziplines are now interact to engage.
  • Ziplines grant fall damage immunity.
  • Ziplines now have an audio visualizer icon.
• Final Circle adjustments
  • Increased the travel distance by 48%.
  • Shrink time has been increased from 45 seconds to 75 seconds.
• PC, Mac, and console players can now crouch while in Edit Mode.
  • Gamepad players can assign this through custom gamepad controls.
  • Note: This functionality is coming to mobile soon.
• Turbo Building
  • Reduced the initial timer for turbo building from 0.15 to 0.05.
• Added the ability to swap the item in the currently selected slot with a new item by holding interact instead of tapping.
  • Added UI text to show players they’re able to use swap.
  • Not available on touch input.
• Floor traps will automatically build a floor piece for you if needed. You must have the required resources.
• Logitech and Razer RGB peripherals will now react when doing emotes.
• Sneaky Snowmen will be destroyed if they fall from a high distance.
  • Stand on the head of a Sneaky Snowman to avoid fall damage.
• Removed HUD bar for the minigun overheating mechanic.
• Adjusted the distance of the Bottle Rocket sound indicators so that they match the max distance of the sound effects.
• Added a Bottle Rocket sound indicator for the explosion of rockets.

Bug Fixes

• Aim Assist “Snap-To” Adjustments
  • We’ve added a compounding time delay to the aim assist “snap-to” feature when spamming the Aim Down Sight button. Each button press after the first will apply a time delay, up to 5 seconds, before the aim assist “snap-to” effect is applied.
  • We are making this change to prevent situations where players would spam the Aim Down Sight button on enemies, which caused the crosshair to stay locked on to targets indefinitely.
    • This change should prevent the lock-on mechanic from being abused while retaining the same Aim Assist feel. We’ll be closely monitoring feedback about this change.
• Fixed an issue where Bottle Rockets would not align to specific slope angles.
• Cozy Campfire logs no longer block movement.
• Prevent weapon auto-reload from canceling emotes.
• Fixed an issue that allowed traps to trigger through lab tunnel walls in Dusty Divot.
• Fixed auto pickup not occurring when landing from skydiving.
• Fix issue where a player with no traps would switch to the build tool if they hit the button to equip traps.
• Fixed an issue where glider items could be triggered right after teleporting with a Rift-to-Go which would block subsequent skydiving.
• Fixed an issue that would block building beneath a mounted turret.
• Fixed an issue where Snowmen placed on the map would appear invisible or under the map.

Events

• New Tournament Series – ‘Share The Love Series’ (Solo & Duo)
  • Available from February 14 until February 24.
  • Players will compete across any of four division tournaments:
    • Open Division
    • Prospect Division
    • Contender Division
    • Champion Division
  • Earning enough points during any nightly session to receive a pin will unlock the next highest division.
  • Earning a pin during a Champion Division session will advance to Round 2 – the Champion Division Finals!
  • ‘Share the Love Series’ Sprays will be granted based on the highest division achieved, including the Champion Division Finals.
  • All divisions run simultaneously and share the same tournament schedule. The full schedule for your server region can be viewed from the Events tab.
• New Tournament – ‘Trios One Day Cup’
  • Available on February 17
  • Grab a couple of your best friends and join in for the Trios One Day Cup, going from a fully Open tournament to an intense final round with the best Trios in a single day.
  • The tournament takes place across three rounds – earn a pin during each round to advance.
  • The full schedule for your server region can be viewed within the Events tab.
• Tournaments can now take place across multiple rounds, with players needing to earn a pin in order to unlock the next round of the tournament.
• Multiple tournaments are now able to be running at the same time.
• Reduced the maximum matchmaking time for tournaments from 5 minutes to 4 minutes.
  • This value limits the amount of time a player can wait for a match in a tournament before they create the best match possible at that time.
• Increased the minimum amount of players for tournament matches from 80 to 90.
• Streamer Mode can now be used during tournament play.
• In-game leaderboards are now fully available in all regions, for each tournament session. These can be accessed inside of the tournament page by clicking on any tournament session.

Audio

• Add audio when squadmates ready up in the lobby.
• The following audio improvements have been made for Mobile/Switch platforms:
  • Improve skydiving wind audio.
  • Add more variation to gunshot environment impacts.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the Air Horn emote only having 1 variation on Mobile/Switch.

UI

• Stats v2
  • The ability to track all of your play in one place and view it across all platforms.
  • This includes the ability for mobile and Switch players to view their stats in-game.
  • Breaks up stats by each individual Limited Time Mode.
• Players now receive a pop-up prompt informing them if a player they recently reported has had action taken against their account.
• When eliminated by the Storm, instead of saying “You Eliminated Yourself”, the text now says “Eliminated by the Storm”
• Improved look and implementation of Bad Network Indicator and updated Bad Connection Indicator UI to track bad vs severe ping.
  • Yellow indicates poor status, red indicates severe status, flashing red indicates dropped signal
• Slash commands have been improved and re-enabled in chat windows.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where you could switch between different tabs in the background if you were in the Player Feedback menu.
• Fixed missing Remove Marker map icon on Mac.
• Fixed Battle Pass info not displaying properly in the lobby in certain cases.
• Fixed an issue where elimination counts and names for teammates were not calculated properly in large team modes.

Replay

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue causing weapon animations to sometimes play twice for each shot fired in replays.

Social

• Gifting returns for a Limited Time
  • The Gifting feature is back for a limited time! You’ll be able to send or receive presents from friends until February 22.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that would result in incorrect or duplicate party suggestion text bubbles to appear in the lobby.

Mobile

• Adding an optional Targeted Edit button to allow you to edit without having to touch the screen. This allows the player to edit using their crosshairs, similar to other platforms.
  • The Targeted Edit button can be found in the extra buttons section under the HUD Layout Tool.
• Edit and Edit Reset Buttons will now capture touches.
  • No more editing through the edit button.
• Adding visual feedback to many mobile buttons to allow for better instant feedback and help us better diagnose issues seen in the community.
• Now backing up the most recently saved hud layout to the player’s cloud save.

Bug Fixes

• Fixing an issue with the input blocked message appearing on mobile when leaving a game.
• Fixed an issue causing some key-bind widgets to display incorrectly on mobile with controllers.
• Quick switching from a weapon to a consumable no longer briefly fires the equipped weapon.
• Fixed multiple issues with Turbo Building or weapon firing stopping when switching weapons or switching between Build, Edit, Combat mode.
• Fixed an issue with touch input causing controllers to stop responding when scrolling.
• Fixed multiple issues to support more controller hardware as well as fixed many issues related to parts of the UI that may not be properly navigable by controllers.

Season 7 of Fortnite ends on February 28, so players only have a little more time to complete any remaining challenges. We’ve have all the tips and guides you need for the trickier ones in our complete Fortnite Season 7 challenges roundup. Epic is also expected to hold two double XP weekends before the season ends to give players another opportunity to level their Battle Pass up; the first is set for February 15-17, while the second takes place February 22-24. It has not yet been confirmed when Season 8 of Fortnite will begin.

In other Fortnite news, following lawsuits from Backpack Kid, rapper 2 Milly, and Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, over claims that the studio stole their dance moves, Epic Games has released a memorandum that seeks to have at least one of the lawsuits dismissed on the grounds that “no one can own a dance step.”

James Cameron, the legendary movie director who made aquatic-themed movies like Titanic and The Abyss, has seen Aquaman and he’s not exactly the biggest fan of it. In an interview with Yahoo! (via EW), Cameron said the movie is “great fun” but not very realistic.

“I could have never made that film because it requires this total dreamlike disconnection from any sense of physics or reality. It exists somewhere between a Greek mythic landscape and a fairy tale landscape. And people just kind of zoom around underwater because … they propel themselves mentally, I guess. I don’t know. ” he said. You buy it on its own terms.”

Cameron, who himself has traveled to the bottom of the ocean, pointed out that he’s spent “thousands” of hours underwater. He takes underwater storytelling very seriously.

“I’m very literal about my underwater. It needs to look like it’s real,” he said. “And while I can enjoy that film I don’t resonate with it because it doesn’t look real.”

Cameron wasn’t entirely negative about Aquaman, however, as he said he applauds the movie for the scenes in which it showed the ocean as being used as a garbage dump to remind people to respect and protect the world’s oceans.

The upcoming Avatar sequels that Cameron is making will have “a lot” of underwater sequences, and these will have “such a different feel” than Aquaman, Cameron said. For the Avatar sequels, Cameron is using a reportedly brand-new filming technique capable of doing motion-capture work underwater.

James Wan, who directed Aquaman, previously spoke with EW about working in the shadow of Cameron. “Rule No. 1 is don’t ever compete with James Cameron,” he said. “He’s in a whole different game of his own. And No. 2, our movie is such a different-looking film.”

Aquaman was a smash hit, taking in more than $1 billion globally at the box office. Unsurprisingly, a sequel is on the way; it’s progressing further now by hiring a writer. As for the Avatar series, Avatar 2 is expected to hit theatres in December 2020.

If you’ve been considering picking up an Xbox One X but wanted to wait for a discount, now might be a good time to do so. The online retailer Newegg is offering a 1TB Xbox One X bundle that includes a digital copy of Fallout 76 for just $350 now until Thursday. It also comes with a free one-month subscription to Xbox Live Gold (which is required to play Fallout 76) and Xbox Game Pass.

The Xbox One X is the most powerful console to date that enhances many of the platform’s games with visual upgrades including 4K and HDR support. Even those without 4K displays will get some benefit from the console’s power with supersampling which helps render a crisper image. With one month of Game Pass for free, you can download and jump into any of the games in its vast library, including first-party titles on launch day–note that Crackdown 3 is out this week.

As for Fallout 76, it may not be the best game for 2018, but it’s free in an already-discounted bundle. It’s the multiplayer spin-off of the storied post-apocalyptic RPG franchise that puts you in West Virginia to find out what happened years before the mainline games. If you plan on jumping into the game after picking up the bundle, check out guide of things you need to know before playing Fallout 76.

During the recent Nintendo Direct, the developers behind Super Smash Bros. Ultimate revealed what’s in store this year for the crossover brawler. In addition to a new update 3.0, and launch details for the first DLC pack, they showed off some new footage of Persona 5’s Joker–the next guest character coming to the game. Another big surprise was the reveal of a new batch of Amiibos coming this year.

With the Amiibos making their debut with Smash Bros. Wii U, Nintendo has been steadily cranking out new figurines ever since–even including non-Nintendo characters into the fold. During the stream, Nintendo revealed Amiibos for Simon Belmont, Solid Snake, Squirtle, Ivysaur, and the well-travelled Trainer. Unfortunately, release dates weren’t shared, though they’ll likely drop more details once the new DLC packs begins to roll out.

In addition to those, Nintendo shared word about some additional Amiibo figures’ release dates after the Direct. In a tweet, it revealed that Ken, Daisy, and Young Link will also receive new figures on April 12. You can see those in the gallery below.

Released last December, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has been one of the Switch’s most successful games, currently sitting at well over 5 million copies worldwide as of early 2019. GameSpot’s Edmond Tran reviewed Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, giving it a 9.

“Its entertaining single-player content helps keep the game rich with interesting things to do, as well as bolstering its spirit of loving homage to the games that have graced Nintendo consoles. Ultimate’s diverse content is compelling, its strong mechanics are refined, and the encompassing collection is simply superb.”

For more info about the recent Nintendo Direct, including details about Mario Maker 2 and the remake for The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, be sure to check out our coverage on GameSpot.

Nintendo Switch is getting last year’s critically acclaimed Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Ellusive Age. Announced during Nintendo’s Direct presentation, this version of the game is being touted as the “definitive version.” Though, its official title is Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition

Previously confirmed for release in Japan, the Switch version is finally confirmed for the West sometime this Fall. Based on the trailer, the Switch version of Dragon Quest XI will retain all of the content from the original. However, there will be some fun extras too.

First, it’ll include the option to select between midi and orchestrated soundtrack–a major criticism leveled towards the game’s original release by the series’ fanbase. Also introduced is the ability to switch to a 16-bit interface modeled after the visuals from the Super Nintendo era of Dragon Quest; fans should recognize this feature from the 3DS port of the game that never made it to the West. Lastly, you have the option to choose either English or Japanese voices.

GameSpot gave the original release of Dragon Quest XI a 9/10 with reviewer Heidi Kemps praising the game’s faithfulness to series tradition: “Innovation in games is talked about a lot, but it’s also great to see traditional gameplay formulas that have been around for decades presented exceptionally well. Dragon Quest XI is one of the best modern examples of this; its beautiful presentation, both visual- and story-wise, combines with a tried-and-true gameplay formula for a journey that’s full of heart and soul. Once you find yourself sucked into the world of Dragon Quest XI, it’s going to be hard to put down until you reach the grand finale.” Be sure to read our full review.

A Breaking Bad movie is on the way, and now a new report says it may air on Netflix. According to Deadline, the movie will premiere first on Netflix and come to TV network AMC later.

AMC is the network that originally aired Breaking Bad, while it also hosts the spinoff Better Call Saul. It would be a reversal of sorts, as Breaking Bad ran on AMC first before coming to Netflix.

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan said in 2013 during his best drama acceptance speech at the Emmys that the show thrived thanks to Netflix. “I think Netflix kept us on the air,” he said at the time, adding that he thought the show might have only had two seasons were it not for Netflix.

Not much is known about the Breaking Bad movie, but it’s rumoured to be a sequel that stars the character Jesse Pinkman, who was played by Aaron Paul on Breaking Bad. Intriguingly, Deadline reports that it hasn’t yet been decided if the movie will be released as a film or split into episodes. Whatever the case, Paul is said to be returning to play Pinkman again.

Breaking Bad ended with Pinkman escaping alive from his neo-Nazi captors and riding into the night. Fans have speculated about where he might have gone and what he would do with his life post-Walter White. At the same time, the law would presumably be hunting him down for his role in the meth empire. It makes for a compelling set-up, and with Gilligan coming back to write the movie, it seemingly has the ingredients to be a success.

Bryan Cranston, who played Walter White, confirmed in November that a Breaking Bad movie was happening but he didn’t say if he’s involved. He teased that the movie may feature a couple of characters whose story arcs were not seen through completion.

The first Breaking Bad spinoff was Better Call Saul, a TV show that focuses on how Jimmy McGill became the scummy lawyer Saul Goodman. That show remains on TV; a fifth season is on the way.

The Breaking Bad movie was reportedly set to start filming in New Mexico back in November, though it’s not clear if that happened. Breaking Bad recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, as the show originally premiered back in 2008.