Month: February 2019

Fortnite‘s Week 10 challenges have gone live across all platforms, which means we’re coming to the end of the game’s seventh season. Developer Epic Games still hasn’t announced when Season 8 of Battle Royale will begin, but we do know when the current season will formally wrap up.

According to Epic’s website, Season 7 of Fortnite is scheduled to end on Thursday, February 28. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Season 8 will kick off immediately afterward; there have been instances in the past where a new season would begin a few days after the previous one ended. However, it does give us some idea of when we can expect Season 8 to start.

As for what awaits in the new season, that remains remains anyone’s guess. Epic hasn’t shared any details yet about Season 8, although some strange things have begun happening in the game. Recently, players have experienced sudden earthquakes in the middle of a match, and based on audio files gleaned from a datamine, it appears the tremors will only continue to grow in strength.

It’s unclear what these earthquakes portend for Season 8, but Epic typically ushers in new seasons of Fortnite with some sort of world-changing event. Prior to the start of Season 7, an iceberg could be seen drifting toward the island, and Season 6 began after the infamous purple cube known as Kevin plunged into Loot Lake and transformed it.

In the meantime, players still have a little more time to complete this season’s challenges. If you need help, you can find times and guides in our complete Season 7 challenges roundup. Epic has also announced a big Share the Love event for the game, which will encompass new Overtime challenges, additional rewards to unlock, and two double XP weekends.

Following his guest appearance in SoulCalibur VI, The Witcher 3’s Geralt of Rivia is venturing into Capcom’s hit action RPG, Monster Hunter World. The White Wolf will arrive as a free update for the PS4 and Xbox One versions today, February 7 (with a PC release to follow later), and he’ll come alongside new Witcher-inspired quests.

The update is scheduled to go live at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET (12 AM GMT on February 8). Capcom hasn’t shared many details yet on what the new quests will entail, but the publisher says they’ll have “a unique flavor, blending the RPG mechanics of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with Monster Hunter World’s game systems.”

According to Capcom, the Witcher collaboration event was developed closely with CD Projekt Red, the studio behind the Witcher series and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077. Geralt’s original voice actor was also brought in to provide new voice over work for the collaboration.

Geralt arrives in the midst of Monster Hunter World’s first anniversary event, the Appreciation Fest. The event will continue to run on all platforms until February 21, and it brings back most of the game’s previous Event Quests alongside some new ones. Players can also craft new anniversary gear sets for their hunters and Palicos.

Monster Hunter World has been a huge critical and commercial success for Capcom since it launched last January. The publisher recently revealed the title has sold more than 11 million copies world. Its positive critical reception also helped Capcom claim the honor of being Metacritic’s top publisher of 2018.

Capcom still has a lot more new content planned for Monster Hunter World. This fall, the publisher will release Iceborne, a major paid expansion that will introduce new monsters to hunt, locales to explore, gear to craft, and other content.

Now that Week 10’s challenges have arrived on all platforms, Season 7 of Fortnite is finally winding down, although developer Epic Games still has a few more surprises in store for players before Season 8 begins. The studio has announced the Valentine’s-themed Share the Love event, which kicks off on February 8 and will encompass new challenges, rewards, and more.

Once the event is underway, players who support a Creator or enter a Creator Code will receive the Cuddle Hearts wrap for free. The wrap will be available following next week’s 7.40 update and sports a very Bret Hart-esque pink and black design, as you can see below.

Also arriving with the 7.40 update will be a new set of Overtime challenges, which will be available through the end of the season. Completing the challenges will unlock five new rewards, such as the Valentine wrap and Vines contrail. Battle Pass holders will also be to unlock new styles of the Trog, Powder, and Onesie skins.

On top of the new challenges, Epic will hold two double XP weekends in Fortnite, on February 15-17 and February 22-24, giving players one final chance to level their Battle Pass up before Season 7 ends. The developer has also announced a Share the Love Competitive Series, with placement matches set to take place on February 9 and 10.

Finally, Fortnite Creative is getting a Featured Island Frenzy event. Epic will rotate a new set of featured islands in the mode each day between February 12 and 22. You can read more details about the Share the Love event on Epic’s website.

Season 7 of Fortnite is scheduled to end on February 28, so you only have a little more time to complete any outstanding challenges. You can find tips to help expedite the process in our complete Season 7 challenges guide.

Apex Legends, the free-to-play battle royale game from Titanfall developer Respawn, continues to have a strong opening week. The game has now crossed 10 million players, with a record of more than 1 million concurrent players, Respawn announced in a blog post.

“This has been a truly incredible journey. We tested and tweaked. We argued and agreed. We got to a point where we felt some magic. We knew it would be risky to take the franchise in this direction, to go free to play, and do a surprise launch,” Respawn founder Vince Zampella said. “But we fell in love with Apex Legends and wanted, needed, other people to play it too.”

He added that the massive success of Apex Legends so far has exceeded the company’s “wildest dreams.” Zampella went on to say that launch is “just the beginning” for Apex Legends. As announced previously, the title will offer a Fortnite-style battle pass that will deliver seasons’ worth of new content over time.

In fact, Respawn said it hopes the game can live on until 2027 or longer. Players can expect “exciting changes and gameplay evolutions” for the game as it progresses.

By comparison, the latest statistics from Epic Games show that Fortnite has 200 million players and a peak concurrent record of 8.3 million players. But Fortnite is a sensation unlike almost anything else.

Apex Legends was announced and released earlier this week on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It was a quick success, as it picked up 1 million players in eight hours, going on to reach 2.5 million players not much longer and a peak concurrent user record of 600,000 players. As today’s numbers demonstrate, the game is enjoying a nice growth trajectory, and it’ll be interesting to see how much bigger the game becomes over time.

Apex Legends is far from the first competitor to Fortnite and PUBG, but it’s different in that it comes from a massive, established publisher in Electronic Arts.

In addition to Apex Legends, Respawn is working on something new in the Titanfall universe to release later this year, though whether or not it is the much-requested Titanfall 3 remains to be seen. Additionally, Respawn is developing a Star Wars game called Jedi: Fallen Order, and it is also slated to launch in 2019.

We’ve been enjoying our time in Respawn’s new free-to-play battle royale game, Apex Legends, exploring the diverse ability sets of the eight different Legends. However, two Legends, the psychotic Caustic and goofball Mirage, are locked from the start. You can either drop some real-world cash to buy both immediately, or earn in-game Legend tokens to unlock them. We’ve finally discovered how long it would take to do the latter.

Phil Hornshaw, who wrote up our early impressions of Apex Legends and is currently putting together our review of the game, earned the necessary 12000 Legend tokens to unlock one of the two Legends when he reached level 23, which took him about 17 hours. He still hasn’t earned enough to unlock a second character, as Legend tokens unlock more slowly after reaching level 20.

Obviously, this amount of time could fluctuate for you, as you can level up faster by completing bounties and hunting down the featured Champion. Surviving for longer periods of time, getting high kill counts, reviving allies, respawning allies, killing the Champion’s squad, killing the Kill Leader, or playing with people you’re friends with (instead of randoms) nets you moderate to large experience bonuses too.

Killing the Champion or their squad or surviving for a long time are the fastest ways to level up. Defeating the Champion nets you a 500 XP bonus, and it’s another 500 for taking out their whole squad. You get about a 200 XP bonus for every minute you survive, according to PSU, which means you can get huge bonuses for just hiding and surviving until the very end of a 17-20 minute match. If you’re playing with two friends, you get an extra 300 XP bonus if your squad makes it to the top three as well.

You might also be able to unlock new Legends and cosmetics faster once Apex Legends’ Battle Pass comes out. Respawn hasn’t provided a definite release date for the Battle Pass, but it’s currently scheduled for March. Although Respawn has confirmed cross-progression won’t be added, cross-platform play could still happen in Apex Legend’s future.

Apex Legends is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.