Month: September 2019

If you ever wished Sailor Moon was a badass biker who fought rival gangs set to a soundtrack that’s kind of like something Carly Rae Jepsen would produce, turn your attention to Sayonara Wild Hearts.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is developed by Swedish developer Simogo, best known for the critically acclaimed mobile horror game Year Walk. Like Year Walk, Sayonara Wild Hearts combines eye-catching art direction with a simple but solid gameplay hook. In this case, it plays almost exactly like the brilliant “rhythm violence” game Thumper.

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Capcom is experiencing a bit of a resurgence right now, with franchises like Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Devil May Cry seeing massive success recently. Its most successful franchise from a sales standpoint, Resident Evil, surpassed 92 million units sold with the recent remake of Resident Evil 2. The company’s next project, known as Project Resistance, is set to be shown at Tokyo Game Show 2019. The website currently shows a logo with the letters ‘RE’ emblazoned in red, as well as information on when you can catch the reveal. However, if some recent leaks are any indication of what’s to come, we may be seeing a revival of the long-dormant Resident Evil Outbreak series.

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Blizzard is preparing to help adjust player counts on certain World of Warcraft Classic servers, and it’ll allow some players to make the move for free.

A World of Warcraft community manager shared the news in a forum post, specifying that free character server moves are coming to select WoW Classic realms in the coming days. Once the service opens, you’ll see the option to start a transfer on either the character select screen or the realm queue screen. Currently, there are three restrictions outlined in the post: You can’t transfer a character if it’s a guild leader, has active auction listings or bids, or has mail. The community manager said a full post with further character restrictions and other details will be shared once the service goes live.

There’s no clarification on when the free character move service will be accessible, nor is there a confirmation on what servers will see the service.

In other WoW Classic news, more than 300,000 people watched as the game got its first level 60 player. Dot Esports reported that “Jokerd” leveled a gnome mage to 60 in three days, 20 hours, and 40 minutes, playing on the Mograine server in Europe. The game’s garnered so much attention, in fact, that it has surpassed Fortnite and all other games as the most popular title on Twitch. In a feature story, we examined why WoW Classic is great and concluded that it’s more than just nostalgia.

The newest limited-time event in Apex Legends has begun. The Wraith-themed event, Voidwalker, will only last a few weeks (similar to the Octane-themed Iron Crown event) and introduces a new town takeover, limited-time mode, and additional challenges to complete.

In Iron Crown, Octane took over the small settlement outside Thunderdome and transformed it into a skate park complete with launch pads, ramps, and a ring of fire. Likewise, in Voidwalker, a portion of King’s Canyon has transformed. If you drop at the base camp behind Hydro Dam, you’ll now find the remains of the mysterious facility where Wraith was once held captive.

Or at least, where one Wraith was held captive. As discovered through a brand-new animated short (embedded below), we learn that the Wraith we play as in Apex Legends is actually from another world. She escapes to this one through a portal, her counterpart taking her place in order to find the answers she seeks in the alternate reality. The counterpart’s appearance can be unlocked as a new Legendary skin for Wraith during the Voidwalker event.

You shouldn’t have any trouble finding the new map change. Just look for the giant Wraith-like portal that extends into the sky. Falling into the portal will teleport you directly into the facility for a faster drop. Once inside, you can exit through the front door or head back through the portal to redeploy back into the sky. In the facility, you can find additional Apex Legends lore details as well. Although we haven’t found any yet, we imagine there are a few Crypto-themed clues to be discovered–considering, based on the aforementioned animated short, it looks like the hacker aids Wraith in getting into the facility (his insignia pops up when she injects a flashdrive into the computer) and recent leaks suggest he’ll be the new Legend that comes in Season 3.

Instead of the return of Solos, Voidwalker introduces a brand-new limited-time mode called Armed and Dangerous. In it, loot is much harder to find and the only weapons you can discover are shotguns and sniper rifles. In a press release, Respawn wrote that it plans on rolling out these type of limited-time modes more often between season changes. Voidwalker, like Iron Crown, also adds limited-time, thematic challenges to complete and rewards to earn.

Voidwalker continues until September 17, so you only have until then to participate in Armed and Dangerous, complete the event’s challenges, and unlock the limited-time rewards like the Legendary Wraith skin. However, the Wraith town takeover is likely permanent, given that Octane’s skate park remained after Iron Crown ended, though, both town takeovers may disappear with the massive map change planned for Season 3.

As promised, Bungie has released a new update for Destiny 2. Patch 2.5.2.2 makes a number of very welcome changes, addressing a variety of common complaints regarding some hard-to-obtain weapons (namely, Mountaintop), item management, Reckoning, and more. Here’s a look at what’s changed and the full patch notes.

First and most notable are the changes to a pair of pinnacle weapon quests to make them a bit more reasonable. As first revealed last week, Mountaintop and Wendigo GL3 have seen their respective quests cut down significantly. Whereas Wendigo could be obtained by simply grinding out Strikes, Mountaintop has proven especially challenging for many, requiring a significant amount of grenade launcher usage in Crucible (with a focus on Competitive). Here’s how the requirements now look for each:

Wendigo GL3 – New Quest Steps

• Grenade Launcher kills are worth 100% more for each objective
• Death Penalty no longer exists for the final objective
• Grenade Launcher multikills grant 50% more progress
• Completing Playlist strikes grants a significant amount of progress towards the final objective

Mountaintop – New Quest Steps

• Required number of multi-kills has been reduced from 200 to 75
• Required number of medals has been reduced from 100 to 25
• Points earned in Competitive has been further increased relative to other PvP modes
  • roughly 1x for Quickplay, 2x for Iron Banner, 3x for Competitive

Other areas of complaint addressed by this patch involve inventory management. Stacks of certain items–Planetary Materials, Gunsmith Materials, Vanguard Tokens, Crucible Tokens, and Iron Banner Tokens–now max out at 9,999, rather than the previous limit of 999. This should prove particularly useful for more hardcore players with stacks upon stacks of these items.

Reckoning has been a contentious component of the game since its launch, and Bungie is trying to address that by making it more forgiving (and rewarding). Enemies now have less health and deal less damage, and both Reckoning and Gambit Prime will be more generous with weapon drops. Tier 3 Reckoning in particular will be even more likely to drop weapons, though bad luck protection will ensure that anyone in Reckoning or Gambit Prime will periodically get a drop.

Finally, Bungie has tweaked the way Braytech Schematics work to make the related weapons easier to obtain, and it’s stopped selling Forsaken character boosts. The full patch notes can be seen below.

This update coincides with the start of the Mars Community Event, which tasks players with collectively playing a lot of Escalation Protocol and certain other Mars-centric activities. Those who participate will be eligible for a special emblem if all the objectives are met, and everyone will be eligible for bonus Menagerie rewards until the release of Shadowkeep on October 1.

Destiny 2 Update 2.5.2.2 Patch Notes

INVESTMENT

Inventory

• Updated the stack size limit from 999 to 9,999 for Planetary Materials, Gunsmith Materials, Vanguard Tokens, Crucible Tokens, and Iron Banner Tokens.

Braytech Schematics

• Braytech Schematics are no longer limited to 1 per day, per account
• Braytech Schematics have a 25% drop chance when opening any Rasputin Data Cache
• The four Braytech weapons offered by Ana Bray, and also tied to the Wayfarer seal, now have a greater chance of granting a weapon you do not currently have.

NOTE: The description of the item will be incorrect and still mention that it’s limited to 1 per day, per account. This will be addressed in a future hotfix.

Pinnacle Weapon Quests

• Wendigo GL3
  • Grenade Launcher kills are worth 100% more for each objective
  • Death Penalty no longer exists for the final objective
  • Grenade Launcher multikills grant 50% more progress
  • Completing Playlist strikes grants a significant amount of progress towards the final objective
• Mountaintop
  • Required number of multi-kills has been reduced from 200 to 75
  • Required number of medals has been reduced from 100 to 25
  • Points earned in Competitive has been further increased relative to other pvp modes
  • roughly 1x for Quickplay, 2x for IB, 3x for comp

ACTIVITIES

Gambit Prime and Reckoning

• Enemies in Reckoning adjusted to have less health and do less damage to players
• Increased weapon drop rates in Reckoning and Gambit Prime
  • Further increased bad luck protection to each activity, so players should receive a weapon reward after playing multiple matches without one dropping
  • Tier 3 Reckoning will have even higher drop rates, as it is more challenging

Eververse

• Refunds
  • Fixed an issue that would cause wrapped items to no longer be refundable when transferred between characters
• Character Boosts
  • The Forsaken character boost is no longer available for purchase
  • Players will continue to receive one free character boost when accessing Forsaken for the first time

The first wave of Pokemon Go‘s Ultra Bonuses has arrived. This batch of rewards will be available until September 9, and it includes the return of three fan-favorite Legendary Pokemon, as well as the debut of a couple of new Shiny variants.

First, the three Legendary dogs from Pokemon Gold and Silver–Entei, Raikou, and Suicune–are appearing again in Raid Battles, as are a few other monsters originally from the Johto region such as Tyranitar, Ursaring, and Skarmory. On top of that, you’ll have a chance of encountering the Shiny forms of Sentret and Gligar in the wild, and Unown U, L, T, R, and A may hatch from 10 km eggs.

Two more waves of Ultra Bonuses will follow later this month. From September 9-16, players will be able to hatch region-exclusive Pokemon such as Farfetch’d, Kangaskhan, and Taurus from 7 km eggs, and all four forms of the Mythical Pokemon Deoxys will appear in Raid Battles. The following week, from September 16-23, will see the first Gen 5 Pokemon make their debut in Go. You can see the full list of Ultra Bonuses and when they’ll be available below.

Pokemon Go Ultra Bonuses

September 2-9

• Entei, Raikou, Suicune, and other Johto Pokemon will appear in Raid Battles
• Unown U, L, T, R, and A may hatch from 10 km Pokemon eggs
• Shiny Sentret and Shiny Gligar will appear in the wild

September 9-16

• Farfetch’d, Kangaskhan, Mr. Mime, and Tauros may hatch from 7 km eggs. You may also hatch their Shiny forms
• All four forms of Deoxys will appear in five-star Raid Battles
• Pokemon effective against Deoxys will appear in other tier Raids

September 16-23

• Klink and Shiny Klink will appear in Raid Battles
• Shiny Patrat and Shiny Lillipup will appear in the wild
• Mewtwo that know Psystrike will appear in five-star Raids, as will Shiny Mewtwo

In addition to those bonuses, Niantic has also kicked off a new Special Research questline called A Thousand-Year Slumber, which leads to an encounter with the Mythical Pokemon Jirachi. You can see the full list of those quests in our Thousand-Year Slumber Special Research guide.

That isn’t all that’s happening right now in Pokemon Go. Niantic has also rolled out a new batch of Field Research tasks in the game. If you complete enough of them to achieve a Research Breakthrough, your reward will be an encounter with a flower-crowned Eevee, which first appeared in the game last year to celebrate the launch of Let’s Go, Pikachu and Eevee on Switch. Meanwhile, Pokemon Go’s next Community Day takes place on September 15 and features the Gen 4 starter Turtwig.