Month: February 2020

Respawn has announced the next limited-time event for Apex Legends. Starting March 3, System Override Collection begins and it brings with a new mode, legendary skins, and character heirloom. The event also makes some pretty cool in-game changes–some temporary and others permanent.

System Override Collection’s limited-time mode is Deja Loot. From March 3-9, it will take place on World’s Edge and from March 10-17 it will send you to Kings Canyon. The mode will see the same loot spawn in set locations, allowing you to know what you’re going to find wherever you drop. If you find a fully-outfitted Triple-Take in Skull Town, that same Triple-Take will be there every time. The dropship path and ring locations will be the only aspect of the game that changes day-to-day.

If you jump into Deja Loot, you’ll discover a brand-new piece of armor as well: the Evo Shield. This body shield begins weaker than a common white body shield but grows stronger as you damage enemies–maxing out between an epic purple body shield and a legendary gold body shield. In a blog post, Respawn said that the Evo Shield is exclusive to Deja Loot for now, but the developer will consider permanently adding it to the main game based on player feedback.

It wouldn’t be a collection event without loot and System Override Collection offers plenty of rare, epic, and legendary rewards to both earn and buy. Like Grand Soiree Arcade, System Override Collection will feature a Prize Track that will allow you to earn rewards by completing challenges during the event. There are also 24 themed, limited-time cosmetics that you can purchase through Apex Coins and Crafting Materials or unlocked in Apex Packs. Nab all 24 and you’ll earn Octane’s heirloom: a butterfly knife that also acts as a Stim syringe.

And speaking of heirlooms, System Override Collection is making a change to how you earn them. Instead of randomly earning an heirloom from opening Apex Packs, you’ll now earn heirloom shards. With shards, you can unlock whichever heirloom you want: Wraith, Bloodhound, Lifeline, Pathfinder, or (once the event is over and it’s added to the heirloom pool), Octane. The shards have the same drop rate as the previous heirloom sets–so you will definitely earn enough by opening 500 Apex Packs. You’ll just now have the choice of earning whichever one you want instead of relying on chance.

PAX East 2020 PIN

The Apple Watch is probably the best smartwatch on the market, so it’s a shame we don’t see deals on them very often. But if you’re thinking of picking one up, you have several options that can save you a few bucks right now at Amazon and Walmart. Amazon has the market cornered on Series 5 discounts, and Walmart has the Series 3 for $10 off. Here’s what Apple Watch deals are available at the moment.

Apple Watch Series 5 Deals

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• 40mm, GPS – $384.99
• 44mm, GPS – $407.55 (at checkout)
• 40mm, GPS + Cellular – $474.05 (at checkout)
• 44mm, GPS + Cellular – $502.55 (at checkout)

To get the latest features in your wearable, you’ll want to pick up the Apple Watch Series 5. The most immediately noticeable new feature is the always-on display. No longer do you need to tilt your wrist to see what time it is, and whatever stylish watch face you pick is always showing. It’s also thinner, with a faster processor, and it has a handful of additional sensors, like a compass and an ECG app that keeps track of your heart rhythm and rate. For the best, most future-proof wearable, accept no substitute.

Apple Watch Series 3 Deal

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• Get it at Walmart – $189 (save $10)

The Series 5 may be great, but the Series 3 is certainly no slouch. It runs the same apps and can do most of the same tasks as its more expensive sibling. It lets you check your notifications without digging your phone out of your pocket. It tracks your fitness and can encourage you to get more exercise. It’s a great product, and it’s on sale at Walmart for $189.

Apple Watch Accessories

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• AirPods Pro – $249
• AirPods & Charging Case – $139 (save $20)
• AirPods & Wireless Charging Case – $169 (save $29)
• Apple Watch Bands, Chargers, and Other Accessories

To top it off, Apple Watch has some highly appealing accessories that go along with it. Apple’s wireless AirPods are terrific, and come in a variety of models. AirPods Pro offer active noise cancelation and have soft silicon tips so they fit in your ears more comfortably. Standard AirPods come with either a regular charging case or a wireless one that’s compatible with wireless-Qi chargers.

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Chris Reed is IGN’s shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

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The Xbox Series X’s quick resume feature was confirmed earlier this week but it’s now been revealed that it even lets you resume games after rebooting the console.

Microsoft’s Larry Hryb discussed the feature on the February 26 episode of his Major Nelson podcast with Jason Ronald, the director of program management at Xbox. Ronald explained that the Xbox One already lets you quick resume games you’re playing, but says that the SSD of the Xbox Series X lets you do that with multiple titles, instantly jumping between them to pick up right where you left each one.

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Hryb then recounts a time that he admits he’ll “probably get in trouble for talking about,” during which he discovered how far the quick resume feature goes. “One of the things that I was noticing when I was in the lab when I was playing it, I was switching back and forth just real quickly and seamlessly between games, but then I had to reboot because I had a system update. And then I went back to the game and went right back to it. So it survives a reboot. That’s amazing.”

Ronald confirms that this is the case and remarks that it’s hard to go back to older consoles after using the quick resume of the Xbox Series X. “If I just want to have a quick gaming experience, I can instantly jump in have a great time, and then know that the next time I come back I’ll be right where I was,” Ronald said.

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That means you can turn the Xbox Series X on, even have it fully update the system, and get right back to a game without having to go through any of the typical loading procedures. This is just one of the features that was announced, if not fully detailed, by Microsoft after revealing the Xbox Series X power levels and the features that have been built around that.

If you want to know more, you can see how the Xbox Series X stacks up against modern PCs, or if you prefer to find out what you’ll be able to play on the next-gen console, check out the confirmed Xbox Series X launch titles.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Metal Gear and Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima will be given the Fellowship at the BAFTA Game Awards on April 2, 2020.

The Fellowship is the highest award given by BAFTA to an individual. It recognises and celebrates a person’s creative contributions to film, television, or games. Those in the game industry who have received a Fellowship previously include Tim Schafer, John Carmack, Gabe Newell, Peter Molyneux, Will Wright, and Shigeru Miyamoto.

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On hearing the news, Kojima said: “Thank you very much for this precious BAFTA Fellowship award. I am very honored, and would like to take this moment to reflect on the many predecessors that came before me, as I deeply respect their contributions to entertainment, whether in movies, television, or games. I would also like to thank those who have supported me over the years and I will continue my commitment to creating new and innovative ways that will push the world of ‘play’ entertainment forward.”

Kojima’s first big breakthrough in games came in 1987, when he designed Metal Gear at Konami, which contributed greatly to the stealth genre. He went on to make games with distinctly cinematic presentations, such as Snatcher and Policenauts, which are influenced by his love of movies.

He also has a passion for mecha, as seen throughout his Metal Gear and Zone of the Enders series. Kojima left Konami in 2015 after nearly 30 years at the company to create his own studio, Kojima Productions, which so far has produced one game, Death Stranding.

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In November 2019, Kojima was awarded with two Guinness World Records for being the game developer with the most fans on Instagram and Twitter. He is now working on his next project with his team at Kojima Productions. It is likely to be a game, perhaps even Death Stranding 2, however, Kojima has said he would also like to make films in the future.

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Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

A set of Baldur’s Gate 3 screenshots have leaked, revealing not just what the game looks like, but also a much more graphically impressive project than first expected.

The screenshots, posted to Imgur just hours ahead of the Baldur’s Gate 3 first gameplay reveal at PAX East, shows an isometric RPG in a similar style to developer Larian Studios’ previous project, Divinity: Original Sin 2. Naturally, this perspective also links it to the original two Baldur’s Gate games, which were both isometric in perspective.

However, it appears that the game also has third-person perspective segments. Dialogue with other characters is shown at a scale akin to The Witcher or Dragon Age, with very impressively drawn character models that are notably more detailed than what we’d expect from an isometric game. There are also what appear to be stills taken from cutscenes, also shown from a similar third-person perspective.

While Divinity: Original Sin 2 was graphically impressive for an isometric RPG, it appears that Larian has striven for something more ‘AAA’ in appearance for Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s unclear if the Divinity engine is being used, but small indicators such as the same fonts suggest that it may be a heavily upgraded version of that tech.

Beyond being graphically impressive, the screenshots also provides hints to the gameplay design, which seems very much within the lineage of the Divinity: Original Sin games. The HUD contains a bottom hotbar with quick access to a variety of what look like abilities, spells, and items. There are also the traditional party portraits, which appear to display icons above them. It’s unclear what those icons represent, but they look like they could symbolise queued actions rather than status effects.

The environments on show are classic Forgotten Realms fare, with tombs, foreboding forests, fire-lit dungeons, and lush woodlands. Within the snippets of conversation shown by the subtitles there’s talk of the Mind Flayers – the C’thulu like horrors shown in the announcement trailer – as well as an indicator that your character’s traits can affect the responses you can provide (one answer is marked ELF, suggesting only an elvish character can say it). The responses are also, unusually, written akin to a character retelling their adventures, rather than just a written out variant of what your character can say. For example, in a scene with a demonic-like character, the options include “This man was a devil! I drew my weapon” and “I told the hell spawn to cut to the chase. What did he want?”

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The Baldur’s Gate 3 gameplay reveal takes place at PAX East today at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm UK, so there’s not long to wait until we can see more of this in gameplay form. You can watch the reveal live on our YouTube channel. Dungeons & Dragons owner Hasbro announced that Baldur’s Gate 3 will be available in early access later this year.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer and Larian devotee. You can follow him on Twitter. 

Details of Supermassive Games’ next game in the Dark Pictures Anthology, Little Hope, have been revealed alongside a release window.

The first Dark Pictures Anthology game, Man of Medan, came out in August last year, and players that made it to the end were treated to a small teaser of Little Hope. That teaser ended with the release year of 2020 and that was the last we heard of this next game in the anthology series. Supermassive Games has now released more info about the upcoming title, and it seems players can expect to traverse an abandoned town this summer.

“Trapped and isolated in the abandoned town of Little Hope, four college students and their professor must escape the nightmarish visions that relentlessly pursue them through an impenetrable fog,” Supermassive Games CEO Pete Samuels said in an update. “As they journey through the town looking for a means of escape, they must understand the meaning of these events, the root of evil, and how it is directly connected to them.”

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As you can see in the trailer, Little Hope appears to lean more toward Until Dawn than it does Man of Medan. Little Hope will launch Summer 2020 as the second entry in the Dark Pictures Anthology, which Supermassive Games describes as a series of “intense, standalone, branching cinematic horror games” that combine “atmospheric environments with powerful storytelling to create a terrifying new gaming experience.”

Little Hope will feature the same two multiplayer modes that Man of Medan did: Shared Story and Movie Night. In Shared Story, players can share their story with friends online while in Movie Night, a group of five players can pass the controller in an offline mode.

As we’ve come to expect with Supermassive Games, characters in Little Hope can live or die and your choices will depend on the story that plays out for each.

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“We’ve been delighted by the reaction from players and the success of Man of Medan as the first installment of The Dark Pictures Anthology,” Samuels said. “We really appreciate the feedback from the community and the team remains committed to the goal of making each new installment deliver further thrilling horror experiences, with the next chapter, Little Hope, bringing an all new and disturbing horror story to the anthology.”

We thought Man of Medan was a good start for the anthology series, giving it a 7 out of 10. When Until Dawn released back in 2015, we gave it a 7.5 out of 10. If you’re looking for what you might have missed in Man of Medan before jumping into Little Hope this summer, we’ve got a video with every character death in the game you should check out.

Little Hope will come out on PS4, Xbox One and PC this summer.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news and guide maker for IGN who gets far too scared playing horror games. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

Earlier this month, The Pokemon Company and Google collaborated to let fans vote on their favorite monster in the “Pokemon of the Year” competition. The vote counted up players’ picks from all eight regions, and to celebrate Pokemon Day, we have a winner: Greninja.

The amphibious ninja Pokemon took home the top prize, likely for its strange appearance and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate prowess as much as its usefulness in the Pokemon games themselves. We aren’t sure why Totodile was disrespected like this, but we’re thinking our own votes may have been thrown out due to some technicality.

The Pokemon YouTube channel also revealed the other top contenders for the prize, and it’s a mix of classic and newer Pokemon.

Top Pokemon of the Year For 2020

• Gengar
• Gardevoir
• Rayquaza
• Garchomp
• Sylveon
• Umbreo
• Charizard
• Mimikyu
• Lucario
• Greninja

Absent from the top 10 are famous legendary Pokemon like Mewtwo and Groudon, as well as classic first-generation Pokemon Pikachu, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur. Big Greninja lobbyists may have played a role in the outcome.

If the vote is done again next year, new mythical Pokemon Zarude could be a contender. Just revealed today, the Pokemon is a Dark and Grass type, and it’s coming to Pokemon Sword and Shield.

Alongside the Pokemon of the Year announcement, Pokemon Go is also celebrating with special party hats on wild Pikachu and Eevee through March 2. The film Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back–Evolution is also out today on Netflix, and is a retelling of Pokemon: The First Movie with CG visuals.

Plague Inc. has been removed from sale in China at the instructions of the Chinese government, just weeks after the game skyrocketed in popularity in the country following the outbreak of COVID-19 (a.k.a. Coronavirus).

In a statement on developer Ndemic’s website, a spokesperson wrote: “We have some very sad news to share with our China based players. We’ve just been informed that Plague Inc. “includes content that is illegal in China as determined by the Cyberspace Administration of China” and has been removed from the China App Store. This situation is completely out of our control.”

It’s unclear whether this move has been taken in response to the game’s success following the coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China. Ndemic has said it’s working to reverse the decision by contacting the Cyberspace Administration of China to understand its reasoning.

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Previously, Ndemic had released a statement asking players not to rely on the game for information about the spread of coronavirus – although the developer does tout the game’s educational value, with the US Centre for Disease Control publicly recognising it. Nothing will change for the game outside of China, but it’s a puzzling situation.

China is notably restrictive around video games – between 2000 and 2015 there was a ban on the production, import and sale of consoles and arcade machines and, as recently as last year, the country legally banned children from playing games after 10pm, among other provisions.

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