Sales of physical copies of The Witcher 3 in December 2019 rose by 554 percent compared to December 2018, according to NPD. It was expected that sales would increase in 2019, regardless of the show, because The Witcher 3 came to Switch in October. However, even excluding Switch, sales of The Witcher 3 in December 2019 rose by 63 percent, according to NPD.
Also of note is that these numbers are for physical game sales only.
Physical sales of the Witcher books also increased, rising 562 percent in the two weeks following the release of the TV show. You can check out NPD’s full blog post to see a breakdown of The Witcher TV show’s impact on the wider brand in 2019.
The Witcher TV show is based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s novel series, which CD Projekt Red also adapted for its video game franchise. The TV show is returning for a second season in 2021, and showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich has promised it will be more “linear” following the reception to Season 1’s meandering timelines.
The Division 2‘s first year of DLC content is over, as Ubisoft has announced the loot-shooter’s first big expansion that will kick off Year 2. Warlords of New York launches March 3 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and if you’re looking to pre-order it, then now is the perfect time–a number of its editions have gotten steep discounts. Whether you already own the base game, the first year of DLC, or have never owned The Division 2 at all, there’s an edition that has you covered.
As you probably guessed, the Warlords of New York expansion takes players back to New York, which was the setting for the first game. A rogue agent named Aaron Keener has taken control of Lower Manhattan. You’ll be tasked with taking him down, but to get to him, you’ll have to fight through his four rogue agent guards in four new districts: Civic Center, Battery Park, the Financial District, and Two Bridges. Those familiar with the first game will recognize the Cleaner and Riker factions, though Ubisoft promises some surprises as well.
Pre-orders for the Warlords of New York expansion are currently live on the Xbox One and PC via UPlay and the Epic Games Store. They haven’t shown up just yet on the PS4, but we’ll update this article once that happens. If you want to try out the base game before throwing down any extra money, then you’re in luck. The Division 2 is currently just $3 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
The Division 2: Warlords of New York pre-order bonuses
If you purchase any edition of the expansion before April 3, you’ll get a level 40 Enforcer Shotgun, a New York City police outfit, and a level 30 boost, the latter of which will get one of your characters ready for the new content in Warlords of New York.
Pre-order The Division 2: Warlords of New York expansion
If you already own The Division 2, then the base expansion is all you need to play Warlords of New York–the Year 1 Pass of DLC is not required. It costs $30 and comes with the aforementioned pre-order bonuses.
Pre-order The Division 2: Warlords of New York + base game
The Division 2: Warlords of New York edition includes the base game and expansion. You can start playing the base game immediately, and when March 3 rolls around, Warlords of New York will unlock instantly with the aforementioned pre-order bonuses in tow. It’s currently discounted to $33, down from $60.
Pre-order The Division 2: Warlords of New York Ultimate edition
The Warlords of New York Ultimate edition combines everything The Division 2 has to offer in one convenient package. It comes with the base game, the Year 1 Pass of DLC, and the Warlords of New York expansion when it releases on March 3. It’s currently discounted to $53, down from $80. It also includes the Ultimate Pack, which is a bundle that contains the Battleworn Secret Service pack, the First Responder pack, and the Elite Agent pack. As is the case with the other editions, you’ll get the pre-order bonuses as well.
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The isometric action-RPG Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem has finally left Early Access after more than four years, developer Wolcen Studio announced. The Diablo 3-inspired action game is now purchasable on PC via Steam.
Wolcen Studio shared the news on its official forum, saying that development on Lords of Mayhem won’t end simply because it has left Early Access. “We want to support our baby for a very long time,” Wolcen said. “[W]e have a lot of plans for new features and content, and we will continue to read your feedback to improve the game.” Check out the official release trailer.
In Lords of Mayhem, you are one of three survivors of a devastating massacre. As the story unfolds, you and your childhood Valeria and Edric friends come to find out who is truly friend and foe. Throughout the journey, you’ll encounter demonic warriors, grow stronger in power, acquire a bunch of loot, and more.
Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem retails for $40 USD. You can save 10% on the Lords of Mayhem bundle, which includes the full game and a download of the original soundtrack. If you’re curious whether your machine can handle the game, we’ve included the PC requirements for Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem below.
Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem Full PC Requirements
Minimum:
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit SP1, Windows 8.1 64-Bit, Windows 10 64-Bit
If you’ve already been playing the game since its 2016 Early Access launch, Wolcen Studio recommends you uninstall everything associated with Lords of Mayhem. This will allow for a smooth transition between the Early Access and full versions of the game.
Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem has been experiencing some server issues since officially launching. Wolcen Studio confirmed that it’s working on resolving the issues but has no timeframe on when the server will smooth out. We’ll update this story if things change.
Status update: we’re still working on the server issues and we are currently in the process of increasing the amount of information processed on the database per second. We still have no ETA to provide for the moment but we’ll keep you updated.
Scuf Gaming, the company that first created the ergonomically-minded rear paddles popularized by the Xbox Elite controller, wants you to know that there’s more than one way to make a top-tier controller. The Scuf Prestige, last year’s redesign of the company’s Xbox-style gamepad, offers a number of small but useful upgrades over its predecessor, the Scuf Elite. It’s lighter, customizable without software and, like Scuf’s other controllers, has easily navigable remappable paddles. The Scuf’s best qualities, however, mostly revolve around the paddles, so the Prestige’s utility is reserved for those who want to play a specific way. And since they take some time to learn, that makes the Prestige an acquired taste.
Design & Features
Like the Scuf and Xbox Elites, the Scuf Prestige is very much a riff on the standard Xbox One gamepad. It has the same basic shape and button configuration as the Xbox One controller, with nearly identical buttons and the same d-pad. Unlike the standard Xbox One gamepad, though, it crucially features an internal Lithium-Ion battery pack, so you can recharge the controller via Micro USB. The rubberized grips of the Prestige also feature a unique hexagonal texture, which is both very comfortable and keeps your hands firmly in place.
The impetus for the Prestige revision, you might argue, is that it’s based on the second-gen Xbox controller, A.K.A. the Xbox Wireless Controller, which offers Bluetooth wireless compatibility. If you’re using a first-gen Xbox One controller or a Scuf Elite, these features are useful upgrades, especially if you also plan to use swap your controller among your Xbox One, PC, and phone.
That the Prestige’s shape and feel are closer to the standard Xbox Wireless controller, rather than the Elite, is also a subtle boon. Weighing 9.42oz, the Prestige is significantly lighter than the Xbox Elite’s 12.28oz. The difference doesn’t look like a lot, but you may feel it when you go into your 5th game of Apex Legends or your 5th hour of Borderlands 3. Simply put, you’re much less likely to feel any physical fatigue from playing for a long time.
Making games easier to play is Scuf’s stock and trade. The company’s signature paddle inputs, which are affixed to the back of the controllers and replicate the face buttons by default, are easier on your hands than wrapping your hand and extending your thumb to press the face buttons. The idea is to let you press the face buttons without having to take your right thumb off the control stick. In practice, using the paddles takes some getting used to: I’ve been using controllers my whole life, so my muscle memory is beyond “set in.” Still, when I push myself to use the paddles, I can feel there’s less strain.
The paddles on the Prestige have some small, but significant improvements over the Scuf Elite. They span the full width of the controller’s rear panel, which spreads them out a bit and makes it easier to find each one individually. The two outer paddles, which border the controller’s grips, have rounded edges that make it easier to slide from holding the controller to a ready position over the paddles.
The paddles on the Prestige also feature more customization options than the Scuf Elite. Like most of Scuf’s controllers, you can configure the paddles using an electromagnetic key. New to the Prestige, you can now reconfigure the paddles to replicate any button on the controller besides the triggers and the Xbox home button. I found that mapping the bumper buttons to the paddles was especially helpful if you use the paddles as a supplement to the face buttons, rather than a replacement. Regardless, more choice is always a good thing.
If you feel the paddles impede your ability to play – they cover the back of the controller completely and are thus more intrusive than the Xbox Elite or Razer’s Wolverine Ultimate controller – all four paddles are removable. That said, without the paddles, the Prestige becomes a far less remarkable controller. It has some improvement over a standard gamepad, but nothing so wonderful that would justify its $150+ price tag.
As for what those improvements are: Many of the Prestige’s parts are interchangeable. The controller comes with two sets of analog sticks, domed and concave, which you can swap out after pulling off the removable faceplate. In addition to customized controller bodies, Scuf sells extra faceplates and plastic rings that line the analog stick movement areas. Both the faceplates and analog sticks lock in magnetically, holding snug until you decide to peel them off.
The Prestige also features a lot of customization in its triggers, which makes it especially useful for competitive shooters. A pair of switches on the rear panel allow you to reduce the travel on the controller’s triggers to what feels like approximately 75 percent, and half of their default pull. Personally I prefer the full press, but at half-travel, you can basically tap the trigger like a face button, which has its uses. You can also use a hairpin-sized key to set a hair trigger, which makes the trigger input register earlier in the pull. Both of these make it much easier to aim down sights and fire quickly… Or do whatever you use the triggers for.
Gaming
I used the Scuf Prestige with a wide range of games including The Surge 2, Children of Morta, Mortal Kombat 11, Borderlands 3, and Ghost Recon Breakpoint. In the standard form, the Prestige feels very similar to a standard Xbox gamepad, though I appreciated its snappy, comfortably textured analog sticks. Again, the fact it feels very similar to a standard Xbox gamepad is more of a compliment than it sounds like. Despite having a battery pack inside and paddles hanging off the back, my hands never felt out of place and I never felt the weight of the controller in my forearms.
Though I’m an old man (in spirit), resistant to change, I found myself looking for ways to at least use the outer paddles with each game. In Breakpoint, for example, setting them to LB and RB allowed me to easily set off my character’s class ability with less hand movement. Unlike past Scuf controllers, I found it pretty easy to navigate and keep track of my paddles. (In older iterations, like the Elite, the paddles were pushed more closely together, which led me to make mistakes.)
Purchasing Guide
The Scuf Prestige is available now through the company’s website, starting at $159.99 for the standard Tungsten Grey model. Scuf also offers customized controllers, with prices that reach just over $200 for a controller with a premium faceplate, buttons, and analog sticks.
Despite the retro gaming scene’s healthy pulse, first-gen fans from the ’80s and ’90s are caught in a tug of war between reaping the benefits of the trend and holding on to what made them fans in the first place. The just-released documentary, Not For Resale, peers into the lives of small business owners who run used game stores, some of which were born during Nintendo’s early console days and others that came from the next generation of players turned retailers. Through their unique perspectives and interviews with gaming experts, Not For Resale offers an inside look at the romantic side of vintage gaming, as well as the complex truths you might face when you build your life around them in an increasingly digital and fast-paced world.
Their side of the industry is no stranger to love, loss, failure, or success, and Not For Resale gracefully shepherds you through their stories. Many of them serve as touching reminders of why so many of us fell in love with video games in the first place, but for every heartwarming memory, there’s also an opportunity to reflect. Why do physical games have meaning? Does it purely come down to ownership? What will happen to the things we hold dear today in the hands of future generations?
Not For Resale is a celebration of games, people, and passion. It covers a lot of ground, even diving into the still-rocky experiences some players face when trying to engage with modern games in locations with poor internet, where store owners offer stations for people to bring in their own consoles and download software updates. Innovation is exciting, and Not For Resale doesn’t shy away from the argument that gaming has, in many ways, never been better. It just shines a light on a subculture that’s at risk of being cast aside along the way.
Consumerism and games go hand in hand, and both have changed in innumerable ways in the last few decades. When examining the relationship between the two, it’s hard to think of a better group of witnesses than the business owners whose work isn’t just based around selling new games, but keeping them around and in the hands of players for generations to come. Not For Resale was directed by Kevin J. James, and you can rent and stream it on Amazon, in 4K on Vimeo, or purchase the Blu-Ray direct from executive producer, Pat Contri.
Developer People Can Fly has turned out two very different shooters: Bulletstorm, which was heavy on creative kills and run-and-gun action, and Gears of War: Judgment, which makes use of that series’ cover-based mechanics and slower movement. With its next game, Outriders, People Can Fly is marrying the two approaches, creating a cover shooter that also incentivizes getting out from behind the chest-high walls and wrecking your foes with a number of cool abilities.
We recently played the first few hours of Outriders at a preview event for the game in Los Angeles, where we got a taste of the new game. It’s not just adding elements of different shooters to the mix, though; Outriders is also heavy on RPG features. The result is a game that feels like Gears meeting Mass Effect, complete with sci-fi story and a whole new planet to explore.
Outriders takes its name from a group of military types and scientists who have been doing their best to protect people and save humanity in the last days of Earth. In the game’s prologue, you learn that things didn’t go so well on our home planet, with dwindling resources and other issues leading to war and chaos. The Outriders were seen as heroes who did their best to help the innocent, but in the end, there was just no saving the planet. At the start of the game, you create an Outrider character who has left Earth and traveled some 80 years in cryostasis to a new planet called Enoch, with plans for colonization. On this mission, the Outriders are tasked with securing colony sites ahead of the rest of the survivors. But of course, things don’t go so well.
It turns out Enoch is the home of a mysterious and deadly storm called the Anomaly, which you encounter during the prologue. It rips through the Outriders, killing most of them–but a lucky few survive, and end up with special powers, with you among them. As you cling to life after encountering the Anomaly, your friends throw you back into cryostasis, where you sleep for another 30 years. When you wake up, you discover that life on Enoch has changed for the worse. The Anomaly has ruined the colonists’ advanced technology, and now life here is as bad as it was on Earth, with factions fighting over whatever resources they can find. Adding to the troubles are the Altered, a small group of people who have been given god-like powers thanks to the Anomaly, with many of them being corrupted by their capabilities.
“The Altered are the most powerful beings on the planet, and you will meet some who are allies and some who are very much not,” explained Joshua Rubins, Outriders’ lead writer. “One thing that they have in common is this idea that power corrupts; that it is very, very difficult to become godlike and still be a beneficial god. You have this power, and what do you do with it?”
“What is important is that every Altered will have his own vision of what is going on around him in his own story,” Creative Director Bartosz Kmita added. “They’re not creating, like, a force of Altereds. Every one of them is basically above human, and everyone has his own thoughts about how to survive on this planet and what we should do to progress.”
Becoming Altered
Your powers kick in after the prologue, and we played a couple of hours of Outriders with a look at these spiffy capabilities. You choose from one of three classes at this point: the Devastator, a close-range tank class that uses seismic attacks to shred enemies; the Pyromancer, a more mid-range fighter that can manipulate flame; and the Trickster, a class that can teleport and slow enemies to execute fast hit-and-run tactics. Choosing a class locks you in for the rest of the game, but one of the big pushes of Outriders is that it features drop-in, drop-out co-op, allowing you to team up with up to two other players and use your skills together.
Powers all come with cooldown timers, but People Can Fly has purposely made their durations pretty short, allowing you opportunities to get out of cover to use your abilities pretty often. We played as the Trickster class, which wielded a close-range slash attack that could explode multiple enemies, a dome-shaped field that slowed everyone in it to a crawl, and a teleport ability that put us directly behind enemies just about anywhere on the battlefield for up-close blasting. In addition to your powers–you’ll unlock eight in all as you level up your character–each class also has a particular healing mechanic that encourages you to use your capabilities creatively. With the Trickster, close-range kills trigger health regeneration or, if you’re full up, give you a shield that resists damage. That made getting in close and using powers all the more important, because there are no healing pickups, and automatic health regeneration only restores some of your life.
We are giving the tools for you to even take the same class in different directions, because the class is the beginning, but then you can define all the play style for yourself
When you’re zapping enemies with any of your cool superpowers, you’re blasting away at them, and this is where Outriders’ Gears-like feel comes into play. The cover shooter mechanics are similar to what you’d have found in Judgment, and you’ll generally duck behind walls to avoid fire before popping your head up to take shots at enemies. You can carry three weapons at a time, and we saw a few different varieties, including assault rifles, and shotguns. The shotguns in particular have an extremely Gears feel, blowing off limbs and taking apart enemies at close ranges. You’ll constantly be restocking ammo from enemies and chests as you fight, but if you’re ever running low, you also carry duel sidearms that carry infinite ammo.
The cover-shooting side of Outriders feels pretty standard for that genre, but mixing in your Altered powers helps pick up the game’s action significantly. Running around as the Trickster, teleporting behind enemies and annihilating them with a spectral blade or a burst from a shotgun, was where the ideas of Outriders really started to gel. The game uses the cover aspects of its shooter side more as tactical support for the riskier, more aggressive approach, and balancing the two means you’re constantly thinking about how to mix positioning, weapons, and powers to most effectively clear out enemies while keeping yourself alive.
Solving that puzzle in each combat encounter is a lot of fun, and with each class’s different health-restoring mechanics, you’re rewarded for thinking creatively, rather than hanging back and taking the safe route.
Looting And Shooting
When it comes to guns and armor, Outriders draws from its RPG inspirations. Some weapons have special perks–we snagged an assault rifle that could cause people to blow up upon death, for instance–and you’ll also use mods to upgrade and change your guns, as well. There’s also a loot rarity system in place, tied to Outriders’ “World Level,” which takes the place of traditional difficulty. As you level up your character, you also increase the World Level, which makes for harder battles and rarer loot drops. You can’t increase the difficulty until you earn a new level, but you can always back it down if things get too tough.
“Some people will be more interested in the story or just easy progression, and they can keep the World Level low enough to just have entertainment from fighting,” Kmita said. “But we really encourage people to go higher and higher. You have to earn that.”
You’ll also scale up your character as you progress using a skill tree. The choices you make along the way will help dictate your play style, Kmita said. We didn’t get far enough into the game to dig into the skill tree, but what People Can Fly showed of the system suggests it’s pretty extensive. You might play co-op as the same class as a friend, but your take on the Trickster could be pretty different from theirs, and Kmita said the classes support a variety of play styles.
“We are giving the tools for you to even take the same class in different directions, because the class is the beginning, but then you can define all the play style for yourself,” he said. “So [how you play] depends on your luck, it depends on what you will find in the world, and it depends on what choices you would make in the progression tree. This will define your real play style, your real gameplay. It can be totally unique for different people.”
While taking down enemies in the war for Enoch is your central purpose, Outriders also seems to possess a pretty extensive story. The conflicts raging around you are a big focus, but there’s also a strange signal out in the wilderness that seems tied to the Anomaly, and you’ll eventually work to track it down and figure out its secrets.
Talking with NPCs involves conversation menus that can expand dialogue and help you learn more about the people you meet and what’s going on, and in the prologue, we spent a fair amount of time talking with other Outriders before getting into the action. Don’t expect a branching story, though–there aren’t dialogue options for your responses, just prompts to get more out of a conversation if you want it.
There are side missions, though, which can also add to the main story and give you more opportunities to earn loot and learn about what’s going on on Enoch. Those will add to the main campaign, which People Can Fly said will last you about 25 hours.
We played Outriders on PC, and it’s also coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One–it’s also confirmed for the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Expect it to release in holiday 2020.
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Pokemon Go‘s Sinnoh celebration has ended, but a new event is about to begin. Developer Niantic is kicking off this year’s Valentine’s Day event starting 8 AM local time tomorrow, February 14, and it’ll bring a couple of new Pokemon to the game along with some limited-time Field Research tasks and bonuses.
The Valentine’s Day event runs until 10 PM local time on February 17. Until then, pink-colored Pokemon such as Chansey and Luvdisc will appear in the wild more often than normal. You’ll also be more likely to hatch pink Pokemon from eggs and encounter them as Raid bosses. On top of that, you’ll have a chance to find a Shiny Chansey in the wild or hatch a Shiny Happiny from eggs.
Two more Gen 5 Pokemon will also make their debut in Pokemon Go during the Valentine’s Day event: Audino and Alomomola. However, Niantic notes both Pokemon are rare, so you’ll need some luck and persistence if you hope to catch them.
In addition to the increased Pokemon spawns, a couple of bonuses will be available throughout the Valentine’s event. First, all Lure Modules will remain active for six hours rather than the usual 30 minutes. You’ll also receive twice the usual amount of Candy for catching Pokemon during the event.
Finally, a special Raid Day will take place on Saturday, February 15. From 2-5 PM local time, you’ll be able to face Lickitung in four-star Raids. This one will know the move Body Slam, and you’ll have a chance of encountering a Shiny version. Additionally, you can receive up to five free Raid Passes when you spin the Photo Disc at Gyms during the Raid Day. You can read more about the Valentine’s Day event on the official Pokemon Go website.
We’re partway through February, but Niantic still has a few other events lined up for Pokemon Go this month. A special “friendship weekend event” will take place from February 21-24. During that time, your Friendship levels with other players will increase faster, and you’ll earn twice the usual amount of Candy for trading Pokemon. Trades will also cost half the normal amount of Stardust.
February’s Community Day will also take place on February 22. The featured Pokemon this month is Rhyhorn. If you’re able to evolve it into its final form, Rhyperior, up to two hours after the event ends, the Pokemon will automatically know the Charged Rock-type attack Rock Wrecker. Capping off the month will be the annual Pokemon Day event, which will bring back Armored Mewtwo and introduce Clone Pokemon to the game.
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We’re only a month away from a new Half-Life game. Half-Life: Alyx releases March 23. Set before the events of Half-Life 2, you’ll play Alyx in a VR-exclusive adventure. Thankfully, pretty much every PC VR headset is capable of playing Half-Life: Alyx, as Valve has not made it exclusive to the company’s Index headset and controllers–whether you have an Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift S, or Vive, you’re good to go. Best of all, if you pre-order Half-Life: Alyx, you’ll get a 10% discount, bringing the $60 price down to $54. However, if you do own or purchase the Valve Index VR headset–or one of its accessories–then you’ll get Half-Life: Alyx free of any extra charge.
Pre-Order Half-Life: Alyx | $54 ($60)
Half-Life: Alyx-compatible VR headsets
The great thing about Half-Life: Alyx is that very few VR headsets are incompatible. In fact, any headset that works with Steam VR also works with Half-Life: Alyx.
Valve Index
HTC Vive Pro
HTC Vive
HTC Vive Cosmos
Oculus Rift S
Oculus Quest (with Link)
Any Windows Mixed Reality headset
In preparation for Half-Life: Alyx’s launch, Valve recently made every game in the Half-Life series free until Alyx’s launch. If you want to familiarize yourself with the series, now’s an excellent time. According to Valve, Alyx takes place between the events of Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2. Alyx is the first game in the series for more than a decade. The last entry was 2007’s Half-Life 2: Episode Two, which infamously left its story unresolved.
We’ve compiled a list of everything we know about Half-Life: Alyx so far. This includes the game’s length–which is “about the same” as Half-Life 2–Valve’s history with VR, a rundown of when the rumors started, and more.
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