Month: July 2020

The first Halo Infinite campaign footage was released during the July 23 Xbox Games Showcase, and people commented that the graphics left something to be desired. In a new blog post, developer 343 Industries responded to the concerns, stating that the company is trying to make a more “classic”-looking game, while also acknowledging the studio still has work to do to make Halo Infinite look better before launch. The blog post also touched on how Halo Infinite will approach microtransactions.

Regarding the graphics, 343 said there are multiple issues at play here, including the overall art style and the visual fidelity. For the art style, 343 is moving back to the “legacy” look of the original Halo trilogy. The company said it’s doing this based on the feedback surrounding Halo 4, Halo 5, and Halo Wars 2, which had more modern-looking graphics.

“With Halo Infinite, we’re returning to a more ‘classic’ art style which was a key message going back to the very first reveal that garnered enthusiastic and positive responses,” 343 said. “This translates to a more vibrant palette, ‘cleaner’ models and objects with less ‘noise,’ though it doesn’t mean less detail. While we appreciate this may not be everyone’s personal preference, we stand by this decision and are happy to see it resonating with so many fans around the world.”

In terms of the visual fidelity, 343 said it has heard the negative feedback that Halo Infinite’s characters and in-game objects look “flat, simplistic, and plastic-like.”

“In many ways we are in agreement here–we do have work to do to address some of these areas and raise the level of fidelity and overall presentation for the final game,” 343 said. “The build used to run the campaign demo was work-in-progress from several weeks ago with a variety of graphical elements and game systems still being finished and polished.”

“While some of the feedback was expected and speaks to areas already in progress, other aspects of the feedback have brought new opportunities and considerations to light that the team is taking very seriously and working to assess,” 343 added. “We don’t have firm answers or outcomes to share yet but the team is working as quickly as possible on plans to address some of the feedback around detail, clarity, and overall fidelity. The team is committed and focused on making sure we have a beautiful world for players to explore when we launch.”

Microtransactions, Explained

Also in the blog post, 343 addressed how Halo Infinite will handle microtransactions. There will be no real-money loot boxes, the studio said, though the game is expected to feature microtransactions in other ways that have not yet been detailed.

Multiplayer Beta May Not Happen

The blog post also touches on multiplayer. It states that 343 may not be able to deliver a pre-release beta as it originally planned to.

“Our original plans for large-scale flighting aren’t where we originally intended in large part due to the challenges of working from home during COVID-19,” 343 said. “At this time we’re honestly not sure what is going to be possible in terms of flighting but we still hope to have an opportunity for broader public hands-on before release. And, as we’ve previously stated, we’ll be relying on flighting and continued feedback and community partnership well beyond launch as we grow and evolve the game together.”

New Weapons

Also in the blog post, 343 spoke about the brand-new MK50 “Sidekick” and CQS45 “Bulldog” weapons. The Sidekick is the new pistol that is “lightning fast to draw and fire,” and most closely resembles the Magnum from Halo 2, 343 said. The Bulldog, meanwhile, is a pump-action shotgun that has less damage as a tradeoff for a faster rate of fire. 343 also confirmed that the classic Magnum and the Tactical Shotgun from earlier Halo games won’t appear in Halo Infinite.

More weapons will come to Halo Infinite over time, the developer added.

“As we look beyond launch, we have robust plans to continue evolving the game which will include further additions to Halo Infinite’s sandbox,” 343 said. “We understand some players won’t be thrilled over the prospects of different pistols and shotguns but we encourage you to keep an open mind and we look forward to everyone getting hands-on perspective with these new weapons when the time comes.”

Other Halo Infinite Details

Here is rundown of other key details about Halo Infinite, as written and shared by 343.

• In Universe Timing: It follows the Master Chief’s story some time after Halo 5: Guardians’ conclusion
• Pro Team: We’ve assembled an internal Pro Team for Halo Infinite
• Splitscreen: Yes, splitscreen will be a thing! (See above for details about Campaign)
• LAN: Halo Infinite will support LAN
• Back in Black: Black undersuits will be in the game
• Microtransactions: Halo Infinite will not include real-money loot boxes
• Player Customization: If you liked the level of armor customization options in Halo: Reach, you will be pleased
• SR 152: Players who hit SR 152 in Halo 5: Guardians will receive a token of appreciation in Halo Infinite
• Forge: Our famous editing tool will be in Halo Infinite and will have Undo & Redo buttons, which is a first for Forge.

Halo Infinite is due to release this holiday as a launch title for the Xbox Series X. The game will also come to the standard Xbox One as well as PC. For lots more, check out GameSpot’s video overview above that covers everything you need to know about Halo Infinite.

Grand Theft Auto V has announced this week’s bonuses, discounts, and Lucky Spin prize car, and if you’re a fan of Survival Series of Arena War you’re in luck. These modes will pay out higher than usual this week, so they’re worth jumping into if you need more GTA$.

The Horde Mode-style Survival Series is paying out double rewards all week long, so you’ll be rewarded for enduring at a better rate than usual. Arena War, the game’s large-scale destruction derby-style mode, is paying out double RP and GTA$, but it’s also giving players triple Arena Points this week.

By competing, you can also get 50% off the Apocalypse variant for any vehicles that can be used in this mode.

The Lucky Wheel at the Diamond Casino and Resort can win you a Dinka Sugoi this week, a hatchback without quite as much oomph as some of the game’s other cars, but still a classy little vehicle. Of course, you’ll have to rely on luck to land it.

There’s also a few more discounts up for grabs this week. They are:

• Arena Workshop: 50% off
• Arena Workshop Customizations and Add-Ons: 40% off
• Invade and Persuade RC Tank: 40% off
• Principe Deveste Eight: 35% off

As was announced when we found out that GTA V is coming to PS5, PlayStation 4 owners can currently get GTA$1 million a month just by logging in; when it ticks over to August, you’ll be able to get another million, and if you haven’t claimed for July yet you’d better hurry.

A big content update is also due for GTA V Online soon, and we’ll report further on that when we know more.

Imagine trying to explain to your colleagues who are members of Congress what Twitch is 😭

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 30, 2020

Following rumors and teasers earlier this month, it has been confirmed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone‘s Season 5 will officially start on August 5 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

The new season will introduce a new Battle Pass, but developers Infinity Ward and Raven Software have yet to outline it. Furthermore, the co-developers haven’t detailed what’s inside Season 5. Still, publisher Activision shared an announcement trailer revealing the start date and the new Shadow Company agency.

The trailer, above, plays out like an Army recruitment video for the Armistice Alliance before a gruff-sounding narrator interjects with musings on what the Shadow Company will do following Armistice’s collapse.

While what Season 5 contains remains a mystery for now, earlier teasers suggest that a train could make an appearance on a map. Datamining also suggests that the stadium may officially open up.

With Season 5 going live on August 5, the current Battle Pass will expire on the same day. This means you have about a week left to complete any tier progression before the new Battle Pass is introduced.

In other Call of Duty news, both Modern Warfare and Warzone received playlist updates that swap around a bunch of game modes. Modern Warfare had Gunfight and Deathmatch Domination added to its multiplayer rotation, while Warzone brought back Plunder: Blood Money Trios.

Star Wars: Squadrons is currently scheduled for an October release, right on the eve of a new console generation. Launching on PS4, Xbox One and PC, EA Motive’s starfighter simulator will receive landing clearance on PS5 and Xbox Series X. Just don’t expect the game to be a next-gen version for those consoles initially. This doesn’t rule out a next-gen upgrade forever, as EA will use backwards compatibility to bring Star Wars: Squadrons to future platforms.

Asked on Twitter if EA had plans for Star Wars: Squadrons to land on PS5 and Xbox Series X, Ian Frazier, creative director for the game at EA Motive confirmed that a backwards compatibility plan was in motion. “We’re not planning a separate version of the game for the next-gen consoles, but yes, the backwards compatibility should work,” Frazier tweeted.

Backwards compatibility on next-gen consoles has been approached with different strategies so far, with Microsoft promising a day-one system that will make the Xbox Series X compatible with all previous generations of Xbox games and Xbox One accessories.

A “Smart Delivery” feature will also allow developers and publishers to implement a cross-buy system that let you purchase a game once and play it on whatever is the best hardware available. So far, high-profile games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Marvel’s Avengers and several other games have confirmed that this feature will be enabled.

Sony will have a more select number of their most popular games ready to play on PS5 at launch, although they’ve yet to mention any broader plans regarding which titles will make the cut.

Star Wars: Squadrons is coming on October 2, 2020 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

For a few years, Motorola’s Moto Z line may have been the company’s “flagship” smartphone offering, but it lagged behind the competition in design and specs while maintaining a lower price point. That all changes with the new Motorola Edge+, which sees the company go all in on specs, features, design, the latest 5G goodness, and the $1,000 price tag that’s so hot right now. Let’s see how Motorola’s latest attempt at flagship quality holds up.

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Motorola Edge+ – Design and Features

The Motorola Edge+ has been freed from the shackles of the Moto Z family, no longer having to conform to strict shape and size guidelines to continue supporting Motorola’s fleet of Moto Mod attachments. The result is a phone that looks a lot more like the premium handsets that surround it in the market, with some similarity to Samsung’s previous generation of Galaxy S phones before Samsung brought back flat screens with the Galaxy S20 family.

You’ll find Gorilla Glass 5 on both sides of the phone sandwiching a 6000-Series aluminum frame. The glass of the display also wraps around the sides of the chassis, leaving minimal bezels at the top and bottom. Motorola delivers a punch-hole camera in the top-left corner instead of relying on a notch like Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro or LG’s flagships. Motorola also notes a “Water repellant design” that falls short of the more rigorous IP68 ratings found on many other flagship phones.

The Motorola Edge+ has a large footprint at 161.1mm x 71.38mm x 9.6mm and 203 grams, which lets it fit in a 6.7-inch OLED display and a 5,000mAh battery. In terms of size, it would compare closer to the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra or S20+ than it would to the Galaxy S20. It’s not just glass that wraps around the sides either, but actually an active display area as well, making for an effect that can look cool in some situations or just wonky as visuals warp around the edge.

The display itself is a sharp enough 2,340 x 1,080 and boasts a 90Hz refresh rate for a smoother feel. The display is impressively bright, offering easier readability in direct sunlight next to the Galaxy S20 at max brightness. It also supports HDR10+. And, if you need to connect to another display, the UBS-C port supports DisplayPort.

The design of the Motorola Edge+ has many aspects that reflect the current flagship landscape, including a fingerprint sensor built into the display, a slim earpiece speaker for fairly robust stereo sound, and support for wireless charging (and reverse wireless charging). It bucks one industry trend by including a 3.5mm headphone jack, albeit without any of the fancy DAC enhancements LG offers.

Motorola has also gone all in on modern internals. You’ll find the necessary components to get 5G (both mmWave and Sub-6GHz), as well as support for Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1, and NFC. You won’t miss out on much in terms of connectivity here except for the fact that Verizon’s current 5G rollout is incredibly limited, meaning very few people will be able to take advantage of the Motorola Edge+’s 5G connectivity within the US for some time.

While the Motorola Edge+ design feels solid overall, there are a few points where it could be improved. A few issues stem from the way the glass and metal all fit together. There’s a considerable gap between the display and frame, which allows for debris to get lodged, and it also makes for wobbly side buttons that don’t inspire confidence. The phone is a bit slippery as well.

Motorola Edge+ – Software

The Motorola Edge+ comes running on Android 10 out of the box and is mostly free of bloatware despite its close ties with Verizon. There will be a few Verizon apps and games pre-installed, but it will otherwise run Google apps as its defaults and feature just a few of Motorola’s enhancements, such as the ever-handy Moto Actions (which offer two of the easiest ways to launch the camera app or toggle on the flashlight with simple hand movements).

This time around, Motorola also has baked in some software to make use of the display’s edges. This includes setting it to light up for notifications, a game mode that adds shoulder buttons to the edge, a floating toolbar that lives on the edge, and a button that can stop some apps from extending over the edge so that you can more easily see all the content (which shows Motorola knows the edge isn’t always as practical as it is nifty).

Motorola Edge+ – Gaming and Performance

Thanks to Motorola’s inclusion of the top-notch Snapdragon 865 chipset with 12GB LPDDR5, the Motorola Edge+ is a performance powerhouse. The octa-core processor paired with a 90Hz display makes it that much easier to feel just how smoothly this phone operates. In side-by-side Geekbench 5 tests, it outperformed the Samsung Galaxy S20 with a 909 single-core score and a 3340 multi-core score to the Galaxy’s 903 and 3140, respectively.

Launching and switching between apps is a breeze, and the phone easily runs graphically intensive games like Asphalt 9. Even the camera launches quickly, making it that much easier to snap a photo in the moment. Scrolling around and zooming in on 108MP photos is also fluid and responsive.

Some of that speed may come down the Motorola Edge+’s 256GB of UFS 3.0 storage. Launching Asphalt 9, the game was running and ready to play in less than 10 seconds.

The battery performance was also satisfactory – 5,000mAh is a lot to work with. Even with such a large and bright display, the Motorola Edge+ can handle running all day on its beefy battery. However, it’s worth noting that I was running on 4G LTE throughout my testing, and using Verizon’s 5G mmWave network has been more power intensive in my experience. The 5G modem that’s paired with the Snapdragon 865 chipset may be more efficient than the one found in Motorola’s 5G Moto Mod, though.

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Motorola Edge+ – Camera

The cameras on the Motorola Edge+ are a notable feature. The old, circular camera bump found on so many Motorola phones is gone. In its place, you’ll find a serious array of cameras. Here are the key specs:

• 108MP, 1/1.33” sensor, f/1.8, 0.8 micron pixels with Quad Pixel Technology, OIS
• 16MP Ultra-wide + Macro Vision, f/2.2, 1 micron pixels, 117-degree FOV
• 8MP Telephoto, f/2.4, 1-micron pixels, 3X optical zoom, OIS
• TOF sensor
• 25MP Front-facing, F/2.0, 0.9 micron pixels with Quad Pixel Technology

This array of cameras isn’t just competent but also commendable. The main sensor is capable of snapping some stunningly sharp photos that look absolutely great. Neither the wide-angle nor zoom cameras disappoint by shifting too far away from the look of the main sensor either, making for a consistent shooting experience. The wide-angle camera also performs double duty as a macro camera that can snap incredibly detailed photos from about an inch away. The result is a photo that shows more than I can see with my own eyes.

The telephoto lens offers up a 3X optical zoom which helps get a closer look at far off subjects, but it doesn’t compare to the zoom offered by Samsung’s Galaxy S20 family, as increasing to a 10X digital zoom shows the Motorola Edge+ struggling to resolve some of the detail that Samsung manages to piece together. Neither phone really offers a good photo at that level of zoom, but at least the Samsung version is a bit less hazy.

The only drawback I noticed from the rear cameras was how they handled color. For the most part, they seemed to do a solid job offering natural color and decent HDR performance. But, on one occasion I went out shooting in the wake of a thunderstorm, and the cameras simply couldn’t reckon with the wild, orange sky. The resulting photos were left with a much more mundane gray sky and even the double rainbow lost a bit of its vibrance. In low-light the cameras still take decent shots, but not nearly as readily as in bright conditions.

Flipping around to the front-facing camera, the Motorola Edge+ sticks the landing again. This 25MP shooter will bin the photo down to 8MP by default, but with either resolution setting the result is a crisp shot – the kind that leaves you feeling like you might want to wash your face more often. The front camera also has up to a 240fps slow motion mode that can let you see just how wiggly your nose is after it’s been flicked.

The video capabilities are simple, but clean. There’s no fancy HDR10+ recording here nor 4K/60fps, but the camera will let you go up to 6K/30fps with a fairly wide field of view. The video stabilization also keeps even intentionally jarring hand motions from ruining shots, so you’ll need to turn that off if you want to recreate Cloverfield. For full use of the different sensors in video mode, you’ll have to dial it down to 1080p/30fps. It all makes for a simpler, and easier to use camera system than those found on Samsung and LG flagships, but it’s also less rich in extra features.

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Purchasing Guide

The Motorola Edge+ is available exclusively from Verizon for $999.