Month: August 2020

Activision boasted a big second quarter in its financial results, driven in part by the rapid growth of its free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone. The spin-off from last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reached more than 75 million players to date, according to the company’s second-quarter 2020 financial report.

That’s the first updated player count we’ve heard since it was riding high on its explosive first month with 50 million players. The growth over the last few months has been slower since its debut, but that’s not surprising in itself, and another 25 million is still a huge success.

The success of Warzone has had a knock-on effect with Modern Warfare as well. Activision Blizzard said that Modern Warfare has added more players outside of a launch quarter than ever before, mostly due to players upgrading from Warzone. The company has already specified that Warzone will continue to evolve with content from future Call of Duty campaign releases.

For the quarter ending June 30, 2020, Activision Blizzard reported net revenues of $1.93 billion, up from $1.4 billion for the same period last year. Digital revenue grew to $1.59 billion, compared to $1.09 billion for the same period. The company’s earnings have come under scrutiny recently, in regards to both the pay for CEO Bobby Kotick and a more recent pay-sharing campaign from Blizzard employees.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone are currently preparing to launch Season 5, which will include new maps, some big changes to the Verdansk Battle Royale map, and more. Fans have been speculating that Warzone will also serve as a teaser or even tie into the announcement of the next Call of Duty, which is rumored to be a Black Ops game.

Nintendo is giving Switch players another chance to win My Nintendo Gold Points. The company is hosting online competitions in two of its Switch games this month: the stretchy-arm fighter Arms and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

First up is the Arms North American Open August 2020, which takes place this Saturday, August 8. The top player will win a prize package that contains download codes for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, its Fighters Pass Vol. 2, and Splatoon 2. The rest of the top four, meanwhile, will take home 2,500 My Nintendo Gold Points, which is equivalent to $25 USD in Switch Eshop credit.

The following week, Nintendo will host the Mario Kart 8 North American Open tournament. That competition runs from August 14-16, and the top eight players each day–based on the total amount of points accumulated–will win 2,500 Gold Points. You can learn more about both competitions on Nintendo’s website.

Those aren’t the only Switch games holding events this month. On August 21, Nintendo is kicking off another bonus Splatfest for Splatoon 2. There are no My Nintendo Points up for grabs in this competition, but everyone who participates will receive Super Sea Snails in the game. The Splatfest runs until August 23, and the theme is another repeat of a previous event: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Although Nintendo has not released new content updates since the Splatocalypse event back in July 2019, the company has announced two more bonus Splatfests for the game. These will be held before the end of March 2021, although no other details about them have yet been announced.

Xbox Series X And Xbox One News

Here’s the secret Reynolds Cut of GL you all haven’t been waiting for. In order to make it as great as possible we made some judicious cuts. pic.twitter.com/B2tUelctr8

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) August 4, 2020

Ryan Reynolds continued his years-long mockery of his Green Lantern movie by posting a new social media video that not only re-edits the notorious 2011 flop but also manages to poke fun at Snyder Cut fans, Dwayne Johnson, and even Tom Cruise.

“I’m not playing Hawkman in Black Adam. Although I generally do whatever the hell @TheRock tells me to do,” Reynolds posted Tuesday, tagging Johnson, who is his co-star in Hobbs & Shaw and the upcoming Netflix action film Red Notice.

(Johnson, as IGN audiences should know, will play Shazam nemesis Black Adam in an upcoming film about the DC Comics antihero.)

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Reynolds continued, “I would however love to be in Zack Snyder’s Justice League movie and I’ve heard I may already be in it? #SnyderCut”

The Deadpool star then posted a followup message proclaiming, “Here’s the secret Reynolds Cut of GL you all haven’t been waiting for. In order to make it as great as possible we made some judicious cuts.”

The attached video shows footage of Reynolds’ “death scene” from Deadpool, a wildly cut down version of 2011’s Green Lantern, a quick glimpse of Tom Cruise in Top Gun, and finally Reynolds’ Hal Jordan inserted into the ending of 2017’s Justice League.

Here’s the secret Reynolds Cut of GL you all haven’t been waiting for. In order to make it as great as possible we made some judicious cuts. pic.twitter.com/B2tUelctr8

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) August 4, 2020

While Reynolds’ Green Lantern won’t really be in The Snyder Cut, which will debut on HBO Max next year, that doesn’t mean fans have seen the last of the Emerald Knight in live-action.

HBO Max is developing a Green Lantern series that will boast “cinematic production values” and will feature the ring slinger’s archenemy Sinestro.

And for more on Zack Snyder’s Justice League, watch this clip of Henry Cavill’s Superman in his black costume, read why Zack Snyder refuses to use a “single frame” of Joss Whedon footage in The Snyder Cut, and learn why The Snyder Cut is not part of the DCEU.

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Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, Valorant, and more, has announced that all teams will be taking a week off, with the majority being off during the week of August 10. Some teams will be staggered to ensure that games and servers continue to run smoothly during the time off.

“As game developers, we’re all hyper aware of the effects of crunch and project-based deadlines,” Riot Games said. “We owe it to ourselves and to you to prioritize our health as a team (well, many teams) so we can bring you new experiences long into the future.”

Riot Games also said that update and game release schedules will be shifted to accommodate for the time off, to ensure it isn’t “just cramming more into the following week.” The studio will be announcing the schedule changes for its individual games over the next few days.

In addition to dealing with working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Riot has had a busy year launching Valorant, which recently got a new Agent and deathmatch mode.

Earlier this year Riot Games committed to donating $1 million to fighting systemic racism. A Riot Games executive also resigned around the same time after sharing a controversial image relating to the murder of George Floyd by the police.

QuakeCon is this weekend, and along with news about all things Bethesda, you can save on a bunch of games in the publisher’s back catalog on just about every platform. The Nintendo Switch Eshop has joined a pretty big Xbox Store sale and PC sale at GOG with its own deals on Bethesda games. Admittedly, the Switch’s sale is much smaller, simply because there aren’t very many Bethesda-published titles on Switch. That said, you can still save on the solid ports of Doom (2016), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and more until August 10.

More Nintendo Switch game deals

All eight games in the Switch’s QuakeCon Sale are 50% off. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Doom, and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus are down to $30, while Wolfenstein: Youngblood Deluxe edition is $20. Yes, those prices are higher than you’ll find on other platforms, but if you wanted to check out any of them in handheld mode, we’ve never seen them at better prices.

The other four games in the sale are classic Doom games. Doom (1993), Doom II, and Doom 64 are all on sale for $2.49, and Doom 3 is up for grabs for $5. For those interested in revisiting the early days of the now ubiquitous first-person shooter genre, you can do so for cheap.

The QuakeCon Sale is the main event on the Eshop this week, but there are some other great deals to be found. Until August 17, you can pick up Mortal Kombat 11 for $20, down from $50. Pokken Tournament DX, the enhanced port of the Wii U fighting game, is on sale for $42 until August 11.

Best QuakeCon deals on Nintendo Switch

A popular CoD feature is making its way to Call of Duty Mobile. The Gunsmith, which allows you a great deal of customization over your weaponry, will be hitting the game starting with the next season.

The Call of Duty Mobile Twitter announced the feature with a short trailer showing it off. In it, we can see a gun being fitted with a variety of attachments, from scopes to barrels and grips. The trailer also promises that the swappable equipment will give you a greater degree of finesse over your weapons’ stats, like accuracy and range. Finally, it promises more stickers and cosmetic customization.

Activision had previously teased this feature in a separate tweet, saying “Customization is the future.” The feature has long been requested by the community for several months, which makes sense as the Mobile incarnation has been importing popular features from its PC and console siblings.

Season 9 of Call of Duty Mobile is expected to begin on or around August 8. The game has been making steady updates between seasons as well, like the mid-season addition of a ranked mode. Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is preparing to launch Season 5.