Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be announced through the battle royale game Warzone on August 26, and now we know exactly when the reveal will happen.
The Call of Duty Twitter account posted a teaser today that confirms the timing of the announcement–10:30 AM PT. That works out 1:30 PM in New York and 6:30 PM in London. In Japan, it’ll be at 2:30 AM, and in Sydney the reveal will take place at 3:30 AM.
The teaser, which you can see below, shows the opening to a Warzone match before cutting out. The enduring rumor is that Warzone’s map, Verdansk, will be overhauled to give it a Cold War style and tone to reflect the new Call of Duty game.
Keep checking back with GameSpot for lots more on Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, as we’ll be reporting about the Warzone reveal and whatever else happens this week.
Black Ops Cold War is developed by Treyarch and Raven Software, with Beenox handling the PC edition which will be exclusive to Battle . net.
Black Ops Cold War teaser art has also been revealed. The art features a character wearing a Soviet insignia on the left and an American on the right, presumably to show how the two major powers were essentially equals during the height of the conflict. It’s unclear if these characters are part of the story.
Hitman III developer IO Interactive recently announced that the PlayStation versions of the game will get a PSVR mode, letting you play through each location in first-person virtual reality. While there’s been some question of how the game would translate to VR, since so much of the game’s stealth involves costume changes and situational awareness, IO Interactive has released a single, short GIF that really sells the concept.
You can see the GIF in the tweet below. It shows 47 tapping a man on the shoulder with a crowbar before whacking him in the face with it as he turns around. It’s a perfect encapsulation of Hitman’s extremely dark sense of humor, albeit a bit more slapstick than usual–as is befitting of VR.
This seems to be taken from the Sapienza level from the first season of Hitman, at the inside front gate to the De Santis estate.
The Twitter account has shared a few other GIFs from the game’s new VR mode since it was announced, showing 47 relaxing and firing blind around corners.
A new location from the third game, the Thornbridge Manor, was recently shown off. IO Interactive has also detailed how Elusive Targets, Escalation missions, and Contract modes will be overhauled in the future.
Hitman III releases for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC on January 21, 2021. The VR mode will launch exclusively for PSVR users.
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A recently approved PS5 DualSense patent suggests that Sony’s next-gen controller may one day be able to identify specific users simply by how they are holding it.
As reported by SegmentNext (via VGC), this patent describes a system that would use DualSense’s sensors, including its gyroscope and accelerometer, to gather telemetry data to track the controller’s position, orientation, and properties “such as the maximum velocity, minimum velocity or mean velocity of the controller for a given time, such as 60 seconds for example.”
If a match is found by the controller, it would prompt the user to accept or reject the detected profile. This patent looks to solve the issue of having to manually log into multiple accounts and provide a more seamless experience.
This patent isn’t strictly limited to the DualSense, however, as it also indicates this technology could work with other devices like the DualShock controller, Move Motion controllers, PSVR Headset, and more.
It’s important to note that patents are filed by companies all the time, and this specific filing does not guarantee this will make it to PS5 owners around the world.
The Unfinished Swan, a classic PS3/PS4/Vita puzzle game about splashing paint around a barren environment, might be getting a follow-up. At least, that’s what fans are speculating after a cryptic tweet from publisher Annapurna Interactive.
The Unfinished Swan was developed by Giant Sparrow, which went on to create What Remains of Edith Finch. The two games are explicitly connected, although explaining how would be a spoiler. Edith Finch was published by Annapurna Interactive, and the company has now tweeted out a picture of a paint splash from The Unfinished Swan.
You can see it below. Despite the image just consisting of a black paint splash, The Unfinished Swan’s style was distinctive enough that we have no doubt it’s a reference to that game.
The game was published by Sony, and was thus exclusive to PS3, PS4, and PS Vita. It could be that Annapurna has the rights to port the game to new systems; it could be that they have the rights to a sequel. While some have noted that the tweet was published from an iPhone, which could be a sign of a mobile port, it’s worth noting that many of the account’s tweets are made from the iPhone Twitter client.
Of course, Annapurna tweeting a screenshot from a beloved game, made by a developer they’ve worked with, might not actually be a sign of anything–it could just be that someone on their social media team loves the game. But a quick scroll through the account’s Twitter media tab shows that such a post would be unusual.
The Unfinished Swan received an 8/10 in GameSpot’s review of the PS4 version. “The Unfinished Swan presented in Chapter One could’ve sustained a few hours by itself. Instead, it takes up only half an hour, followed by another few hours that settle for being simply great and delightful,” wrote reviewer Justin Clark.
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Netflix has released a trailer for Dragon’s Dogma, the anime adaptation of Capcom’s RPG of the same name. The show is coming to the streaming service on September 17.
As with the game, it looks like the protagonist will be the “Arisen”, although here, he’s called Ethan. The Arisen has had his heart stolen by a dragon, his family has been murdered, and he’s out for vengeance. As with the game, Ethan has a “pawn” travelling with and protecting him–her name is Hannah, who fans of the game might recognize as a companion character. The trailer also hints at a dark side emerging within Ethan as he’s consumed by his mission.
You can watch the trailer below. The anime seems to use a 3D animation style for its characters. The series is being handled by animation studio Sublimation, the studio behind zombie anime movie Walking Meat.
Dragon’s Dogma was released in 2012. A sort-of follow up, Deep Down, was announced ahead of the PS4’s launch, and while it never eventuated, producer Yoshinori Ono has said that the project isn’t dead yet.
Grand Theft Auto V is a game with many paranormal and alien secrets, and more continue to come to its Online mode over time. A group of dataminers have found evidence of a new alien spacecraft in the game, and activated a mission that has been added to the game’s files but is not properly accessible yet.
Kotaku has reported on the Fort Zancudo UFO Business Battle, which was uncovered by The Game File Gurus. The mission, which quietly slipped into the game’s code alongside the Summer Special update, involves breaking into the hanger the UFO is being stored in and stealing spaceship parts.
You can watch the mission–which likely isn’t in its final form–in the video from The Game File Gurus below.
This all started when the datamining team found a new, huge UFO model in the game’s files, and eventually discovering that it was tied to a Business Battle mission. In this one, you need to take the spaceship parts to Omega, an alien obsessive who is part of GTA’s larger narrative.
It’s unclear if there’s a way to actually activate this mission normally right now–or if, perhaps, Rockstar North wanted dataminers to find it. It’s possible that you actually can make this mission start without needing to fiddle with the game’s code, but no one has figured out how yet.
Next Stop Nowhere gets off to a promising start. You play as Beckett, a sci-fi courier who pilots a spacecraft and is best friends with an AI program. While visiting a bar, he meets Serra, and gets embroiled in her family drama when he learns that she’s trying to track down her wayward thief son before the authorities can get to him. The game is framed as a sort-of road trip through space, where the choices you make will change how the story plays out. At first, the charming characters and intriguing plot are enough to pull you from one location to the next. But unfortunately, a lack of meaningful consequence and a plethora of horrific bugs make for a trip not worth taking.
Next Stop Nowhere is, by design, a very simple game. You guide Beckett by touching where you want him to go, and the points you can interact with in each map are highlighted with big white circles. There are, essentially, no puzzles–moving forward is simply a matter of interacting with every object signposted in a room, and it’s all but impossible to get stuck. It’s a slightly awkward control system, as I found that Beckett often did not go where I wanted. There are also a handful of sections where you fly your ship through dangerous areas, piloting it with simple touch controls between floating debris and avoiding other ships that try to ram you. These sections offer some variety, although there are only a few of them. Judging the distance between your ship and the objects you’re trying to avoid is difficult and the degree of control you are offered is quite limited, but they’re also the best indicator the game gives of the vastness of the space you’re exploring–each of the game’s locations is otherwise very small.
This is an adventure game that focuses largely on the choices you make, and how (or whether) they impact the story. Choices rarely have huge ramifications, and I never found myself having to think about what to do for long. Most decisions boil down to dialogue responses to things other characters say, and framing what sort of relationship you want Beckett and Serra to have. A few of the choices you have to make are framed as though they have major implications within the story, like if you should wipe a robot’s memory or try to reprogram it to be nicer, or whether you should hold a character captive or let them go after they hack into your ship’s computer. However, by the time the credits roll, most of these decisions end up feeling inconsequential to how things played out–if they factored in at all.
Next Stop Nowhere certainly has character, at least. Beckett and Serra are both likable, thanks in large part to the excellent vocal performances of Joshua Alexander and Elizabeth Saydah, and the game is at its best when the two characters are simply chatting about their lives and interests, joking and sharing anecdotes. Serra’s complicated relationship with her son, Eddy, makes the search for him more exciting than it would be otherwise, as the details of the crime he committed aren’t interesting. Instead, I was compelled by the promise of an awkward family reunion and learning more about Serra’s interesting backstory and complex characterization. Serra is a character who is clearly trying to move on from the sins of her past, and having the player decide how Beckett will react both to the person Serra has been, and weigh it against who she is right now, is the game’s most successfully realized element. The striking art style, sharp character designs, and boppy soundtrack all help to make the game intermittently charming, until the game’s numerous bugs and issues set about sapping any good will built up.
The plot in my play-through of the game ended up being all over the place due to a mix of bugs and writing problems. As I got near the end, it became clear that my choices were either being ignored or reversed. In one instance, my ship’s on-board AI (named Cody) was hacked, and Beckett made a huge deal about not being able to operate the ship without it. I walked into my cockpit, accessed my map, and picked the next location… and without any fanfare, we took off. Cody was restored in the next cutscene as though nothing had ever happened, and characters that hadn’t been on the ship previously were suddenly there.
In another instance, a character needed a med pack to heal an injury, and in the next location I picked one up from a convenience mart. When I returned to the ship, the game informed me that I had failed to procure anything to heal the character with–but then they were fully cured anyway. In another, the game crashed in a cutscene after I made certain dialogue choices and then crashed in the same spot again when I reloaded; it wasn’t until I changed my choices that I was able to progress. Sometimes the music would suddenly cut out, or a character would start vibrating in the background during a cutscene, or something else would happen necessitating a restart. On a few occasions, the game would tell me that I had made a certain choice earlier that I most assuredly didn’t.
These are just a few examples–it’s hard to know which choices the game ignored or reversed, because consequences for your actions rarely stretch beyond a few lines of dialogue anyway. There’s one instance early on where you have to choose between two locations to visit, but this ends up being an isolated example, and I found myself caring less about the choices I was making as the game progressed. The game even has the temerity to set up a Mass Effect 2-style scenario near the end that should, in theory, rely on your knowledge of the game’s characters to delegate tasks, but your choices have absolutely zero impact on how things play out. While I suspect that things could play out ever-so-slightly differently if I ran through the whole game again, I’m in no hurry to do so.
Most of these issues hit late in the game, and the first half is distinctly, noticeably more well put-together than the back half. As the game moves towards its conclusion, it starts introducing new plot concepts and characters that aren’t given much room to breathe, and some seemingly-interesting characters are introduced and then shuffled out of the game so fast that it feels like a waste to have introduced them at all. There’s a romantic tension between Beckett and Serra that I enjoyed early on, but I couldn’t tell you what happens to them at the end of the game; the final cutscene played both of their dialogue simultaneously so that it overlapped, making it impossible to parse. By this point, it felt like the game was flat-out messing with me; for the proceeding hour and a half, I’d had to restart the game five times because cutscenes didn’t progress properly, and my investment in the story had flatlined.
With all the bugs ironed out, Next Stop Nowhere would have been a pleasant, albeit inessential, jaunt with some interesting characters and a disappointing lack of consequence. In its current state, it’s a broken, frustrating experience on top of that. As an Apple Arcade exclusive, Next Stop Nowhere isn’t asking for additional payments beyond your subscription, but right now it’s not worth the time you’ll have to invest to finish it. I like Beckett and Serra, and I’d love to be on board with their road trip through space; unfortunately, the game gets a flat tyre midway through that it never replaces.
In this video, Persia talks about a new and improved version of the Nintendo Switch that is being reported again. According to Economic News Daily, its slated for Q1 of 2021. The new Switch could have a better display and enhanced “interactivity” as these are the only details reported so far.
Persia also goes over CD Projekt Red’s recent confirmation on Twitter that Cyberpunk 2077 will offer free DLC after launch which follows the model used for The Witcher 3. CD Projekt Red has previously talked about the importance of diversity and inclusion within its games, and it looks like it even extends all the way to accessibility options like subtitles as you’ll even be able to adjust the size and color of the subtitles on day one. Cyberpunk 2077 is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on November 19; PS5 and Series X versions are also in the works
Lastly, Persia shares some details on two game announcements from DC Fandome, Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.
WB Montreal’s Gotham Knights lets you play as Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, or Red Hood who all have their own distinct fighting styles. And since this title is not continuing the story of the Arkham Games, you’re fighting in a Gotham where Batman is dead. Gotham Knights is coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Series X, and PC in 2021.
Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League will be set in the Arkhamverse after Arkham Knight. Suicide Squad will also be a co-op action game where you can play as Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark, and Captain Boomerang to defeat Superman after he kills an innocent civilian. Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is coming to PS5, Series X, and PC in 2022
Plenty of game events this year have been canceled or otherwise shifted their plans, but The Game Awards will still proceed. Organizer Geoff Keighley talked about how the event will still take place, on-schedule, albeit in a completely digital format.
“What I will say about it is, we have a very interesting plan for the show this year,” Keighley told IGN. “We’re definitely doing it. A lot of people are [asking], ‘Are you delaying it? The Oscars are being postponed, are you postponing The Game Awards?’ We are absolutely not. We’ll share more in the coming weeks about it, but it’s actually probably going to be our biggest show yet.”
Keighley acknowledges that it obviously can’t gather 10,000 people in a single room due to the coronavirus, but he says the plans involve more than him simply streaming by himself. He says this week’s Gamescom Opening Night Live presentation will show some of his plans for the awards show.
“I’m really passionate about [still] doing the show live, versus something pre-recorded. So, yeah, we’re working on some scenarios for ways we can present the show live with a bit of spectacle to people… without the public [being] able to buy tickets to come to the show, and things like that, this year.”
Keighley is the producer of The Game Awards, one of the largest industry award events. He is also hosting the Gamescom kick-off event on Thursday, August 27. That will serve as the end-cap for his Summer Game Fest event, which spanned months and was meant to help fill the gap left by E3’s cancellation.
The Entertainment Software Rating Board has apparently dealt with an entirely different hot coffee controversy than the one you’ve heard of. In a recent tweet, Triband–the developer behind the comedy sports game What The Golf?–claimed that the ESRB failed the game’s rating because the developer failed to identify a brown substance leaking from a pot in a break room as coffee.
Our #ESRB rating failed because we didn’t state what kind of substance there is on the table in the cafeteria 🤔 So dear Twitter lets see if you are smarter than the rating board… What kind of substance do you think it is? pic.twitter.com/uvz2dA3iDs
Though it’s not immediately clear what exactly Triband means by a “failed rating,” the ESRB’s rating process is well-documented, particularly in a 40-minute long mini-doc produced by the YouTube channel Noclip. Game developers like Triband submit a questionnaire that describes the potentially objectionable content of the game, as well as a video that demonstrates that content.
These materials are reviewed by a team of raters who work for the ESRB. In the lead-up to the game’s actual release, there’s a chance that it will be playtested for a more thorough review; if a developer is found to have misrepresented their game’s content, penalties may apply. In the case of What The Golf, it’s uncertain at what point this apparent failure occurred. Since the game is out on Switch, it would appear to be a past event, but it could also be ongoing.
We’re reached out to the ESRB for comment, and we will update when we hear back.
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