Month: October 2020

Halloween is coming up and that means pumpkins are now available in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. As part of its latest Halloween update, New Horizons has made pumpkin starts available to purchase. These seeds can be planted and the resulting pumpkins harvested as a resource. You can place pumpkins as decorations on their own or save them up to craft some of the new October pumpkin DIY recipes, also called the Spooky Set.

Here’s everything you need to know about growing and harvesting pumpkins in New Horizons.

Where To Buy Pumpkin Seeds/Starts

You can purchase pumpkin seeds from Nook’s Cranny during the month of October. They are available in the cabinet where you usually purchase tools like fishing rods and watering cans. Seeds (called pumpkin starts) cost 280 bells each.

Leif also sells pumpkin starts for just 140 bells, and will continue selling them year-round. He is a special visitor, meaning he has a chance of showing up once per week on a random weekday, between 5 AM to 10 PM. Just be on the lookout in your town square for his garden shop if you want to see if he’s there.

How To Plant And Grow Pumpkins

Once you have pumpkin seeds, you can plant them just like you would any other plant in New Horizons–stand on an empty patch of land or dig a hole with your shovel, bring up your inventory, and select the pumpkin starts.

It takes four days to grow a pumpkin. The frequency you water your pumpkin plants over this four day period will determine how many pumpkins each plant yields. Watering your plants is not required to grow at least one pumpkin each, but if you want the most bountiful harvest, here’s how many times you should be watering your pumpkins:

• Never watered = 1 pumpkin
• Watered once = 2 pumpkins
• Watered every day = 3 pumpkins

Once you harvest your pumpkins at the end of the four days, you don’t need to worry about replanting your seeds. The plant will continue producing pumpkins throughout October.

How To Get Yellow, White, And Green Pumpkins

Pumpkins come in four color varieties in New Horizons: orange, yellow, white, and green. Orange pumpkins are the most common variety. The less common yellow and white varieties and the rare green variety are required if you want to customize pumpkin DIY recipes from the Spooky Set. Unfortunately, these color varieties are completely random, and we’re not aware of any way to manipulate them while gardening, unlike the more customizable hybrid flowers.

The only way to get a new color variety is to plant more pumpkin seeds. If you’ve sectioned off part of your island as a pumpkin patch and have limited space to plant them, you could dig up an orange pumpkin plant and replace it with a new pumpkin start, then wait the four days to see what color pumpkin it produces. If you’re super meticulous, you could also plant pumpkins outside your patch, wait to get the color variety you want, then dig them up and replant them in your patch in the color configuration you want. In any case, forcing new color varieties will prove time consuming.

Another way to get new pumpkin colors is to trade with friends. You can swap pumpkins when visiting another player’s island or hosting a guest on your own, if they bring some. You can even dig up a friend’s plant and replant on your own island–though we recommend asking their permission before turning over a host island’s pumpkin patch!

What To Do With Pumpkins

Pumpkins are a Halloween-themed resource you can use to craft pumpkin DIY recipes from the Spooky Set. These include a jack-o-lantern (called the spooky lantern), a scarecrow, and even a candy set for trick-or-treaters.

Find the full list of pumpkin DIY recipes and where to get them in our guide.

The Halloween update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons is live and perhaps its most anticipated addition, pumpkins, are now available. While pumpkins make great decorations on their own, there are also a handful of pumpkin DIY recipes you can collect and craft. Here’s a list of all the Spooky Set pumpkin DIY recipes we know of so far and where to find them.

How To Get Pumpkins

Pumpkins can be harvested from seeds, which you can now buy and plant. Check out our guide on how to get pumpkins for details on how to grow and harvest your own. You’ll need to save up a bunch if you want to craft all the pumpkin DIY recipes this season.

How To Get Pumpkin DIY Recipes (Spooky Set)

• Gifted from villagers
• Shot down from balloons

You can find pumpkin DIY recipes, also called the Spooky Set, from villagers or by shooting down balloons.

There are three crafting sessions per day in your village, depending on when you login. Each session lasts three hours, giving you ample time to visit your villagers and see what they might be crafting at home. Simply swing by a villager’s house, enter it, and chat with them if they’re crafting something at their DIY workbench. If a villager is crafting a DIY recipe you already have, there may be a chance they’ll give you pumpkins instead of a spare card, but we have not verified this for ourselves yet.

You can also retrieve pumpkin DIY recipes by shooting down balloons. There are still acorn and pine cone DIY recipes available to collect through November on Northern Hemisphere islands as well, so don’t forget to use your slingshot on them when you see one!

Some of the Spooky Set item recipes are only available on Halloween Day, which is October 31, and some don’t have recipes at all, including the spooky wall, spooky flooring, and spooky rug. We believe these can only be obtained by giving villagers candy on Halloween. We are still attempting to verify which items are Halloween Day-exclusive and which ones don’t have recipe cards.

All Pumpkin DIY Recipes And Spooky Set Items

• spooky arch
• spooky candy set
• spooky chair
• spooky fence
• spooky lantern
• spooky lantern set
• spooky scarecrow
• spooky standing lamp
• spooky table
• spooky tower

Halloween Day Exclusive Recipes

• spooky carriage
• spooky garland
• spooky table setting
• spooky wand

How To Customize Spooky Set Items

You can customize Spooky Set items using different color varieties of pumpkin rather than customization kits. Pumpkin color varieties are random and the DIY recipes will produce orange pumpkin items by default. Read our pumpkin growing guide for more information.

Blizzard Entertainment has delayed the release of World of Warcraft‘s Shadowlands expansion due to working from home conditions caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. A new release date has not been determined, but the studio said Shadowlands will still release later this year.

In a blog post announcing the delay, executive producer John Hight said it wasn’t an easy decision to make but one that was necessary for the expansion and for World of Warcraft players. Hight also said the additional development time will allow the team to add extra polish to Shadowlands’ endgame.

“As everything started coming together and we’ve been listening to and building upon your feedback, it’s become clear we need a little more time for additional polish, and to balance and iterate on some interlocking pieces–particularly those related to the endgame,” Hight said. “Shadowlands is one of the most intricate expansions we’ve yet created, and while we’ve made great progress, the challenge of tuning the endgame was compounded by the team having to work from home.

“Blizzard has a commitment to quality. We believe Shadowlands will be something special, and we’ve heard from many of you who feel the same. We need this extra time to ensure that Shadowlands lives up to its full potential.”

Despite the setback, the studio still plans to release the Shadowlands pre-patch on October 13. This update lays the foundation for the expansion, replete with a revamped character leveling system, new-player experience on Exile’s Reach, and a bevy of additional character customization options.

Blizzard previously announced back in July 2020 that the Shadowlands expansion would launch in Fall 2020, with Hight saying it will happen “even if we end up shipping it from our homes.”

The Shadowlands expansion will make a number of adjustments and changes to World of Warcraft, including reducing the level cap from 120 to 60 and adding controller support. Shadowlands will also allow players to align themselves with a Covenant, a new kind of in-game faction system that teaches new abilities and assigns quests. Additionally, the expansion will no longer charge players for changing genders.

Developer Behaviour Interactive has provided an update on cross-progression for Dead By Daylight, saying the feature is “closer than ever” to launching.

While an exact release date for cross-progression has not been announced, the studio did confirm that the feature will make its way to Google Stadia and PC via Steam.

“The other important feature we have been working on for the past month is cross-progression,” the studio said in a Dead By Daylight update blog post. “In the past couple of months, we have continued developing the cross-progression feature for Steam and Stadia. We are working hard on the final details and we are closer than ever to making it available for all on these two platforms.”

When cross-progression does become available, players can transfer their data between Stadia and Steam through a new website Behaviour developed specifically for the feature. Everything from character progress to purchased or unlocked add-on content will carry over between the two platforms.

Behaviour clarified in a separate blog post that cross-progression is not planned for PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, saying that while it will continue working on it, there’s no guarantee the feature will make its way to other platforms.

“As of today, we cannot make Cross-Progression available on other platforms and we have no guarantee that it will happen. However, we know that this is a community wish, and we will keep trying to make it happen.”

Still, the studio did confirm that cross-progression will come to Nintendo Switch, allowing players to transfer data between all three platforms whenever they want. A release date for cross-progression for Switch has not been announced, but the feature will be coming “in the near future.”

In August, Behaviour released a Dead By Daylight update that made cross-play available on all platforms. Cross-progression is the latest feature the studio is working on for the asymmetrical horror game. The studio also confirmed that Dead by Daylight will launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/Series X

EA has pulled an ad promoting FIFA microtransactions from a UK magazine aimed at children, following a backlash. The company issued a mea culpa statement regarding the ad, saying it “appeared in environments it shouldn’t have.”

Eurogamer reports that ads for FIFA Ultimate Team appeared in the Smyth’s toy shop magazine. FUT is a big money-maker for EA, thanks to the sale of FIFA Points that are used to buy randomized packs. The loot box mechanic has drawn comparisons to gambling as the microtransaction practice has been under added scrutiny, so marketing it towards children was criticized especially sharply. Some fans called for a boycott.

EA issued a statement to Eurogamer saying it is reviewing all future media placements and apologizing for the ad appearing in the magazine.

“We take very seriously the responsibilities we have when marketing EA games and experiences in channels seen by children,” the company stated. “In spite of this, we’re aware that advertising for FIFA Points has appeared in environments it shouldn’t have. We have been working diligently with Smyths to ensure this advertisement is not distributed in any remaining copies of their 2020 catalogue. We have also undertaken an immediate review of all future media placements and are working to ensure each of our marketing efforts better reflects the responsibility we take for the experience of our younger players.”

EA has been in hot water over microtransactions before. Its loot boxes in Star Wars Battlefront 2 led to a flurry of criticism, and helped spark lawmakers in several countries to look into the practice. While lawmakers have proposed various solutions, the ESRB stepped in with a change to its game labels to note when a game has microtransactions.

This comes just ahead of the October 9 release of FIFA 21, but an early access period has already begun for users of EA Play. For more details, read our FIFA 21 preorder guide.

If you’ve been craving some chaotic kitchen antics, developer Ghost Town Games has served up a free content update for Overcooked 2 which is out now on all platforms.

The Moon Harvest Festival update brings with it new kitchens, recipes, and ridiculous dangers to avoid as you try cook up a storm in its highly impractical spaces. This time, kitchens are afloat on majestic-looking ponds, with lily pads connecting sectors of the kitchen. In true Overcook fashion, these lily pads sink after being stood on, forcing you to be both quick and strategic when moving around the new kitchen.

The update includes a new recipe for mooncakes, too, which look to come in three delicious-looking variations. There’s also just a nice ambience to the ensuing chaos, with a large koi sculpture flanking your stoves and fireworks lighting up the sky above. When you’re not trying to put out fires, it’s a pleasing scene to take in.

The Moon Harvest Festival DLC is out now for Overcooked 2, which you can purchase on Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch. In our Overcooked 2 review, critic Kallie Plagge praised the game’s subtle gameplay tweaks and expanded stages, writing, “It’s a strong foundation, and with the right friends, Overcooked 2 is one of the best couch co-op games around.”