Month: December 2020

Fortnite’s new season brought a ton of big changes to the battle royale with the addition of a new bounty system, a Mandalorian skin, and new game mechanics. It also brought a number smaller changes that players have been sifting through. Epic Games doesn’t include patch notes anymore, so players have to find out about most changes themselves.

“I love that we are finally getting lore for a lot of the skins like Burger Boss and Bunker Jonesy,” said Redditor JackBoyEditor about how NPCs interactions with players change depending on what skin they’re wearing. “Somebody has to go around wearing one of The Seven to see their reactions.”

Season 5 introduced a bounty system where players can start missions given to them by one of 40 different NPCs scattered across the map. Some NPCs will have special dialogue if they interact with players using specific character skins. Kit, for example, will purr if you talk to him while wearing the Meowscles skin.

NPCs are surprisingly interactive, too. You can choose to fight (and kill them) for their materials if you wish, although you won’t be able to talk to them if you do. They’re also selective about who they fight–if another player attacks them while you’re talking to them they won’t hurt you. They’ll only attack the other player.

The new season also brought a number of quality-of-life changes that players have been requesting. You can now set up to 50 skin presets, up from the previous limit of 10. The lack of presets had become a problem for many players in Season 4, as there were more than 10 Marvel characters to unlock or purchase. That’s not to mention the hundreds of other skins that have been released over the three years that Fortnite has been out.

“The only thing we need now is a “apply to all presets” button and this feature will be perfect,” said Redditor ISimpForRook.

There are some familiar features that have returned with Season 5. The battle pass features another set of foil styles for skins that players can unlock by progressing to level 250. Players grew tired of Season 4’s extended grind, but players may not care enough to go beyond level 100 in this battle pass. Some players aren’t fond of how the additional styles are designed.

“So tier 100 it is,” said Redditor Jester0745. “These look like poop.” Players were driven to unlock Season 4’s skins due to how much they loved the Marvel characters the additional styles applied to.

Every new update brings a number of minor and major changes to the battle royale and that’s especially true for a new season. Players will be digging in to all the new mechanics and items as Season 5 rolls on.

A few days ago, Larian announced in a Baldur’s Gate 3 pre-patch update that players would have to restart their campaigns from the beginning if they updated their game to the latest patch. Considering the game is in early-access, this isn’t exactly a surprise. Now that patch is out and Larian took to Steam again to explain everything in Patch 3, now called Inspiration, Freedom & Pacifism.

The first change Larian noted is that going forward, players will be able to gain more experience rewards for avoiding combat situations, whether that’s through dialogue or exploration and environmental puzzle-solving. Another notable behavior change is that of your companions. Larian noticed that companions tended to drop approval ratings relatively easily, even if they weren’t actually involved in a given situation. To fix that, companions have been tweaked to focus on the bigger picture while still maintaining their personal beliefs. They also won’t be able to disapprove of situations they’re not present for. Arguably one of the most exciting changes coming with Patch 3 is that certain dialogue sequences with particularly harsh skill checks have been rebalanced so it’s not quite as easy to be locked out of content based on a bad roll. Instead of failing an entire encounter based on one bad roll, your odds of succeeding on that roll have instead been adjusted to be a bit more favorable.

Other cool changes like cross saves, additional short rests, UI improvements, and a ton more are coming to Baldur’s Gate 3 as well with this patch. Check below for a full list of everything coming with the patch!

Baldur’s Gate 3 Inspiration, Freedom & Pacifism Patch Notes

Improvements

• Improved character follower movement.
• Added an option to hide your helmet in the equipment screen.
• Added trajectory preview for force application when using spells.
• All characters now correctly stop running when forced turn-based mode is activated.
• Companions will now jump to follow the main player character.
• Fixed and re-enabled Larian Cross Save between all platforms.
• Assorted tweaks to companion approval ratings.
• The Combat AI now accounts for falling from jumps.
• Changed AI behaviour archetypes for the Boar, Intellect Devourer, and Tiny Spider.
• Combat music no longer ends when a character joins combat.
• Audio configuration now updates on selection of an option.
• In multiplayer, other clients can now hear the dice roll events of a player in dialog.
• Decluttered the hotbar UI by allowing selection of upcasted versions of spells with a separate widget.
• Improved look of toggle-able Passives that can be added to the hotbar.
• Improved some skill tooltips in Character Creation.
• Added a tutorial for Inspiration points.
• Cinematics: Adjusted emotions and lookats in certain areas.
• Cinematics: Camera tweaks and lighting improvements in certain areas.
• Cinematics: A large pass of improvements on emotions and attitudes.
• Cinematics: Improved fade timings.
• Cinematics: Improved blending between poses.
• Any dialog associated with a mask will play before equipping it instead of after.
• Jumping down a hole now teleports any following characters as well.
• Overhauled the sheath/unsheath weapon logic for more consistent behaviour.
• Experience is now awarded for avoiding combat and completing smaller side quests.
• Added a new sound for rolling initiative in combat.

Balancing Changes

• Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost and Acid Splash no longer create surfaces on impact. Fire Bolt still ignites flammable surfaces, and Ray of Frost still freezes water and blood puddles. Fire Bolt’s damage has been adjusted accordingly
• Tweaked default ability distribution for Clerics and Rogues. Clerics start with more DEX to take advantage of medium armor; Rogues start with more INT to open them up for Arcane Trickster archetype.
• It is no longer possible to perform infinite actions by moving in and out of a White Spore Cloud in a single turn; the status from a White Spore Cloud should now persist until the end of a character’s turn.
• Toned down camera shakes for spell prepare effects.
• The Shatter spell now works properly with Sculpt Spells.
• Melee Sneak Attack now requires a finesse weapon.
• Invoke Duplicity now only works properly if the attacker is within 3m of the summon.
• Surprised statuses can no longer stack.
• Increased price of drow armor to 800 gp.
• Allowed effects of multiple Hex spells to stack on the same character.
• You can now use Dash while staying hidden (sneaking).
• The party can now take 2 short rests per long rest.
• The default action on a container’s tooltips is now ‘Open’ instead of ‘Pick up’.
• Rebalanced difficulty of dialog skill checks.
• Changed the melee skeleton’s ability from Cleave to Slash to make it consistent with his weapon.
• Fixed NPCs not reacting to Hunter’s Mark as a hostile action.
• Tweaked the AI archetypes of Goblins.

Performance and Stability

• Fixed not being able to load some saved games.
• Reduced long save times – better thread planning for 4-core CPUs.
• Improved stability of the Vulkan version.
• Fixed a random crash when removing a character that has followers.
• Fixed a random crash when switching weapon set while dual wielding.
• Fixed a crash when deleting a lot of saved games
• Fixed a crash when lock-picking a heavy chest.
• Fixed a random crash on passive roll fail.
• Fixed a crash that can occur when items fall on top of each other.
• Fixed a crash while loading, related to being in a jump state
• Fixed a crash when looting several imp bodies in a sideroom in the tutorial.

Fixes

• Resolved a multitude of cinematic staging issues.
• Fixed incorrect flow in some dialogues.
• Characters can now walk to positions even if blocked by an invisible object.
• Automatic pathfinding has been fixed for a few specific items.
• A weapon that can’t be dual wielded will now automatically be equipped by double-clicking on it.
• All Passives should now display on the Character Sheet.
• In combat, the chance-to-hit preview should now be correct — even if your character still needs to move.
• AI melee archetypes now properly calculate damage done to allies and neutral characters. This should reduce unnecessary friendly fire when characters use any area-of-effect attacks or abilities.
• Incantation sounds have been restored to some spells.
• Summoned guards will now patrol an area before leaving it.
• Some dialogs got stuck after being prompted with a Persuasion check roll – these have been fixed.
• You can no longer switch weapon sets when casting a spell or moving to cast a spell.
• After loading a saved game, quest markers should now correctly disappear when objectives change.
• Added input delay to prevent spamming through roll states.
• Fixed a desync issue where client characters would move back to their previous positions after a jump.
• Journal notifications should no longer get stuck on the screen.
• Fixed a bug where visuals wouldn’t show up in the Examine window.
• Fixed a bug where the player profile would not be created correctly when using specific characters in the profile name.
• Profile switching now carries over any changes made to sound settings.
• Fixed animation issues when applying statuses to NPCs in forced turn-based mode.
• Doors that have been opened now look like they’re open.
• Scroll of Invisibility now costs the same as scrolls of other 2nd-level spells.
• Armor of Agathys now correctly deals 10 cold damage when using a 2nd-level spell slot.
• The Life Domain Cleric’s version of Cure wounds now heals for 2d8 HP when using a 2nd-level spell slot.
• Great Weapon Fighting no longer triggers on ranged weapon attacks.
• When wielded two-handed, the quarterstaff now does 1d8 base damage instead of 1d6.
• Dissonant Whispers now shows the correct damage values at 2nd-level.
• The Mother’s Loathing potion now lasts until rest (as stated in the tooltip).
• Some broken healing potions no longer display as Superior versions.
• When loading a game saved during turn-based mode (on an NPC’s turn), characters now have all of their equipment properly equipped.
• Characters will now take fall damage when hit by an Eldritch Blast with the Repelling Blast passive feature.
• Faithbreaker’s weapon action (Absolute Power) now correctly triggers a pushback.
• No more UI overlap when 4 players recruit Lae’zel and Us in the tutorial.
• Removed trade & attack buttons from Lae’zel’s recruitment.
• When recruiting Lae’zel, you can no longer gain double XP.
• Harpies should now be able to reach more spots in combat.
• Journal entry is now correct when players leave without fighting the harpies.
• In the Thayan Cellar, skeletons now destroy their caskets when spawning.
• Music should now play and transition more cleanly in the goblin camp.
• Minthara no longer vanishes after asking certain questions.
• The moon puzzle no longer flips the moons after rotating adjacent disks in succession.
• The stats of the companion bear no longer have ten times the intended weight.
• The dialogue with Ethel and Mayrina’s brothers no longer ends early if you side with no one.
• Fixed a bug preventing you from picking up the letter to Kagha.
• Removed an incorrect music trigger in the swamp.
• Lae’zel no longer refuses to speak after the encounter with the Githyanki at the bridge.
• When entering the aura of a Sussur Bloom, spells are now correctly disabled in the hotbar.
• More general quest fixes and flag check improvements to make the story experience smoother.
• Flags fixed in Kagha’s denouncement scene to prevent nearly-identical nodes from repeating.
• Fixed a custom crime flag when clicking the goblins’ beer tub to make sure the right dialogue appears.
• Fixed quest-giving and journal flags in the Zhent’s shipment situation.
• Ensured Arabella dies when she’s meant to.
• Flow-blocker fixed in Anders’ dialogue – it now correctly checks the right flags.
• The Thayan undead now has idle behavior.
• Flags added to add reactivity to Shadowheart’s part of the Arabella court scene.
• Edits to Lae’zel’s recruitment flags in the plains to better account for the flow leading up to it.

Developer Undead Labs has announced that State of Decay 2 on Xbox Series S and Series X has been optimized, alongside the launch of some other year-end updates and content.

State of Decay 2 players on Xbox Series S and Series X can now enjoy the benefits of the newer hardware. This includes faster load times, improved world and shadow detail, and other graphical enhancements. Both consoles will also run at 60 fps and up to 4K resolution.

A feature coming to all State of Decay 2 players is Lethal difficulty, which further reduces the resources in the open-world, makes enemies hit way harder, and increases the deadliness of blood plague. Lethal difficulty also causes plague hearts to grow faster, and there’s no guarantee of safety after one has been destroyed. Furthermore, the special “freak” zombies, malformed zombies that take on unique attributes and characteristics, have been replaced with a souped-up blood plague variant. Of course, Lethal difficulty settings can be mixed and matched with Custom difficulty, so players can fine-tune their State of Decay 2 experience.

Players can also pick up the Stay Frosty Pack for free for a limited time. The pack adds a bunch of holiday-themed items like winter-camouflage weapons and outfits. There’s also a brand-new Maintenance Bench facility mod that players can use to increase weapon durability.

While Undead Labs is continuing to improve State of Decay 2, the developer confirmed that State of Decay 3 will launch on PC and Xbox Series X (and presumably Series S, which wasn’t announced at the time). The studio shared a reveal trailer confirming the game is underway, though no release date or window has been announced yet.

Fortnite’s Season 5 is all about hunters. The battle pass includes the Mandalorian and other unlockable characters from the Fortnite universe that are supposed to be the some of the world’s greatest hunters. It looks like a Kratos skin, based on the God of War protagonist is joining their ranks sometime soon, if a leak is to be believed.

Popular Fortnite leaker HypeX tweeted out an image of Kratos, saying that he’ll be added to the game “soon.” It hasn’t been confirmed by Epic Games yet, but HypeX has a notable track record of leaking credible Fortnite news early. It’s unclear how soon the skin will be released or if it might be an exclusive to PS4 and PS5 in some fashion. Season 5 will run for the next two-plus months.

More hunters are supposed to be added as Season 5 plays out, so Kratos could be added as part of a new set of characters at any point in the season. He will most likely be available in the item shop for around $20 (with a back bling and other cosmetics included). That’s been the price of other recent characters like Ghost Rider, Venom, and Daredevil, although it’s worth noting that those tied into last season’s theme and weren’t a part of one specific platform’s IP.

Sony, the owner of the God of War franchise, invested $250 million for a minority stake in Epic Games earlier this year, according to a GamesBeat report. Sony’s investment will allow the two to “create unique experiences for consumers and creators,” GamesBeat said.

Fortnite players have been digging into all the new content that Season 5 has brought to the game. There’s a new bounty system, dozens of NPCs spread across the map, a secret skin yet to be revealed, and even a new way to discreetly travel throughout parts of the map.

Two of Days Gone‘s best-known faces have departed from Sony Bend Studios. Game director Jeff Ross revealed on Twitter that he would be leaving the studio behind the zombie post-apocalyptic sandbox, adding that he was looking forward to “new challenges” in the future:

Writer and director John Garvin went into more detail in his own Twitter farewell thread, explaining that he had been absent from Sony Bend Studios for over a year already. “Hi all, a quick announcement: I haven’t spoken about this before for various reasons, but I’m no longer with Bend Studio and haven’t been for over a year,” Garvin tweeted, explaining that he had been focused on personal projects since the game was released.

Days Gone arrived in 2019 for the PS4, and since then it has received a PS5 update that adds up to 60fps with dynamic 4K resolution. It’s also part of the PS Plus Collection on PS5, which includes a curated list of first-party games such as like God of War and The Last of Us Remastered along with third-party games like Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Monster Hunter: World.

In GameSpot’s Days Gone review, critic Kallie Plagge said, “Riding a souped-up motorcycle through the world and taking out zombie nests and hordes is satisfying in the way that completing open-world checklists often is, but by the end, you’re left to wonder what the point of it all was.”

The final ten episodes of Vikings will be all made available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video before they are aired on History Channel.

On December 30, all of the final episodes of Vikings Season 6 will be made available on Amazon Prime Video. This is counter to the show’s traditional format, which sees episodes released weekly on History Channel before they are then made available on streaming platforms.

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“Prime Video has already delighted Prime members with all five and a half seasons of Vikings,” said Brad Beale, VP worldwide content licensing at Amazon. “On Dec. 30, Prime members in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Austria and Ireland will be the first to learn the fates of the beloved characters as the epic drama concludes in the final 10 episodes.”

At present, it is yet to be determined the date when History Channel will air the remaining ten episodes, but it will be sometime in 2021.

With Vikings concluded, showrunner Michael Hirst will move onto production on a sequel spin-off show for Netflix, as well as a limited series about the bubonic plague in 17th century London for History Channel.

For more, check out how DNA proves that real vikings didn’t actually look like Ragnar Lothbrok in the show, as well as catch up on who survived Vikings Season 6’s midseason finale.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

Ubisoft has unveiled the latest update for Watch Dogs: Legion, and it fixes a variety of unintended issues that have cropped up in the open-world hacker game. These are mostly bugs of a traditional video game variety, including players falling through floors, multiple crashes, and a particularly nasty issue that caused players to spawn without any player characters after dying on Permadeath mode. (The patch notes jokingly refer to this as a Super Game Over.)

However, there are two notable issues that Xbox players have complained about on social media that the patch does not address. One of those is a bug that reportedly corrupts save files on the Xbox Series X/S. Another is a constant audio glitch also affecting Xbox Series X/S players. Ubisoft says that the team has replicated those issues and is currently working on fixes for both.

Watch Dogs: Legion’s previous patch, Update 2.20, added a manual save game button to PC and added stability improvements for all platforms. Along with that update, Ubisoft announced that the multiplayer component of Legion has been delayed to early 2021 so that the development team can focus on ironing out the bugs. As of this writing, Watch Dogs: Legion is down to $45 as part of Ubisoft’s Black Friday sale.

Watch Dogs: Legion TU 2.20 Patch Notes

Global

• Fixed an issue that allowed players to change game difficulty and permadeath options while in the main menu.
• Fixed an issue where a black screen could occur when opening the door to hidden rooms.
• Super Game Over: Fixed an issue where, after getting Game Over in Permadeath Mode, players would spawn without any player characters when starting a new game.
• Players can no longer defy space and time to open an ETO safe an infinite amount of times.

PC

• Fixed an issue where operatives would sometimes fall through the water on builds with AMD GPUs.
• Fixed an issue where players could get stuck on saving after exiting the game.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading the team menu.
• Fixed a crash that might occur when using the inventory.
• Fixed an issue where lightning could get overblown during the day.
• Optimized loading time when quitting to the main menu.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when the game autodetected input devices.
• Fixed an out of memory crash.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when enabling or disabling Ray Tracing.
• Further optimizations made to save games to reduce the likelihood of corruption and lost progression.

Xbox (General)

• Added Arabic subtitles to the English and Russian version of the game.
• Fixed an issue where voice over would sometimes get auto muted.

Xbox One

• Fixed an issue where a crash could occur when recruiting an Albion guard in the mission “Inside Albion”.
• Fixed a crash that could occur after longs periods of play.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when exiting the drone point of view during the “Into the Void” mission.
• Further optimizations made to save games to reduce the likelihood of corruption and lost progression.

Xbox Series X

• Fixed an issue where the game launched in English when the console language was set to Arabic.
• Improved graphics in instances where corruption occurred.

PlayStation 4

• Fixed a crash that could occur when exiting the game.
• Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when spawning into a new area.
• Further optimizations made to save games to reduce the likelihood of corruption and lost progression.

PlayStation 5

• Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when resuming the game from the main menu.
• Fix a crash that could occur when quitting the game.
• Fixed a black screen that could occur when playing the “Inside Albion” mission.

Stadia

• Fixed an issue where lightning could get overblown during the day.
• Optimized loading time when quitting to the main menu.