Month: March 2021

Microsoft has announced a livestream event for Tuesday, March 2, during which it will showcase the content coming to Halo: The Master Chief Collection in Season 6.

The stream kicks off at 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET and is slated to run for one hour. During this livestream, developers from 343 Industries will provide an “early look” at the Season 6 content before jumping into live multiplayer against fans. Anyone who is lucky enough to be group with a developer from 343 will receive the rare Ice Unicorn nameplate.

This broadcast will take place on the official Halo Twitch channel, so you can bookmark it now to get ready for the big show.

While this broadcast doesn’t begin until March 2, the internet is already flooded with coverage of the Season 6 MCC update as Microsoft has begun to allow public testers to try it out. Season 6’s content includes two new Halo 3 maps from the canceled free-to-play Halo Online, along with Halo’s take on Fortnite’s back bling. The Season 6 update also introduces more weapon and vehicle skins, along with animated visors to customize your Spartan with.

There has been a lot of Halo news lately; check out the stories linked below to catch up with the latest developments across the franchise.

Animal Crossing fans are known for being fanatically devoted to the series, but devotees of the musical megahit Hamilton might give them a run for their money. Now, a fan of both who goes by “Guitar_Knight14” has recreated the first act of Hamilton in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and it’s an impressively detailed effort.

The YouTube video of the performance clocks in at over an hour, and runs from the play’s opening number to the close of the first act, ending with the song “Non-Stop.” The sheer amount of effort that went into the video is mind-boggling, with a villager cast in each part, detailed choreography for each song, and even a facsimile of an audience. Guitar_Knight14 has a Patreon you can contribute to if you want to see Act 2 before its official release. It’s not necessarily clear how this performance will deal with certain mature themes of songs like “Say No to This,” but we’re excited to find out.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons recently received a batch of new Mario items to celebrate the franchise’s 35th anniversary. Nintendo put out a video to explain how the new warp pipes will work as part of that update. Later in March, Nintendo will roll out some Sanrio-inspired content for the game, including villagers, furniture, and other items.

Developer and publisher Bohemia Interactive has released the patch notes for the latest update for DayZ. The update implements several bug fixes.

There are two lists of patch notes, as the update for the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game is slightly different than the one for PC. Specifically, on consoles, the update fixes a client crash issue that would pop up when base building objects.

On all systems, the update addresses bugs that prevented weapons from spawning with attachments, caused flag poles to refresh more often than they should, stopped you from switching to VSS iron sights while using PSO optics, and a few other issues. The full patch notes for both consoles and PC are listed below.

DayZ March 1 Xbox One/PS4 Update

• Weapons would not spawn with attachments
• The truck battery could not be charged using the battery charger
• The flag pole was refreshing bases more often than designed (every server restart)
• The universal flashlight could be attached to handguards without a rail
• The player could not switch to VSS iron sights when using PSO optics
• A client crash related to attachment slots on base building objects

DayZ March 1 PC Update

• Weapons would not spawn with attachments
• The truck battery could not be charged using the battery charger
• The flag pole was refreshing bases more often than designed (every server restart)
• The universal flashlight could be attached to handguards without a rail
• The player could not switch to VSS iron sights when using PSO optics

Developer The Coalition will drop a new update for Gears 5 on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S on March 2. The update makes some changes to the game as part of Operation 6, Gears 5‘s new season of content that is said to be a few weeks shorter than previous seasons.

Operation 6 introduces two new game modes to Gears 5: Control and Escape from Kadar. As part of the Versus playlist, Control is similar to King of the Hill but with a couple of modifications, such as requiring players to sit in captured zones to accrue points and placing individual player respawns behind a brief timer. Escape from Kadar is a Horde event that sees players attempt to withstand a 10-wave bout against “unique Locust enemies.”

The new season of content adds some playable characters to the roster as well. This includes Colonel Victor Hoffman, the Locust Zealot, and Kait Diaz’s mom Queen Reyna. The Coalition shared a new reveal trailer for Operation 6 briefly showcasing what players can expect.

Operation 6 also comes with a host of updates to Gears 5. Character issues related to clipping and needless dialoguing have been fixed while problems on maps like Foundation and Nexus have been ironed out. PvP and PvE also get a few adjustments. For example, “Gnashers Only” modes in PvP will no longer spawn players with no weapon. Check the full patch notes below.

Gears 5: Operation 6 goes live on March 2 on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

Gears 5: Operation 6 Patch Notes (March 2)

PvP:

• FFA Gnashers/Torque Bow Tag: Regular weapon spawns that persisted in certain maps will no longer continue to do so.
• A rare instance in which a user may start with no weapon on “Gnashers Only” modes has been addressed.
• The observer numbers when spectating will now correctly line up.
• Players now spawn in their correct position in Escalation.
• Players will now spawn after joining a Guardian game in progress while their leader is still alive.
• Players will no longer see the placeholder leader skin if they have no customization installed.
• Gridiron: A endzone projection will no longer clip into a boat on Canals.
• Gnasher: The Gnasher will now show “tracers” when firing, this will allow you to visually see where your bullet trails go.
• We’ve now improved the consistency when it comes to gibbing a player who’s sliding into cover.
• Playlists that are set as 4 v 4 will no longer fill to 5 v 5 when bot backfilling is enabled.

PvE:

• Upon dying, Jack characters would see an “Ultimate Ready” text line, this is now fixed.
• Users should no longer encounter multi-second freezes while playing Escape.
• Horde: Fortifications placed inside walls will now be able to be picked back up.
• Horde/Escape: Decreased the Frozen Damage Multiplier for Snipers from 5x to 3x.
• Horde/Escape: Reduced Fabricator spawn blocking distance on River from 30m to 25m.
• Horde/Escape: Decreased Frozen Damage Multiplier for Shotguns from 7x to 3x.
• Horde/Escape: Tweaked the following daily rewards
• Skill Cards (Advanced) 3 -> 4
• Coins (Beginner) 100 -> 200
• Coins (Inconceivable) 300 -> 400
• Coins (Advanced) 150 -> 300
• Blademaster: The Blademaster now correctly receives 30% damage resistance from melee attacks. (Previously hotfixed)
• Pilot: When equipped on the Silverback, the Scorcher will no longer point to the ground.

Characters:

• Outsider Kait: Kait’s gums will no longer clip through her lip while performing the “Thumbs up” expression.
• esports Kait: Kait’s shoulders are now weighted correctly during expressions which address clipping issues.
• One of Dizzy’s character lines will no longer have a narrator voice play.
• Characters will no longer display the wrong full model when full customization is not installed.
• The character skin faction icon for cards will no longer overlap with the rarity.
• Sid will no longer say “get out of my way” when shot by a teammate.
• Abominable Grenadier: A minor weighting issue has been fixed on the cloth.
• Recon Sid: A minor weighting issue has been fixed on Sid’s wrist while in high cover.
• Swarm Elite Hunter: When held as a meat shield, the Hunter’s tassel will no longer flail out of control.
• Lambent characters will now have their glow appropriately applied.
• Jade skin: A texture seam present on the Jade Boomshot has now been fixed.
• Myrrah: Myrrah’s Double Time voice expression no longer uses the incorrect voice line.
• Onyx Guard Keegan: A skin clipping issue on Keegan’s left shoulder has been fixed.
• Museum skin: The museum material at the back of the Markza will now be wooden instead of metal.
• Jermad: Jermad will no longer use two fingers to point to his one eye in the “Watching you” expression.

Maps:

• Foundation: An issue with a level of detail pop on a specific window has been addressed.
• Nexus: Jack will no longer clip through certain segments inside the map.
• Nexus: During Horde, users will no longer be able to attempt to vault through the gates at both spawns.

Other:

• Players can now access the Extras menu even if they do not have the full campaign chunk installed.
• The Heroic Venom Gnasher will no longer have brown crystals on the weapon when playing as the Swarm.
• Users who have outdated graphics drivers for Gears 5 will now be advised to upgrade them to ensure they get the best gameplay experience.
• The Async compute graphical setting being turned on will no longer cause graphical issues.
• Fixed numerous crashes in-game across the game.
• An issue related to players not spawning in a match has been fixed.
• If you retro charge/attempt to chainsaw and get stunned your character will no longer automatically attempt to reload their weapon.

Update: The LazarBeam Fortnite skin reveal has debuted. You can see pics of the skin below or watch the reveal video for yourself. According to the reveal, the skin will be available on March 4th using the code Lazar.

Original story follows…

Epic Games will be revealing the next in its “Icon Series” of Fortnite skins, which honor popular content creators by modeling them in the cartoon Fortnite style. This time it’s LazarBeam’s turn, and the streamer is promoting a reveal to take place at 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET today, March 1.

You can view the reveal below when it goes live. As usual we expect the cosmetics to include a skin, emote, and some gear like custom back bling and pickaxe.

The Icon Series began with the mega-popular streamer Ninja, who was modeled with a blend of elements from the real-life streamer Richard Blevins and an actual ninja. Other popular streamers inducted as icons include Loserfruit and Lachlan.

Meanwhile, Fortnite continues to incorporate brands from across the nerd spectrum, having recently added Ripley and a Xenomorph. The game is also getting a crossover with Batman comics, this time with Fortnite codes in the comics themselves that will unlock a special armored Batman skin.

A trademark that Bungie originally filed in 2020 is making the rounds again this week, prompting speculation that the Destiny studio may have plans for its own convention.

Bungie’s trademark for “BungieCon,” which was originally filed in summer 2020, covers all manner of products, including jewellery, trading cards, pants, and boots, along with something more befitting its name.

The Goods & Services description states that BungieCon could apply to the “organizing and conducting [of] fan conventions in the fields of video and computer games.”

The connection people are making here is that Bungie has plans to hold its own fan convention. This potential idea is further bolstered by the news back in 2017 that Bungie had trademarked “DestinyCon.”

If Bungie is indeed planning a fan convention, that might explain the other Goods & Services descriptions for things like jewellery, trading cards, and clothing. It’s not uncommon for those types of things to be sold at a convention.

Combined, it appears that Bungie is at least interested in the idea of a fan convention, or even less than that; that it wants to get the trademark to protect its future opportunity to use that name for a fan convention should the developer ever want to do this.

Trademark filings do not always result in future product announcements. For example, Activision trademarked all manner of Call of Duty games that never came to be, including Secret Warfare and Space Warfare. That being said, sometimes they do; like when Bethesda trademarked “Starfield” all the way back in 2013 before the company announced the game in 2018.

Going back to Bungie, the studio has legions of dedicated fans who love Destiny and may well want to attend some kind of fan convention if Bungie were to offer one. It wouldn’t be the first time a developer of a popular game held a fan convention dedicated to it. Before the pandemic, there were in-person fan gatherings like ExileCon (Path of Exile), BlizzCon (Blizzards games), TennoCon (Warframe), Final Fantasy Fan Festival (Final Fantasy), and more.

In other Bungie news, the developer recently announced an ambitious expansion plan for its studio in Washington which will support a hybrid model of in-office and remote working. Bungie also reiterated that it plans to release a new, non-Destiny IP by 2025 and bring Destiny to “additional media.”

Elden Ring fans have grown increasingly desperate for news of From Software’s highly anticipated game, and a leak of what appears to be grainy footage of the game in action has triggered a torrent of memes. On the Elden Ring subreddit, which has become ground zero for the game’s increasingly-desperate fans to express their displeasure at From Software’s radio silence, the reaction has been divided between unrelenting hype and humorous memes.

The Elden Ring subreddit has become increasingly meta in its sense of humor as the wait for the game has continued. For example, the above meme compares a low-definition screencap of a carriage from the newly revealed footage to the carriages from a photoshopped screenshot of Bloodborne Kart, a non-existent game that has become a meme unto itself in the community.

Other top posts in the subreddit poke fun at the footage’s highly questionable video quality. Another popular post compares a tree seen in the footage to an image from the manga Berserk, which Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki often references in his games.

While several leakers initially posted very short snippets of what appears to be a trailer for the game, one very recently uploaded a full 30-second clip of the game. While it’s impossible to fully verify its authenticity, it certainly looks like an open-world Souls game in action, complete with weighty combat and rideable horses. Reporter Jeff Grubb said that the trailer dates back from 2020. Microsoft also confirmed that Elden Ring will not be shown during an upcoming Xbox event.