Final Fantasy VII Remake’s original period of PlayStation exclusivity lapsed recently on April 10, which prompted some fans to speculate whether or not the game will come to other platforms like Xbox Series X, Xbox One, or PC. However, just because the original date of exclusivity passed doesn’t mean that the game is coming to any other platforms, and Square Enix hasn’t publicly stated anything about the exclusivity period either.
Twitter users like @Benji-Sales pointed out last week that April 10 marked the end of FFVII’s stated exclusivity period with PlayStation, posting a photo of the game’s box to confirm that was the case. As stated above, Square Enix has not announced any plans to bring FFVII to any other consoles or platforms, so it’s unclear if this date passing means anything.
Just as a heads up, the contract for Final Fantasy VII Remake exclusivity to PlayStation ends in 3 days on April 10th, 2021
So if Square Enix has any plans on bringing this game to other platforms such as PC or Xbox they can start talking about it as soon as this month. pic.twitter.com/3hZ7x8qMdL
The impending release of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade–the PS5 upgrade of the game–later this summer further complicates matters. We don’t know whether this exclusivity period applies to Intergrade as well as the original game, or if Intergrade will have a completely separate exclusivity window attached to it. Even if Square Enix announced tomorrow that the original Remake is coming to other platforms, we wouldn’t be able to conclude whether or not Intergrade will come to other platforms as well.
We’ve reached out to Square Enix for clarification on this. FFVII Remake Intergrade is the next-gen upgrade of the original for PS5, and it comes out on June 10. Intergrade will feature enhanced graphics, a photo mode, and a new episode that focused on Yuffie.
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Developer Easy Day Studios has rolled out a multiplayer mode for its skateboarding simulator Skater XL. The mode, which is in beta, is only available on Steam, though Easy Day confirmed the feature will come to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One soon.
The free multiplayer mode lets up to 10 players hop into a server to skate together. Players can create group lines to save and watch later as replays, with the same editing functionality as the base game. In order to check multiplayer, players must opt in by right-clicking on Skater XL and open “Properties.” From there, select “beta – Open Beta,” which will start downloading the multiplayer mode. It can be turned of at any time.
Easy Day said it is “stress test[ing]” the beta on PC first to gather data on how the servers perform before “rolling the basic Free Skate mode out cross-platform.”
In an announcement video, the mode is said to be “coming to Xbox and PlayStation in the near future.” Check out Skater XL’s multiplayer gameplay below.
In Hood: Outlaws & Legends, you and your friends won’t automatically be the straight-laced heroes of the Robin Hood mythos. Once you’ve completed your mission and successfully stolen from the rich, you’ll have to decide how much of the gold you actually want to give to the poor.
“After the match, we present you with this thing called the scales of justice,” Hood: Outlaws & Legends game director Andrew Willans told me when I asked him about the game’s narrative. “So your gold that you’ve earned is in two pots, and one is for the people and one is for your pocket, and you can move the gold between those pots to decide where you want to apportion it.”
As Willans explains it, the money you keep for yourself can be spent on new cosmetic items as well as in-game perks, such as transforming the Mystic’s poison gas bombs into healing bombs so that he can better keep his teammates alive.
On the other hand, giving money back to the poor will elicit support from the people, who will lend a hand by gifting cool improvements to your hideout–these improvements unlock additional cosmetics and perks that you can then buy with the gold that you keep for yourself from later missions.
It may all help you in the end, but you’ll only be able to quickly get to the later perks and cosmetic items if you selflessly give up buying personal improvements immediately and invest in the people. It’s all a question of whether you want to work towards short- or long-term goals, and whether or not you feel like you deserve a little extra something for your trouble following a tough match.
“A lot of the influences for Hood were things like Anonymous and the idea of what makes a modern day vigilante,” Willans said. “Are you fighting for justice or is it really just to hurt the people that are hurting you?”
These themes of vigilante justice will permeate into Hood’s story as well. As a PvPvE multiplayer game, Hood lacks a traditional single-player campaign. However, you’ll still piece together a narrative by playing the game.
“There’s a lot of narrative storytelling within the environments, so just walking around these maps you’ll learn a lot about how brutal the state is and the stuff that the people have endured,” Willans said. “And you also will collect things, so throughout the heists you’ll unlock what we call tapestries. You pickpocket small pieces of this tapestry which will stitch together to become a longer narrative for each of the main characters–and for the sheriff as well, because the sheriff has got a really interesting backstory–and those stories can be viewed from the hideout.”
Willans compares the process of collecting the pieces of the tapestry to that of finding all the issues for a comic. Hood’s tapestry is inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, featuring hand-drawn pen and ink sketches, fully voiced narration, and themed music.
“We actually got a guy called Steven McKay, who published a lot of really successful Robin Hood fanfiction,” Willans said. “So yeah, we do have some pretty serious narrative chops behind it, but it’s just there as a layer. It’s a layer basically to fill in the backstory, and we do have stuff like little trinkets that you can pick up from the maps themselves, so whereas the tapestries tell you about the characters, the trinkets tell you about the maps. It might be something like a wedding ring from a farmer’s daughter, who was hung by the state for not paying her taxes.”
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Willans added that players can expect to see quite a few interesting narrative twists and turns if they spend the time looking for Hood’s story. “I’ve really enjoyed a lot of that stuff because, without going into spoiler territory, it did allow us to add a little bit of context,” he said. “Like why does Marian have this triple-firing crossbow that looks like it was invented by Leonardo da Vinci?”
I asked if the backstories would explain how it’s possible for Marian to turn invisible to which Willans just chuckled and answered, “We didn’t talk about her invisibility though. I’ll leave that one out.”
In Hood: Outlaws & Legends, two teams of four outlaws race against the clock to steal a key from the sheriff and his army of patrolling guards, break into the treasury, steal the gold, and escape. The game will release with four playable characters, each inspired by the likes of Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Little John, and Friar Tuck. Hood: Outlaws & Legends will launch for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC on May 7.
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Hood: Outlaws & Legends is an upcoming PvPvE heist game loosely based on the Robin Hood mythos. Though the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 versions of the game will only have minor differences performance-wise, the PS5 version will host several DualSense controller improvements.
“We’ve done something quite interesting with the calibration on [the DualSense controller],” Hood: Outlaws & Legends game director Andrew Willans told me. “So you’ve got the resistance triggers, these adaptive triggers, and they work really well for a bow and arrow, as you can imagine.”
He continued: “[The controller] recreates that tension of the bow, and–as you loose the arrow–the sensation of the arrow flying, which is really cool. We pushed that further for the melee characters as well, so that as you’re swinging John’s hammer–the more you’re swinging, and your stamina is depleting–it becomes tougher to actually swing; you feel finger fatigue from swinging the hammer.”
Willans said that he strives to include as few HUD elements as possible in the games he’s a part of, inspiring Hood: Outlaws & Legends’ minimalist display. Thanks to the DualSense controller, though, you likely won’t even need to pay attention to the few gauges and on-screen prompts that are there when playing on PS5. “It’s a really tactile experience,” Willans said. “I rarely look at my own screen gauges when I’m playing on PS5. My trigger finger tells me all I need to know.”
In Hood: Outlaws & Legends, two teams of four face off in a race to claim treasure, utilizing stealth, subterfuge, and combat prowess to overcome each other and the NPC guards that are protecting the gold. The game will launch with four playable characters: the Ranger, the Hunter, the Brawler, and the Mystic–which are respectively inspired by Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Little John, and Friar Tuck. Hood: Outlaws & Legends will launch for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC on May 7.
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The CW has revealed a first look at the Powerpuff Girls live-action series, starring Chloe Bennet as Blossom, Dove Cameron as Bubbles, and Yana Perrault as Buttercup.
Take a look at the first official image from the show:
The show will still include the characters in their “official” Powerpuff uniforms, but The CW says we should only expect to see the costumes in flashbacks to their teenage years. The show will primarily focus on the characters as, “disillusioned twenty-somethings who resent having lost their childhood to crime fighting.”
Donald Faison will appear in the show as Professor Drake Utonium, along with Nicholas Podany as Jojo Mondel and Robyn Lively as Sara Bellum.
The Powerpuff Girls originally ran for six seasons and 78 episodes between 1998 and 2005. A movie came out in 2002, and a reboot of the series aired on Cartoon Network in 2016.
Logan Plant is a news writer for IGN, and the Production Assistant for Nintendo Voice Chat, IGN’s weekly Nintendo show. You can find him on Twitter at @LoganJPlant.
Blizzard recently launched Hearthstone‘s Forged in the Barrens expansion, and the first balance patch of the new season will take aim at the game’s most annoying card, Pen Flinger. The 20.0.2 patch also makes a big change to major Mage and Paladin cards, and makes the new expansion’s Outpost cards a little less hearty.
The Pen Flinger card is likely to get the most attention for its sheer trolling. The card was part of the Scholomance Academy set, and it’s modeled after the worst kid in your high school class. As the name implies, it flings pens for 1 damage, shouting “Hey, Loser!” as it enters play, and then gets bounced back into your hand as a Spellburst effect with an innocent-sounding “Wasn’t me!” With two Pen Flingers in your opponent’s hand, you would often hear “Hey, Loser! Hey, Loser! Wasn’t me! Wasn’t me!” several times in a single turn.
The problem, as Blizzard identifies, is that it was a little too versatile, and low-cost spells like various Rogue cards or the Paladin’s Librams made it effective at chipping down health and taking over the entire story of a game. Since it can bounce back into your opponent’s hand, they can control if it’s left vulnerable on the board, and savvy players would just never give you any opportunity to remove it. So you could have a game where Pen Flinger slowly chips away your life, calling you a loser all the while, and there’s very little you could do to answer it. With the change, it will only be able to damage minions, not heroes–making it a very efficient tool but removing its ability to act as a game-finisher. Who’s the loser now?
Another big change is coming to Deck of Lunacy, a Mage card that has been the centerpiece of a popular Lunacy deck lately. The nerf makes it cost 4 Mana instead of 2 Mana, meaning it can still act as a wild game-changing effect, but it requires more investment and can’t shift the tide quite so early in the game. Similarly, the Mage/Rogue card Jandice Barov is having its cost increased from 5 Mana to 6 Mana, since the rotation of the new expansion cycled out some weaker 5-cost minions it could have summoned and made the overall pool stronger.
Some new Forged in the Barrens cards are also getting nerfed, after only a few weeks in play. Those include the Paladin weapon Sword of the Fallen, which is having its durability reduced from 3 to 2; Far Watch Outpost, which is having its health reduced from 4 to 3; and Mor’shan Watch Post, which is having its health reduced from 5 to 4. Of those, the Paladin change is likely the biggest, since it enables a Secret Paladin deck that has been ruling the meta recently.
Forged in the Barrens is the first of this year’s storyline that will center on new mercenary characters, with a separate Mercenaries mode coming later this year. For more on Hearthstone, check out our interview with Blizzard’s designers on how they reimagined the classic dragon cards.
Hearthstone 20.0.2 Patch Bug Fixes & Game Improvements
Fixed a bug where Sunwell Initiate’s Divine Should could not be silenced.
Fixed a bug where Shadowjeweler Hanar could Discover secrets from outside of Standard in Ranked Standard.
Fixed a bug where the Battlecry for Reckless Apprentice would not apply the Freeze effect from Ice Walker.
Fixed a bug where the Battlecry for Reckless Apprentice would still trigger if the Hero Power was disabled.
Fixed a bug where playing Wildfire before Metamorphosis could cause your original Hero Power to gain an extra damage.
Fixed a bug where Lakkari Felhound could discard newly drawn cards, such as when played in sequence with Hand of Gul’dan.
Fixed a bug where Celestial Alignment would work inconsistently with cards that reduce mana costs, such as Librams or Cutting Class.
Fixed a bug with Kazakus, Golem Shaper where the Firebloom ability could target the same minion twice.
Fixed a visual bug where G’huun the Blood God would leave the blood drop mana cost icon behind when played.
Fixed a bug where casting Twisting Nether into Oh My Yogg! would not allow for more cards to be played.
Fixed a bug where the VFX for certain spells would continuously play after being transformed by Oh My Yogg!
Fixed a bug where Pit Master would appear in Collection results when filtering for Nature cards.
Fixed a bug where Holy Wrath was not tagged as a Holy spell.
Fixed a bug where Dragon’s Pack had the Nature spell school tag. It is no longer part of a spell school.
Fixed a Battlegrounds bug where Minions could show an outline of their Tavern Tier icon when played.
Updated the appearance rate of cards in Arena to ensure class balance remains close to the ideal 50% win-rate. Specifically, the win-rate of Demon Hunter and Priest should now be decreased. The win-rate of Druid, Hunter, Rogue, and Shaman should now be increased.
Removed Far Watch Post, Mor’Shan Watch Post, Crossroads Watch Post, and Kargal Battlescar from Arena.
Fixed a bug where the Arena could fail to load properly for new players.
Fixed a bug where some Boomsday puzzles were causing desync issues.
Fixed a bug with the Achievement It’ll Take More Than That where credit could be granted without playing the Warrior class.
Fixed a bug with the Achievement Barrens Neutral Collector where incorrect Collection quotas were listed.
Fixed a bug with the Achievement Final Frontier where progress would not be credited from discounted minions.
Fixed a bug with the Achievement Do it for the Vines where Dual-Class cards would not count as progress.
Fixed a visual bug where Achievement XP and end of match XP gains could show incorrect numbers but reward the correct amount of XP.
Fixed a visual bug where, in some cases, XP gains benefitting from XP bonuses were not highlighting with a green font color.
Fixed a visual bug where the Tavern Pass bonus XP displayed on the Achievement detail view would be incorrect.
Fixed a bug where the mass disenchant preview would count some cards twice but would give the correct amount of dust when used.
Fixed a bug where the disenchant button would glow regardless of whether there were extra cards to disenchant.
Fixed a bug where some player ranks and rewards were not populating from the correct ladder on the friends list and elsewhere.
Fixed a visual bug where names on the friends list could be overlapped by their rank, and where a friend’s rank would show even when they were offline.
Fixed a bug where a star bonus would appear on the deck selection page for Legend ranks.
Fixed a bug where an erroneous pop up would appear saying a Demon Hunter class pack was granted for completing the Ashes of Outland Prologue.
Fixed a bug where the Hamuul Card Back would not show properly during pack opening.
Fixed a bug where the Play button would always be highlighted in the main menu.
Fixed a bug where players could become locked out from creating or deleting decks when they previously were not.
Fixed a bug where “Click to Convert” would persist on decks regardless of what mode you’d swapped to.
Fixed a bug where mousing over decks that are behind the “You have no Classic Decks. Go create one!” pane would show pop-up info.
Fixed a bug where mousing over a Classic deck with the mode set to Casual would display a tooltip stating: “Not useable in Wild format”.
Fixed a bug where players could re-roll into the Win 5 Games of Ranked Play Mode weekly quest after already completing it that week.
Fixed a bug where the the Crossroads bundle and the Barrens Tavern Pass were showing incorrect art in the purchase window.
Fixed a grammatical error in the card text for Warsong Wrangler.
Fixed various translation issues across several languages.
Fortnite version 16.20 is just around the corner, and Epic has once again taken to Twitter to share the basic patch notes. As is often the case, players will want to dive in firsthand to see all that’s new, as the patch notes tend to only cover the broad strokes these days, but the Fortnite 16.20 patch notes still include reference to some fun new additions players have been waiting for.
Chief among them is probably the allusion to “new wheels,” which is likely a reference to the remodeled Whiplash car you may have caught in the Fortnite Season 6 launch trailer. Already the fastest car in the game, the Whiplash looks primed to be tricked out with new tires and suspension that should solve the car’s previous issues with offroad traction. The question remains, though, whether other new cars will be landing on the island as well. For now, we await the overnight update–or more likely the dataminers ahead of time.
Version 16.20 will also introduce a new bow-focused Duos Cup, though its proper name and start date have not yet been revealed. It sounds like it’s time to practice your accuracy with this season’s themed weapon.
The last major highlight is a new 50 versus 50 mode coming to Fortnite’s Creative hub. Like the rest of the patch notes, we’re still waiting to learn more about this when the update goes live tonight, a bit earlier than usual, mind you. Players can expect downtime to begin around 11 PM PT / 2 AM ET, and Epic warned that it will extend later than usual this time.
The patch will become available to download during the downtime and before the game comes back online, so if you have automatic updates applied, you should be good to go once the game comes back online tomorrow morning. You can find the full patch notes below.
Fortnite 16.20 Patch Notes
Trick out your ride with new wheels
Sharpen those bow skills and focus up for a special Duos Cup
50-player matchmaking in Creative
A new Spire Quest will also launch with the patch, and we’ll be sure to bring you a complete guide to that once it’s available.
The first official image from Powerpuff has been released. The show is a live-action reboot of the animated series The Powerpuff Girls and it will premiere on The CW.
The image follows the behind-the-scenes shots from that leaked earlier this month. While the original series focused on a trio of very young superheroes, Powerpuff catches up with the team as young adults. The image shows the three main stars–Chloe Bennet as Blossom, Dove Cameron as Bubbles, and Yana Perrault as Buttercup. Check it out below:
The CW has also released an official synopsis for the show. It reads, “The Powerpuff Girls used to be America’s pint-sized superheroes, now they’re disillusioned twentysomethings who resent having lost their childhood to crime fighting. Will they agree to reunite now that the world needs them more than ever?”
Powerpuff also stars Donald Faison as Powerpuff creator Professor Utonium, Nicholas Podany as the villainous Mojo Jojo, and Robyn Lively as the team’s loyal ally Sara Bellum. The show has been developed by writer/producers Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer’s Body) and Heather Regnier (Sleepy Hollow). It doesn’t have a confirmed premiere date yet.
The Powerpuff Girls was originally created by animator Craig McCracken for Cartoon Network. It ran for six seasons between 1998 and 2005. There was also a feature-length animated movie released in 2002, and three specials. In 2016, the show was rebooted by Cartoon Network, and to date there have been three seasons.
Sharlto Copley (District 9, Powers) has been cast in Season 2 of Netflix’s Russian Doll, according to Deadline. The actor’s role has not yet been announced.
Copley joins the recently cast Annie Murphy (Schitt’s Creek), who similarly has an undisclosed role. The mystery is completely in line with how Season 1 of Russian Doll wrapped up back in 2019–which isn’t worth spoiling, but how that season wound up resolving itself made many fans assume the show would not be coming back. Season 1 focused on Natasha Lyonne (Orange is the New Black) as Nadia Vulvokov, a software engineer who is stuck reliving her 36th birthday, which is also the day she seems to die no matter what choices she makes. No plot details whatsoever have been revealed for Season 2.
The Netflix series was picked up for a second season back in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic had pumped the brakes on production rolling forward as expected. Production is believed to have already started in March.
A staff member at Raven Software who worked mostly on Call of Duty games for 14 years has left the studio. Senior executive producer Ryan Burnett announced on Twitter that Monday, April 12 is his last day at the studio. He did not say what his next job will be.
Burnett’s Linkedin page lists ten different Call of Duty games as projects he worked on, including Warzone, Black Ops 4, WWII, and Modern Warfare Remastered. He worked as a tech programmer before transitioning into a producer/project management role, where he slowly became more senior over his years with the company.
After 14 years at RVN/ATVI I have decided to move onto another adventure; today is my last day. I will miss everyone at RVN & ATVI. Thanks for all of the support, hard work and resilience over the years. I will forever be grateful for the opportunities I had. Best of luck to all.
Though Raven Software first made a name for itself with first-person shooters like Heretic, Hexen, and Soldier of Fortune, it has served principally as a Call of Duty support studio since 2010. Back in 2019, reports suggested that Raven and fellow CoD developer Sledgehammer were slated to lead development on Call of Duty 2020, but those plans were scuttled and Treyarch was tapped to lead development. That game eventually became Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, with Treyarch and Raven co-developing.
