Month: April 2021

Mythical Games, the studio behind the upcoming multiplayer title Blankos Block Party, has launched its own NFT Marketplace to allow players to trade in-game items for both traditional and cryptocurrencies.

The studio has been working on incorporating NFTs (non-fungible tokens) well before the current boom, with the idea to give players more control over in-game items they purchase. Mythical explains that the current market simply allows players to license content for in-game rewards, which remain tied to your account irrespective of if you continue using it or not.

With the Marketplace, Mythical hopes to give players more agency with their purchases. Not only will you be able to trade any in-game Blanko Vinyls you purchase, but you can also increase the level of cheaper, low-level items and eventually sell them at a profit. Since runs of vinyls are limited, especially those designed by some well-known artists, Mythical Games expects its 300,000 strong player base to start driving a communal economy that sees prices for some items fluctuate according to demand.

“Rolling out the Mythical Marketplace is the next big step for us toward creating true player-owned economies in games,” said John Linden, CEO and co-founder of Mythical Games. “With the recent boom of NFTs and digital assets in pop culture, we’re happy to be at the forefront of introducing these concepts to AAA games and leading the way to new sources of revenue and value creation for players and creators.”

Currently Blankos Block Party has allowed players to sell in-game items on secondary markets, but Mythical Games is launching its own Marketplace to make it easier to integrate with the game. The game is currently in open beta with an expected release on PC later in 2021, while the Marketplace is rolling out in an Alpha Phase to select users as Mythical continues building upon it.

IO Interactive CEO and co-owner Hakan Abrak has confirmed that the Hitman series is taking a break as the studio focuses on its new James Bond game. The Hitman series will continue, and more DLC is planned for Hitman 3 specifically, but you should expect Agent 47 to take some time off.

“Our thinking right now is, Agent 47 deserves a bit of a rest,” Abrak told IGN. “He’s been busy the last three games.”

January 2021’s Hitman 3 was positioned as the third game in a trilogy, so it makes sense that IO would give the franchise a rest for now. Abrak mentioned that IO remains committed to Hitman 3 and it plans to continue to update and support the game in the future.

Even if Agent 47 is taking some time off, Abrak said you can be sure the franchise will return at some point down the road.

“This is not the end of Agent 47. I just want to make sure everybody knows that,” he said. “As we talked about before, it’s synonymous with IO, it’s a very beloved franchise of ours and, of course, Hitman will continue. Agent 47, maybe, is going to take a bit of a rest, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not working on some cool, cool stuff within the World of Assassination. So, there’s definitely activity coming and I’m looking forward to talking about that sometime in the future.”

If Hitman 3 is the final entry in the main series for some time, Agent 47 heads off for some rest and relaxation on a good note. Hitman 3 launched in January to rave reviews and the best digital sales in franchise history.

Outside of the Hitman game series, a Hitman TV show is in the works. It’s a prequel to the games, and as such, Agent 47 will have hair.

IO’s next project is its new James Bond game, which appears to be in the early stages of development. IO is hiring 200 people to work on this game and others within the studio.

Recently, Abrak shared more insight on what IO is trying to achieve with the game.

“Every Bond kind of defines a generation and it’s amazing how they kept reinventing themselves over so many years,” he said. “So, we’re not only inspired by one movie, or games and whatnot. We’re inspired by the whole thing, and just sucking things into us to make an original Bond, an original story, but that is absolutely true and recognizable in the values there is in Bond. I’m really looking forward to creating a new community that the gamers can call their own.”

Deadly Premonition 2 is coming to Steam, according to publisher Thunderful Group’s annual report. It was previously only available on Switch. No date is known yet for when Deadly Premonition 2’s Steam listing will go live.

Deadly Premonition 2 is the 2020 sequel to the 2010 cult classic Deadly Premonition. The original survival horror game–through an odd combination of unpredictable storytelling and awkward game mechanics–captured an audience who enjoyed its absurdity.

The sequel continues to follow the original protagonist, FBI agent Francis York Morgan. Only this time, he’s disgraced and under suspicion by the very agency he once worked for. Another FBI agent, Aaliyah Davis, is tasked with investigating Morgan due to new findings from a past murder case in the fictional Louisiana city Le Carré.

Deadly Premonition 2’s critical reception was mixed and many reviewers thought that the followup wasn’t able to recreate the original’s off-kilter magical spark. Reviewer Kurt Indovina commented in GameSpot’s Deadly Premonition 2 review, “though the return of the original’s off-kilter writing, outlandish characters, and disturbing twists is an exciting prospect, it all feels diluted this time around, missing many of the flavor notes that defined its predecessor.”

He also noted the ” jarringly inconsistent frame rate of the open world,” but praised the game for its character writing and dialogue, as well as Francis York Morgan’s overall story arc.

Deadly Premonition 2 also landed in hot water for its treatment of a transgender character, Lena Dauman. The game’s characters repeatedly misgender her and call her by her dead name. In response to the criticism, director Hidetaka Suehiro promised to patch “that scene” and did end up releasing an update that removed Morgan’s lines that misgendered and dead named Dauman.

Indovina put it best in the ending line of his Deadly Premonition 2 review: “It’s a different brew of coffee from your favorite roaster, but one that’s more bitter than you probably hoped for.”

Developer Flavourworks has announced that its previously PlayStation-exclusive FMV thriller Erica will launch on PC via Steam on May 25. An exact price for the game has not been revealed, but Erica is now available to wishlist on Steam.

Erica is a full-motion video interactive fiction thriller that was published by Sony exclusively for the PlayStation 4. The game, akin to choose-your-own-adventure games like Until Dawn but with much less control of the characters, launched in August 2019. In January of this year, Flavourworks ported Erica to iOS devices.

Erica tells the story of the titular character, played by Holly Earl (the voice actor for League of Legends‘ Lillia and best known for her role in the Channel 4 sci-fi series Humans), who uses her recurring nightmares to uncover the truth of her father’s murder. Players make decisions for Erica at critical junctures to direct the story.

In addition to not clarifying how much Erica will cost–though it’s worth noting that the game is currently $10 on the PlayStation store and forward-compatible with the PlayStation 5–Flavourworks has yet to specify the game’s system requirements.

We gave the game an 8/10 in our Erica review from 2019, with critic Funké Joseph saying the game “never fails to hook you into its haunting, mysterious world.”

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Activision’s ongoing fight against cheaters and other people who display bad behavior in Call of Duty: Warzone continues, as the publisher has banned thousands of additional accounts.

The ban wave on April 7 included 15,000 accounts, developer Raven Software said–and the studio isn’t stopping there. “More to come,” Raven said, putting cheaters on notice.

Raven has been consistently banning thousands of offenders so far in 2021. The studio announced earlier this year that it had already banned more than 300,000 accounts.

Given that Warzone has many millions of players, the size and scale of the battle royale game means weeding out cheaters and other bad actors is a never-ending job. Some portion of the audience will be jerks who try to ruin the experience for others.

Activision previously disclosed the following measures for how it will continue to stamp out cheaters in Warzone:

• Enhancements to internal anti-cheat software
• Additional detection technology
• Adding new resources dedicated to monitoring and enforcement
• Regular communication updates on progress; more two-way dialogue
• Zero tolerance for cheat providers
• Consistent and timely bans

Warzone is primed for a big month in April, as it’s believed that Season 2 will end around April 22, at which point a nuke will blow up the map to sort out the zombie problem. It’s rumored that Warzone will then launch a new, ’80s-themed map based on Black Ops Cold War.

In addition to Black Ops Cold War and Warzone, Activision’s Sledgehammer Games is reportedly working on a new Call of Duty game set in World War II for release this fall.

Overwatch has now gotten Nvidia Reflex support, letting players with GeForce GPUs benefit from the latency-reducing feature. Nvidia says that in its tests it reduced latency by up to 50%.

To use Nvidia Reflex in Overwatch, make sure you have a GeForce GTX 900 Series or newer card and install the newest Overwatch update. Then go to Options > Video Settings to enable Reflex. The company also has an optimization guide for further tips on how to reduce latency in-game.

As part of the announcement, Nvidia pointed out that it’s bringing Reflex support to Rust and Ghostrunner soon as well.

The company also boasted that a new Boost mode can further reduce latency, and it’s seen positive results in testing with games like Fortnite and Valorant. A connected GeForce Experience app can also log your data like FPS and latency stats, and if you want to get really in the weeds with your performance, you can choose the number of samples that the analyzer will use in its averages.

Currently Overwatch is hosting its annual Overwatch Archives event, offering returning PvE maps, new challenges, and of course, a ton of cosmetics to collect. This time those cosmetics have a historical flavor, based on famous warriors throughout history like French musketeers, American patriots, and Japanese samurai. A follow-up, Overwatch 2, is coming but won’t be hitting this year.

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