Month: May 2021

Developer Thomas Happ has confirmed to IGN that Axiom Verge 2 has been pushed to Q3 2021, delivering a second delay to the in-development sequel.

While Happ couldn’t say anything else about the delay, he told IGN that Axiom Verge 2 “will be better for the additional time.” As consolation for delaying the game yet again, Happ released a free making-of documentary filmed and directed by 2 Player Productions, the team most recognized for working on the Double Fine Adventure documentary about Broken Age.

The documentary is streamable on IGN and will hit Steam for free “soon.”

Axiom Verge 2, the sequel to the critically acclaimed 2015 metroidvania Axiom Verge, was originally due out last year but suffered a delay in October 2020 that pushed the game to “the first half of 2021.” This recent delay marks the second one Axiom Verge 2 has received since its 2019 announcement. It’s still slated to launch on Nintendo Switch and PC.

Fortnite Foreshadowing Quests are starting to appear in the game, and among them is a challenge that asks you to repair damaged telescopes. There are five damaged telescopes in total, scattered around the perimeter of the island, so it may be tough to get them all in one round, but however long it takes you, here’s where to repair damaged telescopes in Fortnite.

Repair Damaged Telescopes Locations

As mentioned, there are five telescopes with which you’ll need to interact, and note that each one will require 20 metal to repair. For that reason, it’s best to complete this challenge in Team Rumble where you’ll start with 150 metal right away. The five damaged telescopes can be found at the following locations:

• Southwest of Lockie’s Lighthouse
• On the hills to the east of Craggy Cliffs
• On a snowy peak southeast of Retail Row
• Near the ziplines southeast of Catty Corner
• At the hills near Fancy View on the western edge of the map

Like the downed black helicopter, these damaged telescopes seem to be teasing an alien theme for Fortnite Season 7 and are part of the longer list of Foreshadowing Quests, more of which will come to the game before the new season begins on June 8. All five Foreshadowing Quests revolve around extraterrestrials, and given their name, seem to reveal aliens will soon be touching down on the Fortnite island.

IO Guards have been mentioned as well, as NPC Farmer Steel sees through their apparent ruse involving the downed “India Oscar” helicopter. In Fortnite lore, IO actually stands for Imagined Order, a secretive paramilitary group whose motives are unknown but tend to be adversarial toward players on the island.

As always, Epic seems to be setting up for something big at the end of the season, and given the epic and cinematic quality Fortnite has featured in its season-ending events as of late, don’t be surprised if an alien mothership soon imposes its will over all who dwell on the island.

As for what else is new in the Fortnite world, check out the 16.50 patch notes which announce the return of a fan-favorite weapon.

Axiom Verge 2 has been delayed a second time, out of its intended early 2021 release window – it is now scheduled for Q3 2021.

As a make-good for the second delay, dev Thomas Happ will release a making-of documentary about Axiom Verge online for free. You can watch the full documentary here on IGN (and it’s embedded below).

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/05/25/axiom-verge-making-of-documentary”]

IGN can confirm that Axiom Verge 2 has slipped through its 2021 release window into Q3 2021. Developer Thomas Happ couldn’t share too many details about the delay, but says the game “will be better for the additional time.” Plus Happ can avoid burnout and crunch by pushing the release date a bit.

The newly-released documentary was filmed and directed by 2 Player Productions, the team behind the Double Fine Adventure documentary among other video game docu-vids. The documentary was originally released on a Blu-ray disc included in the Axiom Verge: Multiverse Edition as well as a separate purchase on Steam.

You can watch the full documentary right here in this story, on IGN’s YouTube channel, and the documentary will be available on Steam for free soon.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/20/axiom-verge-developers-react-to-25-minute-tas-speedrun”]

Axiom Verge is a critically-acclaimed Metroidvania released in 2015. Happ has been hard at work on a sequel that was initially planned to be released in 2020 but then delayed to the first half of 2021. Now it has been delayed once more, but Happ says he is grateful to fans for waiting and that “Axiom Verge 2 really will be here before you know it.” Teh game will be coming to Nintendo Switch and PC via Epic Games Store on release.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach him on Twitter @lawoftd.

Epic is beginning to tease Fortnite Season 7 with new Foreshadowing Quests, with two of a leaked list of five now available in the game. In this guide, we’ll focus on the challenge that asks you to investigate a downed black helicopter. It’s not listed on the map in-game, but we’ve marked it for you below, as well as explained the possible significance of the crash site. Here’s where to investigate a downed black helicopter in Fortnite.

Investigate A Downed Helicopter Location

To find the downed helicopter, you’ll want to play Team Rumble or Battle Royale and land to the north of Misty Meadows. Spotted between the hills leading to Lazy Lake and the actual lake itself is the downed black helicopter, adorned with peculiar markings. Interact with it and you’ll see you need to tune the radio to complete the challenge. For this, we turned the dial left, then right, and then the challenge was completed, unlocking new dialogue from the radio.

While the helicopter isn’t labeled as belonging to IO, one of the mysterious and often adversarial in-universe factions, NPC dialogue further hints that it’s merely disguised as belonging to someone else and is, in fact, an IO vehicle. “India Oscar? Yeah, that don’t fool me,” says Farmer Steele when you complete the challenge. “I know IO when I see it.”

This suggests IO is investigating, or otherwise caught up in, the apparently imminent alien arrival to the Fortnite island. We last saw IO Guards as AI enemies in Season 5. Might they be making a return, or have they all been wiped out by these extraterrestrials? We should know a lot more soon as Fortnite Season 7 nears ever closer.

In the meantime, check out the 16.50 patch notes to see what else is new today, like the unvaulted Dual Pistols. You can also find the full list of Foreshadowing Quests, current and future, right here.

It’s a new week and that means Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone are being updated yet again with new modes, playlists, and more. Activision ran through all the key details in a blog post–including a new mode, Rambo’s Gun Game and a new Battle Pass gifting feature–and we’re rounding up all the important takeaways.

Rambo’s Gun Game And New Playlists

The ongoing ’80s Action Heroes event for Black Ops Cold War and Warzone sees its latest update with the launch of a new mode, Rambo’s Gun Game. Set to debut May 27, this is Gun Game but with a Rambo twist. High-power weapons like the combat bow, Death Machine, War Machine, and the RPG-7 are now part of the cycle. To help players survive against these powerful weapons, everyone gets a Stimshot. As usual, dying by melee drops you back one stage, while the match ends when the first player gets a ranged kill with the Ballistic knife.

As for the new playlists, Activision is bringing back Snipers Online, while Standoff 24/7 stays in rotation for its second week. Prop Hunt, meanwhile, will be added to the Featured playlist hub, while standard Gun Game and Sticks and Stones are staying available in quick play.

Another new mode, 6v6 Face Off, is also coming soon. This is a frenetic mode where teams of six square off on the smallest maps in the game–the Gunfight maps, which are normally reserved for 2v2 matches.

Double XP

Black Ops Cold War is hosting double XP this weekend, beginning May 28 and running through May 21. Activision said this is a Black Ops Cold War-specific event, so Warzone players will only earn the standard progression XP. Black Ops Cold War is also becoming completely free this Memorial Day weekend.

New Store Bundles

The in-game Black Ops Cold War store gets a refresh this week with three new bundles, the first of which is Death’s Veil Maxis. This bundle has nine items themed around the Operator Maxis, the centerpiece of which is the Death’s Bride skin, along with two legendary weapon blueprints: Death’s Vow SMG and the Death’s Protest LMG.

The Road Rage Reactive bundle has eight items in all, including the Direct Injection sniper rifle and the Battering Ram SMG. There is also a new Petrol skin for Stitch and a new gesture called Tiniest Violin.

The third new store bundle is Zeyna Cold Blooded, which includes the Backflip skin for Zeyna, as well as the Devil’s Breath pistol and the Heartless assault rifle. A startling sounding finishing move called Snow Leopard is also included in the bundle.

Head to the Call of Duty blog to see a full rundown of these three new bundles.

Battle Pass Gifting

Players feeling generous will soon be able to send a Black Ops Cold War or Warzone Battle Pass by way of a new gifting system. You can do this from the Call of Duty Companion app. However, the person who sends the gift must have two-factor authentication turned on (the recipient of the gift does not). Activision also mentioned that gifting is limited to three per day, and you must be friends through Activision’s platform with the giftee for seven days for gifting to work.

2FA And XP Tokens

To help encourage people to enable two-factor authentication on their Activision accounts, Activision is giving everyone who does this two one-hour double Battle Pass XP tokens. These tokens will be available starting May 27. You can sign up for 2FA on the Call of Duty site.

For more on the latest in Black Ops Cold War, check out our recent guide, “How To Defeat Orda In CoD: Black Ops Cold War Zombies Outbreak.”

Former Nintendo developer Giles Goddard is probably best known for his work on Star Fox, or for Super Mario 64‘s stretchy Mario face, but it turns out he had a hand in the earliest days of Zelda on the Nintendo 64 too. In a new interview with MinnMax, Goddard reveals that he worked on an early Zelda tech demo that had Link navigate Hyrule Castle through a series of portals.

Goddard starts out talking about the Shoshinkai 1995 demo, a brief clip of Link fighting a metallic enemy, which he created to show off the potential for a 3D Zelda and the capabilities of the then-unreleased Nintendo 64 console.

While this short demo was designed to be shown to the public, and has survived since then in a number of YouTube videos, Goddard went on to mention another demo that has never seen the light of day.

Intended to push the limits of what the Nintendo 64 was capable of, the unreleased demo showed a version of Hyrule Castle filled with portals, which players could look through to see a completely different part of the map. When asked why the concept never made it into the full game, Goddard says that the team working on Ocarina of Time probably never even saw his portal-filled tech demo.

Sadly Goddard has said he can’t share this gem with the internet as it’s still Nintendo’s property, but it’s still interesting just to know it exists. The former Nintendo dev recently hosted an AMA on Reddit, which is full of even more interesting tidbits from his time working on games like Star Fox, Super Mario 64, and 1080 Snowboarding.

From the GTA series’ famous curated radio stations to the launch of virtual nightclubs that featured real resident DJs in GTA Online’s After Hours update, Rockstar is now taking its musical ambitions to the next level with the launch of a music label in collaboration with CircoLoco.

Rockstar has teamed up with the infamous party brand CircoLoco, known for its Monday morning parties at Ibiza’s DC10, to launch CircoLoco Records. The label will debut a series of EPs, leading up to the release of its first compilation album, Monday Dreamin’. With a focus on dance music, the label will showcase some of the best talent from CircoLoco’s decades of parties, including DJs like Dixon who have appeared in GTA Online’s nightclubs.

It seems that Rockstar’s involvement in the label may lead to more integration of up-and-coming musical talent into GTA Online’s various virtual hangouts, especially after it “[expanded] the possibilities for in-game social spaces and music discovery with the release of The Cayo Perico Heist.” GTA Online is finally releasing as a standalone game for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 11 this year, opening its online world up to a whole new audience.

CircoLoco Records’ first EP is called Monday Dreamin’ Blue EP, which is due to release on June 4. Other EPs are then due out between then and July 9, which is when the compilation album will drop in full.