It’s a new week, and that means Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption II is getting a fresh wave of missions and discounts for its Red Dead Online mode. Rockstar announced everything on its website, and we’re rounding up the key takeaways here.
The new Opportunity this week calls on players to find and collect a precious diamond known as II Sovrano. It’s currently in Rhodes, where rich people are deciding what to do with it next. Naturally, your job is to steal it. “It’s been suggested that a representative of Senator Ricard will collect Il Sovrano and you’ll need to find information as to the jewel’s whereabouts,” reads a line from the mission’s description. “Whether you distract the guards, sneak your way in, or make an explosive entrance, you’ll need to track down and take the jewel.”
Red Dead Online’s latest weekly update is out now
Those who complete the Opportunity will get a reward that gives them a free weapon component of their choosing. Beating it on the Ruthless difficulty comes with the Duplessis hat from Madam Nazar as a reward.
A new contract is available too. The Saloons contract requires players to collect money from saloon owners. Some will be agreeable, while others won’t, and that’s where things will get violent–which is in keeping with the spirit of the Blood Money update that this is all part of. Players can speak to Sean MacGuire, Anthony Foreman, Joe, or Langton kick off this new contract.
Rockstar also reminded players that Red Dead Online’s new battle pass-style Quick Draw Club No. 1 is now available through August 9. Everyone who buys the pass gets a Rushworld t-shirt and other rewards, including 50% off role items and rewards. The Quick Draw Club No. 2 launches on August 10 with more items to unlock and collect.
Elsewhere, players who take part in any of the Nominated Series events this week will get 40% off a multi-horse of their choosing. And looking ahead, Rockstar said is plans to launch a new horde-style survival mode called Call to Arms on August 10.
In terms of discounts, the following sales are live this week in Red Dead Online:
Turkoman horses — 30% off
Shotguns — 30% off
Role Weapon Variants — 30% off
Melee Weapons, The Bow, and Improved Bow — 40% off
Hats — 40% off
In other news, Rockstar’s parent company just announced that Red Dead Redemption II has now shipped 38 million copies, while Red Dead Online posted big gains for total players and money from its various microtransactions. Take-Two said it continues to see growth for Red Dead Online thanks in part to launch of its standalone edition.
The first ever ticketed Facebook film premiere is set to take place this month. The documentary The Outsider will debut exclusively on Facebook on August 19.
The Outsider will be available globally on Facebook Live for just 12 hours, starting August 19 at 8 PM ET until August 20 at 8 AM. Tickets cost $4, which includes access to a Q&A with the filmmakers following the film. Following this, the film will be available on distributor Abramorama‘s on-demand platform, before hitting selected theaters in September.
The Outsider is directed by Pamela Yoder and Steven Rosenbaum and focuses on the challenging and controversial construction of the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York, which opened in 2014. It follows the experiences of Michael Shulan, a writer and photographer who documented the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks and was appointed creative director of the 9/11 museum.
While The Outsider will be the first movie to premiere on Facebook, the company continues to develop its own original programming for its Facebook Watch on-demand service. The animated horror series Woman in the Book was released in June, and in September last year, Facebook claimed that the service reaches 1.25 billion viewers a month. However, the company counts anything over one minute as a view.
The Fortnite Week 9 Alien Artifacts are coming up soon. They’ll appear in-game starting on Thursday, August 5 at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET, which is the same time the Epic Quests will go live. As always, these Artifacts will only stick around for a few days, so make sure you grab them within one week. But with our guide, you’ll not need to worry. Here’s where to find Week 9 Alien Artifacts in Fortnite.
Week 9 Alien Artifacts
There are five Alien Artifacts on the island this week, as is almost always the case. Each canister actually adds four Artifacts each to your cache, meaning you can find 20 Alien Artifacts on the island in specific places, not to mention the bonus Artifacts you may find by opening Cosmic Chests throughout the week. You’ll find Alien Artifacts at the following locations:
Under the floor of Unremarkable Shack on the central northern mini-island (smash through the wood to see it)
Inside Gas N’ Grub gas station just east of The Aftermath
Atop the satellite dish at Defiant Dish, east of Weeping Woods
Inside the small hut beside the mini-spire within Weeping Woods
Inside the shack on a small island offshore from Holly Hatchery
All Week 9 Alien Artifacts
With Alien Artifacts, you can unlock new cosmetics for Kymera. The Tier 1 Battle Pass alien character can be customized across a variety of features, including armor color, skin color, armor underglow, eye color, head shape, and more. Each category of Kymera’s features includes a tiered list of options ranging from 2-17 Alien Artifacts per item, including a full set of free options which act as the default Kymera style. To unlock the most expensive item in any category, you’ll need to first unlock all the others before it in the same category.
That’s why collecting all Fortnite Alien Artifacts each week is so important if you’re hoping to unlock the full range of features. Unlike past customizable Battle Pass cosmetics like Chapter 2 Season 2’s Maya or Chapter 2 Season 3’s ‘Brella, Kymera can be restyled whenever you feel like it.
There’s no permanent locking-in of his look. You could even make multiple Kymera characters for different presets. It’s like amassing an alien army for your loadouts. But you have to get Alien Artifacts during the week in which they debut, as they’re replaced the following week with new ones. Also new this week is a quality-of-life feature that puts Alien Artifacts on your map when you’re nearby.
You’re unlikely to grab all Alien Artifacts in one round since they’re spread out–though you could with a UFO and a little Storm luck. But don’t worry, so long as you get them all before they disappear next week, you’ll be all set.
After a generation of premium peripherals expanding the range of features and options to look for in a controller, the well has gone dry for PS5 players. With no sanctioned third-party controllers, players who want features outside the DualSense’s standard loadout still have one place they can turn: Specialty gamepad modders, who add and/or replace parts to make custom versions of the DualSense.
HexGaming’s customizable DualSense model, the Rival, adds rear buttons and replaceable thumbsticks, plus a handful of other optional features and tons of cosmetic options to your specifications. For a controller that’s been chopped up and reassembled, it looks and feels incredibly well-made, and its added features feel right at home with the DualSense’s standard offerings. Picking up a custom DualSense is a big step – It’s much more expensive than your average controller – but HexGaming’s modifications rise to meet the DualSense’s high bar for quality.
HexGaming Rival – Design & Features
Despite its new name, the Rival is a modified version of the original DualSense, so much of its design feels identical to the original… Because it is. The basic shape and button layout is the same. It has the same long handles and that big clicky pad in the center. Despite the fact that HexGaming replaces the PS logo with its own round home button, you wouldn’t mistake the Rival for anything other than a DualSense.
The Rival has a few core upgrades that come with every controller. It has replaceable analog sticks, and comes with three different lengths, all of which seem to be taller than the standard DualSense model. HexGaming’s sticks are held on magnetically, which makes it easy to pull them off and switch options without any risk of the sticks flying off during intense play.
There’s also a large rear panel strapped to the back of the Rival, which affixes two wing-like rear buttons that curve into place right under your middle fingers. They’re comfortable, with a nice tactile click, and easy to pull. The large panel that houses the buttons, however, can crowd your hands a bit, depending on your grip.
You can map almost any button to the rear buttons – only the PlayStation button and Touchpad are off-limits. Pairing is easy, but takes a little bit of time: You have to hold a button to turn on pairing mode, then hold the rear button and the button you’re mapping for a few seconds, then turn off pairing mode. It’s quick enough so that you won’t hesitate to remap buttons at the start of a new game, but you might think twice about changing them on the fly mid-session.
Beyond the core “Rival” upgrades, you can customize almost every part of the DualSense in some way or another. In a made-to-order build, you can replace the face buttons, d-pad, menu buttons, bumpers, triggers, touchpad, front panel, rear panel, and more. Most of these replacements are primarily cosmetic: Instead of Sony’s standard clear-on-white face and d-pad buttons, you can get shiny chrome red or matte purple (like mine). While they are mostly for show, it’s worth noting that the changes do alter the feel of the controller a bit. If you get a controller face and/or touchpad with a pattern, for example, it’s printed on shiny, smooth plastic panels, rather than the smooth matte material on the standard DualSense.
There are also a couple of optional upgrades that offer more substantial changes. There’s a black textured rear panel, which adds a rubberized back with paint-drip pattern bumps along the backs of the handles. The biggest optional feature is “FastShots,” a permanently installed low-profile trigger lock for the bumpers and triggers that significantly limits the travel on all four buttons. According to HexGaming, L1 and R1 bottom out at 0.5mm, down from 1.2mm. L2 and R2 are cut more dramatically, 7mm to 2mm. The difference between the two is stark, especially on the triggers: On a normal DualSense, the triggers press all the way down to the base of their housing: With FastShots, there’s a tactile click, but the button barely moves. Likewise, the bumpers have a more pronounced tactile click when you press them, but they move significantly less.
As with AimControllers’ modified DualSense, which has a similar optional feature, FastShots has pros and cons that skew heavily toward competitive players. Reducing travel cuts down on the time it takes to push the bumpers and pull the triggers, which is great in a high-reflex shooter. On the other hand, removing travel cuts out some of the unique immersive features of the DualSense’s smart triggers; specifically, you lose the capacity to feel any resistance when pulling down the triggers. It enhances your competitive experiences, but at the expense of your single-player ones.
There’s one crucial DualSense component that doesn’t come with HexGaming Rival – a charging cable. Finding a USB-C charging cable isn’t exactly a hardship given how many devices use USB-C. (Fun Fact: I charged it with my Macbook Air charger one time). Still, given the Rival’s hefty price tag, it feels a little chincy to leave out a cord that you’ll need to keep your controller running.
HexGaming Rival – Gaming
Setting aside the pros and cons of trigger locks for just a moment, every facet of the Rival mod works incredibly well. While the smooth plastic panels and matte buttons don’t feel exactly like a DualSense, the experience is fundamentally the same. (That’s a very good thing). The build quality of the controller holds up, and none of the modded parts feel cheap or flimsy. The rear buttons have a quick pull, which makes them great for snappy, reflexive inputs like rolling in Demon’s Souls, or aiming down sights in Destiny 2. And, as with most rear buttons, they’re very comfortable. I find them especially useful when you need to hold a button for an extended period of time, like when fixing generators in Dead by Daylight.
FastShots is one of the most comfortable, well-implemented trigger-locks I’ve used. They successfully cut down on the time and distance of each trigger pull and bumper press. (Though that’s a given, really). The tactile clicks of the bumpers and triggers compensate for the lack of travel, which effectively hides the “jammed” sensation you feel with most locked buttons. While it prevents trigger resistance, it doesn’t impede the smart triggers’ precision rumble and other immersive features, allowing single-player games like Returnal to retain most of their controller-based immersive quirks.
The smaller gameplay-relevant touches also feel good in-game. If you’ve ever held a DualSense and wished that its microscopic textured grip was larger and more pronounced, the rubberized grip really makes it feel stable in your grasp, even with sweaty hands. The replaceable analog sticks are easy to swap quickly, even on the fly. As someone with short fingers, I don’t really need longer sticks so they weren’t that appealing to me, but I admit that having actual adjustable sticks beats buying stick extenders or other makeshift add-ons that compromise how the stick feels just to add length.
An ancient sword, rumored to have demons lurking within, finds its way into the hands of an orphan, changing her destiny forever.
In Yakuza Princess, which releases everywhere on September 3, singer/songwriter MASUMI plays Akemi, a lone wolf who discovers she’s the heiress to half of the Yakuza crime syndicate.
Forging an uneasy alliance with an amnesiac stranger, Shiro (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who believes a special Katana blade binds their two fates, Akemi unleashes war against the other half of the syndicate who wants her dead.
Check out the exclusive trailer for Yakuza Princess…
Directed by Vicente Amorim, and based on the graphic novel “Samurai Shiro” by Danilo Beyruth, Yakuza Princess is set in the expansive Japanese community of Sao Paulo in Brazil — the largest Japanese diaspora in the world and combines two mysteries into a kick-ass revenge movie. With only an antique Japanese sword to answer the confounding riddles, Akemi and Shiro unite to rock the criminal underworld and carve out a path of destruction.
We’ve also got your exclusive look at the Yakuza Princess poster…
Yakuza Princess also stars Tsuyoshi Ihara (13 Assassins). It is set for wide release on September 3.
Microsoft has revealed a new color variant for its official Xbox Series X/S line of game controllers.
The new Aqua Shift Special Edition is a bright blue that gives off a glistening effect, with a dual-color swirl that almost looks like a water reflection on the side of the controller, which is inspired “by the fantasy that gaming brings into our lives,” according to Microsoft.
In addition to an alluring new color scheme, the Xbox Wire post notes that this is the first Special Edition Xbox Series X/S controller that includes rubber side grips, meaning you will have a better hold of the controller compared to the standard Xbox Series X/S controllers.
The Aqua Shift Special Edition is slated to release on August 31. But if you are looking to get your hands on one, you can preorder a unit for $69.99 USD on Microsoft’s website.
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Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
The Big House, one of competitive Super Smash Bros.’s biggest fall events, will not be held in person for the second year in a row. According to a statement from the tournament’s organizers on Twitter, the event was canceled out of concern for “the health and well-being of our community.”
The statement goes on to say that organizers for The Big House 11 were “forced to either commit to or relinquish our venue” this past February “due to the lead time required by large-scale convention centers.” However, organizers found that “it was too early to commit to a date with the uncertain trajectory of COVID-19 and vaccinations at that time.”
For what it’s worth, The Big House’s organizers may have made the right call. While COVID-19 infections and deaths have fallen since the virus’ peak last year thanks to highly-effective vaccines that prevent severe cases and hospitalizations, a new highly contagious variant sweeping across America is raising concerns and sparking renewed mask mandates.
That being said, the most recent major Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament, Smash Summit 11, was held entirely in person. While the event wasn’t open to the public, it did feature competitors from around the globe.
This marks the second year that The Big House won’t be held in person. The tournament, which has been a competitive Melee staple every year from 2011 to 2019, was canceled last year due to a cease-and-desist demand from Nintendo of America.
The Big House 10 was going to be hosted entirely online last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and would have used a Melee mod called Slippi, which makes online play feasible. At this time, it’s not clear if The Big House 11 will shift to an online format at the risk of receiving another cease-and-desist from Nintendo.
Hey remember the 1990s? Of course you do, because it’s impossible to forget that decade if you’re old enough to have lived through it. Well, the fine folks Bandai America have used their skills of nostalgia farming to create a perfect storm of 1990s wistful remembrance through technology with the Tamagotchi Star Wars R2-D2, which you can preorder right now in either “Classic White” or “Hologram Blue.”
Now I was at the tail-end of the Tamagotchi craze just because I was arguably too old to be caring for a digital pocket pet, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have one then and it doesn’t mean I didn’t just preorder this one now. Because I did.
I opted to make it as 1990s as possible by ordering the Hologram Blue version. If you look at the product images, you can see the name stems from the fact the plastic casing is translucent, which was the hallmark of a cool tech product in the late 1990s. The design craze stemmed from the original iMacs released by Apple, but you probably remember it best from the N64. It got a little out of hand when you could buy a clothes iron with translucent highlights (a real thing).
For $20 and a November release date, I’m definitely looking forward to forgetting I ordered this until it arrives at my door to my delight and surprise.
This is the part of the article where I remind you it’s in your best interests to preorder early from Amazon because you aren’t charged until the item ships, and if the price goes down even for a minute, as long as you secured a preorder before the price drop, you’ll ultimately be charged the lowest price.
Google’s Waze service has teamed p with Microsoft for a Halo-themed takeover where Master Chief will give you driving directions in real life to help you get to where you’re going.
You can drive with Master Chief and have your real car visualized as a Warthog, or you can ride with Escharum the Banished war chief giving you directions as your car is displayed as a Ghost.
The Halo Co-Pilot feature, as it’s called, is available in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. And it features what sounds like Master Chief voice actor Steve Downes himself giving you directions and saying things like, “In a half a mile, turn left.” The Halo takeover is only available for a limited time as part of the effort to promote the launch of Halo Infinite this year.
In other news, the Halo Infinite multiplayer beta has ended, but a second one is coming up and will be expanded to more Halo Insider members. Be sure to sign up for the free Halo Insider program for a chance to get in for this latest round of testing, whenever it comes up.
This year marks a big change for Konami’s long-running eFootball series–formerly known as Pro Evolution Soccer–as it transitions to a free-to-play model that will be supported by microtransactions in the years to come. So how much of the game will be free to try out? One that’s roughly the size of a demo according to the official eFootball Twitter account which answered several questions from fans this week.
“During “Early Autumn”, eFootball will have no micro-transactions–so everything will be free-to-play at launch. We will then add more content during Autumn. Exact content details to follow,” the account tweeted. “We want people to get hands-on with eFootball as soon as possible, so we will launch with a limited number of teams and modes.”
Q: Is “Early Autumn” launch basically a demo?
A: In many ways, yes. We want people to get hands-on with eFootball™ as soon as possible, so we will launch with a limited number of teams and modes. Exact details to follow.
Other details shared on eFootball include the game being developed for “consoles first” and it will include multiple features for matchmaking based on location and platform. Players on console and PC who are concerned about a graphical downgrade when matched up against mobile users won’t have to worry about diminished visuals on their more powerful platforms.
Q: Is eFootball™ just a mobile game for consoles?
A: eFootball™ is developed first for consoles but is a platform for everyone to enjoy. The game will take full advantage of the hardware capabilities of each supported device.
One of the methods in which eFootball looks to generate revenue is through a Match Pass system that will let players nominate and acquire their favorite soccer stars. The eFootball account added that “free and paid” Match Passes will be available instead of the strong lottery element that previous games made use of. Master League will also be available as premium downloadable content in the future, with more details to be shared in an upcoming announcement.
Konami’s eFootball will launch on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC first in Autumn, and will then roll out to iOS and Android at a later date. Producer Seitaro Kimura explained last month that eFootball has become a “platform” and that Konami is ditching annual premium releases in favor of free annual updates instead. As usual, eFootball’s biggest rival will be EA’s FIFA series, which you can see more of in action with new FIFA 22 gameplay.
