Pokemon Go players have taken to social media to get Niantic to change course on a plan the developer has to remove the extended range feature from the AR game. This feature was introduced last year to help players keep up with Pokemon Go from the safety of their homes.
In an open letter from the huge Pokemon Go community, r/SilphRoad, players are reaching out directly to Niantic asking them to keep the extended range feature, particularly as the new Delta variant of COVID-19 begins to spread across the world.
“Dear Niantic, Community and Creators alike wish to voice our concern and disappointment over recent changes to the Pokestop interaction radius reduction in Pokemon Go,” the letter begins. “While the Pokestop/POI interaction radius was increased due to an unprecedented global pandemic, the flow on effects of this in-game change have had a far greater positive impact on the community.”
The Pokémon GO Community has been waiting patiently for an answer in the last few days, but sadly, many trainers have walked away. We seek your attention & respond as the Community really needs it now.#HearUsNiantic#PokemonGOpic.twitter.com/mpcJtJI9Jo
— BrandonTan91 #HearUsNiantic (@brandontan91) August 5, 2021
Beyond just being able to play from home, the players cite the increased radius’ other benefits such as road safety, and particularly accessibility for disabled players as reasons this change should be reinstated.
On Twitter, prominent players are using the hashtag #HearUsNiantic as a way to get the developer’s attention.
I’m going to set aside my opinion here and share a concern from the community. Although Niantic touts its community as one of its biggest strengths, they haven’t done as much as acknowledge us on this matter.
When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit last year, Pokemon Go and other AR games, which required players to freely walk about to play, were some of the hardest hit. IGN spoke with many Pokemon Go players at the onset of the pandemic to hear how it impacted one of their favorite games.
So far, Niantic has not responded on any of its public channels, but IGN has reached out for comment.
Some Overwatch League sponsors are reconsidering their partnerships with the esports league in the wake of the Activision Blizzard lawsuit. As reported by the Washington Post, both Coca-Cola and State Farm are reassessing their sponsorships of the Overwatch League moving forward in light of the allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at Activision Blizzard.
Activision Blizzard runs two esports leagues, the Overwatch League and the Call of Duty league. The Overwatch League currently has seven sponsors listed on its website: Xfinity, IBM, Coca-Cola, State Farm, Cheez-It, Pringles, and TeamSpeak. A spokesperson for State Farm told the Washington Post that the company is “reevaluating our limited marketing relationship with the Overwatch League,” and that it has requested no advertisements be run during this weekend’s matches.
A spokesperson for Coca-Cola told the Washington Post, “We are working with our partners at Blizzard as we take a step back for a moment to revisit future plans and programs.” They confirmed that Coca-Cola is aware of the allegations against Activision Blizzard but declined to comment if Coca-Cola would continue sponsoring the league.
GameSpot has reached out to Activision Blizzard for comment.
As reported by Charlie Intel, T-Mobile’s logo has disappeared from the sponsorship section on both the Call of Duty League and Overwatch League websites. The logo appeared on both websites as recently as July 21, based on the Wayback Machine. Last weekend the New York Subliners, a Call of Duty League team, covered the T-Mobile logo on their jerseys with duct tape. T-Mobile has not officially stated that it has pulled back its sponsorship of either league nor has it publicly commented on the allegations against Activision Blizzard.
As it had said it would, Niantic has rolled back some of the bonuses it implemented in Pokemon Go to make the game easier to play amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The studio had repeatedly stated these bonuses were always intended to be temporary, so it was inevitable that they would one day be reverted. However, the decision to do so now, when the world is being roiled by another surge in COVID cases, is a grave mistake that’s drawn widespread backlash from the community.
In the time since Niantic initially announced its plans to roll back the bonuses, the pandemic has only worsened. Cases are once again on the rise in many parts of the world as new variants of the virus emerge, and many communities are scrambling to reimplement mask mandates and other restrictions to curb the virus’s spread. Removing these bonuses from Pokemon Go now and asking users to go outside, when the pandemic is still very much an ongoing threat, is a tone-deaf decision that harms both the game and players.
It’s not as if Pokemon Go has struggled since implementing these bonuses; on the contrary, the game has soared over the past year. According to Sensor Tower, Pokemon Go had its best-ever start to a year in 2021, with revenue reportedly up by 34% compared to 2020. Niantic is also coming off of Pokemon Go Fest 2021, one of the game’s best events yet. Not only was the event enjoyable, smartly building off all of the lessons that Niantic learned as it adapted the game amid the pandemic, but it was also a huge success. While Niantic hasn’t shared revenue numbers, the studio revealed that players collectively caught more than 1.5 billion Pokemon and walked more than 125 kilometers during the two-day celebration, dwarfing last year’s metrics.
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The bonuses themselves made the game indisputably better, as well, which makes their removal all the more frustrating. One of the most beneficial bonuses doubled the distance from which you could interact with Gyms and PokeStops, making it easier to earn items and participate in Gym and Raid battles. This was a marked quality-of-life improvement, and it should have remained a permanent fixture of the game, but Niantic has since reverted it.
Fans, rightfully, are angry with Niantic’s decision. Across social media, players are expressing their displeasure with the bonuses’ removal and calling for a day-long boycott of the game, dubbing today “Pokemon No Day.” Prominent members of the Pokemon community, including the webmaster of Pokemon megasite Serebii.net, have even released a joint statement calling on Niantic to reconsider its decision and reimplement the pandemic bonuses.
As of this writing, Niantic has not publicly commented on the boycott, but here’s hoping the developer reverses course and reimplements the pandemic bonuses. Both the game and the community are better off for them.
In 1991, Metallica released a self-titled album that everyone has called The Black Album ever since. It’s the band’s magnum opus, and it still rules today. To celebrate the album’s 30th anniversary, a new project called The Metallica Blacklist is coming soon (see it at Amazon). It’s a behemoth collection of covers of the 12 songs on The Black Album, performed by musicians like Weezer, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Isbell, St. Vincent, Cage the Elephant, Portugal the Man, and many, many more.
All told, The Metallica Blacklist contains 53 tracks, with 53 bands, musicians, and electronic and hip hop artists offering their own unique take on their favorite song from The Black Album. Some of them sound similar to the original; others go their own way. For instance, there’s a Miley Cyrus version of “Nothing Else Matters” featuring Elton John, Yo-Yo Ma, and more. It gets wild, friends.
You can already stream a bunch of the tracks on Spotify to see what you think. The full album lands on digital and streaming on September 10. But if you want to own The Metallica Blacklist in physical form, you can preorder it on CD or in limited-edition vinyl now. Better yet, Amazon has both physical versions on sale. Preorder above, or keep scrolling down to see the full track and which bands are covering which songs.
All profits from The Metallica Blacklist are going to various charities. These includes Metallica’s charitable foundation All Within My Hands, plus the various artists’ charity of choice. You can find details of where the money’s going for each track here.
The Metallica Blacklist Track List
Enter Sandman – Alessia Cara & The Warning
Enter Sandman – Mac DeMarco
Enter Sandman – Ghost
Enter Sandman – Juanes
Enter Sandman – Rina Sawayama
Enter Sandman – Weezer
Sad But True (Live) – Sam Fender
Sad But True – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Sad But True – Mexican Institute of Sound feat. La Perla & Gera MX
Sad But True – Royal Blood
Sad But True – St. Vincent
Sad But True – White Reaper
Sad But True – YB
Holier Than Thou – Biffy Clyro
Holier Than Thou – The Chats
Holier Than Thou – OFF!
Holier Than Thou – PUP
Holier Than Thou – Corey Taylor
The Unforgiven – Cage The Elephant
The Unforgiven – Vishal Dadlani, DIVINE, Shor Police
The Unforgiven – Diet Cig
The Unforgiven – Flatbush Zombies feat. DJ Scratch
The Unforgiven – HaAsh
The Unforgiven – José Madero
The Unforgiven – Moses Sumney
Wherever I May Roam – J Balvin
Wherever I May Roam – Chase & Status feat. BackRoad Gee
Wherever I May Roam – The Neptunes
Wherever I May Roam – Jon Pardi
Don’t Tread on Else Matters – SebastiAn
Don’t Tread on Me – Portugal. The Man
Don’t Tread on Me – Volbeat
Through the Never – The HU
Through the Never – Tomi Owó
Nothing Else Matters – Phoebe Bridgers
Nothing Else Matters – Miley Cyrus feat WATT, Elton John, Yo-Yo Ma, Robert Trujillo, Chad Smith
Nothing Else Matters – Dave Gahan
Nothing Else Matters – Mickey Guyton
Nothing Else Matters – Dermot Kennedy
Nothing Else Matters – Mon Laferte
Nothing Else Matters – Igor Levit
Nothing Else Matters – My Morning Jacket
Nothing Else Matters – PG Roxette
Nothing Else Matters – Darius Rucker
Nothing Else Matters – Chris Stapleton
Nothing Else Matters – TRESOR
Of Wolf and Man – Goodnight, Texas
The God That Failed – IDLES
The God That Failed – Imelda May
My Friend of Misery – Cherry Glazerr
My Friend of Misery – Izïa
My Friend of Misery – Kamasi Washington
The Struggle Within – Rodrigo y Gabriela
Chris Reed is a commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.
A new zombies-themed event is starting on August 6 in Season 6 of Call of Duty Mobile. Announced on the Call of Duty blog, the Aether Hunt event will have players battle against the undead hordes to acquire aether and unlock special rewards, including the zombie Richtofen operator skin.
Using characters from the mainline Call of Duty’s Zombies’ mode, this event focuses on acquiring purple and yellow aether crystals in order to unlock special rewards. Yellow ore can be obtained by completing daily tasks in both multiplayer and battle royale. Purple ore, which is more valuable, can be obtained by completing main tasks in the Undead Siege mode, given out by Dr. Richtofen. Players can earn operator skins, weapon blueprints, vehicle skins, and more.
The Undead Siege mode offers the quickest way to earn rewards, with players completing tasks during matches. In this mode, players will need to survive five days and five nights, collecting resources during the day and battling against relentless waves of zombies during the night. You will need to defend your mobile base, using turrets built from the collected resources as well as your own firearms. The new mode also has its own 25 tiers of rewards to work through, offering rewards like zombie Tank Dempsey.
Remakes and reboots have become a fairly common occurrence in movies. Snake Eyes is the most recent example, as it attempts to reboot the GI Joe movie universe. Reboots aren’t exclusive to the big screen, though. For as long as they’ve been happening in movies, TV has been just as guilty of trying to milk established properties by relaunching them with new casts.
While some TV reboots fly high, even surpassing the original series–Battlestar Galactica, for instance–the list of rebooted and remade TV shows that failed is a long one. You might even be surprised at some of the shows Hollywood has attempted a second time, only for them to be canceled after a few episodes and never heard from again.
We dug through the TV reboot dumpster to scrape up the 14 absolute worst of the worst. Whether it was a poorly produced new version of a beloved show, or even a second shot at a series that bombed the first time, these shows simply did not work, crashing and burning upon release. In fact, you may even be surprised at some of the old shows that were rebooted more than once, only to have failed each time.
Take a look below at the 14 worst TV reboots and sound off in the comments if we missed our one the one you love to hate the most.
The first closed beta test for XDefiant, Ubisoft’s new free-to-play shooter set in the Tom Clancy universe, is currently live on PC. Invites went out to select PC players in the US and Canada earlier this week, and players will need to use the Ubisoft Connect client to participate.
Though the official XDefiant Twitter account has shown brief clips of gameplay from the closed beta, the test itself is under a non-disclosure agreement, meaning players who do get the chance to play early will not be able to share screenshots, videos, or streams of the game in-action. Ubisoft released a preview video of two arena maps playable in the test, Emporium and Air & Space, last week.
It seems players are currently experiencing error messages that may impact load times for those looking to get into a match. Ubisoft says it will provide more updates soon. Though this first test is only for PC players, later tests will be available for players on Xbox and PlayStation consoles, and the game is slated to support cross-play at launch. The full game will also release on streaming platforms like Google Stadia and Amazon Luna.
XDefiant looks to include fast-paced action and weapon customization reminiscent to that of Call of Duty along with faction-based abilities. Players can choose to join different four different in-game factions, each pulled from other Ubisoft Tom Clancy games like Splinter Cell, The Division, and more recent Ghost Recon titles like Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. Each faction is based around different archetypes, like assault, support, and tank. The developer has said more factions, including ones beyond the current Tom Clancy game universe, could also be in the cards.
Call of Duty’s Season 5 arrives on August 12, and today’s roadmap intel reveals Warzone’s update might finally shake up the perk meta. The new season is expected to bring new points of interest to Verdansk, a Red Door in-game event, and all-new Warzone-exclusive perks.
Currently, Warzone only utilizes Modern Warfare’s perk selection, despite this year’s Cold War integration. Warzone’s current slate of perks are dominated by a select few: E.O.D., Ghost, Overkill, and Amped. However, Season 5 is set to introduce Combat Scout and Tempered, which could make a player’s perk decisions a little bit harder.
With Combat Scout, players will receive a burst of in-field intel, as damaging an enemy briefly highlights that opponent in bright orange and automatically pings them. Activision’s wording suggests that this orange highlight will only be visible to the player who activated the ping, as the description suggests the perk is stronger if the player can “communicate effectively to their squadmates.” Regardless, it would be really useful to see the highlighted positioning of the player you’ve just peppered up but couldn’t kill.
The second new perk will be Tempered, which provides more reinforced armor plates. Only two of these heavier plates are needed for a player to be “fully armored” compared to the standard three. Meaning, Tempered allows each plate to absorb 75 points of damage instead of the standard 50, but a player will only be able to wear two plates instead of three. So, basically, you get the same amount of armor, but you have one less plate to worry about.
Re-plating after a gunfight is obviously something that leaves you vulnerable, but you can plate up quickly enough that I’m not sure if this tradeoff will be worth the sacrifice, as Activision did mention this perk will come at the sacrifice of the second perk slot, which is the coveted perk Ghost/Overkill slot. Players either run Ghost to stay off the radar, or Overkill to carry a second primary weapon, and I think the benefits of both of these outweigh the usefulness of the upcoming Tempered perk.
Activision did not mention which perk slot will be used by Combat Scout, and I highly doubt they’d introduce two perks and stack them both in the second perk slot. Combat Scout could make the most waves here, but it will be interesting to see where this perk is placed. The intel it provides could be more beneficial to players than the currently used Double Time or E.O.D. first perk selections, but I’m not sure how many players would sacrifice their third perk slot. Currently, Amped is the most used and sensible choice for the third perk slot, as it provides faster weapon swap and rocket launcher reload speed. It’s a very noticeable difference in weapon swap time if you’re not running this perk.
Surprisingly, the Season 5 intel didn’t mention changes to the High Alert perk. Raven Software previously teased these two new Warzone-exclusive perks would be coming, but also announced High Alert would be updated to counter the Dead Silent field upgrade. Maybe that will still arrive sometime later in the season.
It will be interesting to see how much these new additions will affect the perk meta with Season 5’s arrival. And we’ll update our best perks guide, if any of these new additions dethrone Warzone’s current perk champions.
Ahead of the Back 4 Blood beta, we got to go hands-on with the upcoming cooperative zombie killing shooter from developer Turtle Rock. In our time with the game, we only got hands-on with the PvE campaign. But afterwards, I sat down with Turtle Rock executive producer Lianne Papp to talk about all aspects of Back 4 Blood, including its PvP Swarm mode, which Papp describes as “snackable” (a term I will be stealing and using to describe many games from now on).
Swarm mode is a best-of-three-rounds competition, in which two teams of four go up against one another. One side plays as the human Cleaners who need to survive as long as possible, while the other is composed of the zombie-like Ridden that must kill all the Cleaners as quickly as possible.
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Now Playing: 22 Minutes of NEW Back 4 Blood Gameplay
Between each round, teams switch sides and the winner is whichever team manages to get the best score. According to Papp, there’s no concrete time limit to the rounds. Theoretically, they could go on for a very long time. But the mode remains a snackable escape because rounds are designed to prevent the overall matches from going on too long.
“As the Cleaners, you’re in this arena that’s constantly shrinking and so you have a little bit of a time limit from the standpoint that it’s going to get so tiny that it’s just absolute chaos if you’re still alive,” Papp told me.
“We like [Swarm’s] format a lot. I stole this term from someone else in the industry and I’m going to make it a thing because I love it. It’s a very ‘snackable’ game mode. You can just jump in, play those rounds, and you’re done. And it can be anywhere from five minutes–if you’re very unevenly matched–to 15 minutes.”
The overall design of each PvP map helps in this regard as well. According to Papp, the team was “very intentional about what maps can actually be played in PvP,” ensuring that the Cleaners will eventually be overrun and defeated by the Ridden despite their best efforts.
At launch, all players will be paired together, as Back 4 Blood will not launch with a separate ranked playlist. You have the option of playing PvE or PvP, and that’s it. Back 4 Blood will support cross-play at launch too, putting all players into the same PvP pot, even across console and PC.
“By default, if you leave everything the way that we have it, you will cross-play with everyone,” Papp said. “So that’s current gen–Xbox One, PS4–and next gen. You can choose to turn that off if you want. We do mix [console players] into the PC pool as well–we went ahead and made it one big pot–but if you want to turn that off, you absolutely can.”
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If jumping into PvP seems intimidating, or it’s just not what you want from a cooperative zombie-killing game, you don’t have to engage with it. It’s completely optional and Turtle Rock hasn’t tied any of Back 4 Blood’s narrative elements to it. “[Swarm] is just a game mode,” Papp said. “[It’s] more focused on getting in and destroying each other.”
Instead, the overall narrative of Back 4 Blood plays out in the PvE campaign. Similar to games like Left 4 Dead (which Turtle Rock also developed) and World War Z, Back 4 Blood doesn’t primarily deliver its narrative through traditional cutscenes. The game seems to use emergent storytelling, relying on dialogue between the characters and details in the environment to paint a picture of what’s going on. “We don’t want to take control away from the player, force the game to pause, and have you watch a whole cinematic,” Papp said.
When we played Back 4 Blood during the preview, we noticed that this meant there wasn’t much feeling of camaraderie between the playable characters–in the first few levels anyway, there were no substantial character arcs or noteworthy developments in interpersonal relationships. The characters felt a little flat and stereotypically generic for the zombie-killing game genre–they mostly spouted one-liners at each other or apologized for accidentally shooting their teammates in the back of the head.
But where the individual Cleaners fall short, the world delivers. Back 4 Blood’s environments are full of details to unearth. There’s graffiti to notice, random notes to look over, safe houses to explore. And these details translate into worthwhile information that informs the gameplay, rewarding you for taking the time to pay attention. As an example, we finished a level by reaching a small safehouse that had a crude drawing of an Ogre on the wall, with painted warnings of where a previous group of survivors had run into it. The miniboss appeared in the next level, but we were prepared for it because we saw the graffiti and heeded the warnings.
Intriguingly, Papp teased that Back 4 Blood will go beyond the character dialogue and world details to tell its story but would not reveal what that might look like. “There will be more to the storytelling–we won’t go into details now, you’ll have to see at launch–but it’s mostly through dialogue,” she said.
We here at GameSpot got our hands on the upcoming Back 4 Blood beta a little early. For those unaware, Back 4 Blood is the upcoming zombie co-op shooter from Turtle Rock Studios, the people who brought you the original Left 4 Dead. Anyone who spent hours fighting the undead hordes in that game well into the night will feel right at home here.
Our early look at the beta gave us access to the game’s PvE campaign mode, including The Devil’s Return, which was in last year’s closed alpha, and Blue Dog Hollow, a newly featured campaign that’s the focus of this gameplay video.
The first act of Blue Dog Hollow, Bad Seeds, had our crew making its way through an infected farmland. The Ridden, Back 4 Blood’s name for zombies, have started to set up nests, corrupting the land with horrifyingly gross flesh piles. In the second act, Hell’s Bells, we traveled to a church, ending with an overwhelming horde showdown during which we needed to board up windows to complete the act.
The Back 4 Blood beta will also give players a chance to run around Fort Hope, an interactive lobby where you can hang out and practice at a shooting range while you wait for your match to load. The final piece of the beta is the PvP mode, Swarm, in which one team takes on the role of survivors and the other plays the Ridden in a best of three, before the teams swap roles.
The Back 4 Blood beta is open to players who pre-ordered the game as well and those that registered and got early access, and starts at noon PT / 3 PM ET on Thursday, August 5 and runs until Aug 9. But don’t fret, as there will be an open beta for everyone running August 12-16.
