Author: Trafficblast

Halo: The Master Chief Collection has brought back one of the Halo franchise’s most famous modes: Grifball. Available now in The Master Chief Collection, Grifball is one of the zaniest and most enjoyable/frustrating modes across all of Halo.

For those just catching up, Grifball is a non-traditional team-based multiplayer mode where players are equipped with a gravity hammer and energy sword and must try to plant and detonate a bomb. Things rarely go to plan, and the mode often leads to some white-knuckle action and excitement.

Developer 343 often rotates multiplayer modes in Halo: MCC to keep things fresh and to avoid having too many playlists online at the same time to benefit the overall experience. But with Grifball being such an iconic mode that is super fun and lighthearted, many are wondering why it’s not a permanent fixture in the game.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection includes all the mainline Halo games, from Halo: Reach to Halo 4. Players have been asking for Halo 5 to be added to the compilation, but that won’t happen. Halo: MCC originally released on Xbox One back in 2014, and it had a terrible launch. However, 343 committed to fixing the game, and it is indeed in a very good state these days, with 4K/120FPS support on Xbox Series X.

Halo: MCC is also available on PC. Each game rolled out individually, with Halo 4 rounding out the pack when it was released in November 2020.

The next Halo game is Halo Infinite, which is launching in Fall 2021 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The multiplayer element of the game will be completely free-to-play.

Hitman 3 is bringing a new shortcut feature to the third-person stealth shooter. “Persistent shortcuts” will reward players for exploring the sequel’s various maps by unlocking permanent shortcuts that give players new ways to approach their assassinations.

These shortcuts are only available by searching for hidden secrets in levels–players will find things like unlockable ladders that’ll open up new pathways they’ll be able to use in future playthroughs. Each shortcut can only be unlocked from one side, so it’ll take some investigative work to find out how to access them.

Game Informer showcased one of these shortcuts from the Dubai level of Hitman 3 in a short video.

IO Interactive hopes this will encourage experimentation, exploration, and replayability for Hitman 3 when it launches on PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PS5, and PS4 on January 20. It’s also coming to the Nintendo Switch through cloud gaming. It’ll be an Epic Games Store timed exclusive on PC.

You can check out the first cinematic for Hitman 3, the final game in the new Hitman trilogy, ahead of its launch this month. You may want to finish the first two games if you haven’t already. This trailer will spoil some of the story from those games. Levels from the first two games will be playable in Hitman 3 as well.

Slay the Spire, the popular indie card-battler roguelike, is getting a board game in 2021. Contention Games, which is known for another board game called Imperium, is developing the game for four players.

Contention Games’ website has next to no information on what its version of Slay the Spire will include. It does say that it’ll be designed for players age 12 and up and will have rounds that will last around 45 minutes. That’s roughly how long it takes to climb all three spires in a normal run of Slay the Spire.

Slay the Spire is a roguelike where players build a deck of random cards as they win turn-based battles and climb the in-game spire. The game launched in 2017 in early access and then officially in 2019. It came to PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and iOS. An Android version is currently in development.

Contention Games’ is launching a Kickstarter sometime in the near future. You can sign up to receive a newsletter and receive a notification when the campaign is live.

“While it’s still disappointing to fail before reaching the end, more often than not that failure can be traced back to a specific decision or series of decisions–be it an ill-advised card acquisition, the choice to upgrade a card rather than heal, or something else,” said GameSpot’s Chris Pereira in his Slay the Spire review. “You never know what the next layer of the spire will bring, but the next delightful quandary to tackle is always right around the corner.”

In an attempt to secure exclusives for the original Xbox, Microsoft uncuccessfully talked about acquiring EA, Square, Mortal Kombat publisher Midway, and even Nintendo – before it found the unexpected trump card of Bungie and Halo.

In a fascinating Bloomberg oral history about the creation of the original Xbox (that contains a lot more of Bill Gates shouting at people than you might expect), multiple Microsoft executives discuss the company’s attempts at acquisitions.

The first company approached was EA – which, due to its dominance in the industry at the time, team members apparently called the Snow White to the rest of the industry’s Seven Dwarves. Then-head of business development Bob McBreen says the answer was “No, thanks”, before Microsoft turned to Nintendo.

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“Steve made us go meet with Nintendo to see if they would consider being acquired,” explains then director of third-party relationships, Kevin Bachus. “They just laughed their asses off. Like, imagine an hour of somebody just laughing at you. That was kind of how that meeting went.”

It seems the teams met more than once, with McBreen adding, “We actually had Nintendo in our building in January 2000 to work through the details of a joint venture where we gave them all the technical specs of the Xbox. The pitch was their hardware stunk, and compared to Sony PlayStation, it did. So the idea was, ‘Listen, you’re much better at the game portions of it with Mario and all that stuff. Why don’t you let us take care of the hardware?’ But it didn’t work out.”

McBreen also discusses that a potential Square takeover went as far as Microsoft providing a letter of intent to buy the company. “The next day,” he continues, “we’re sitting in their boardroom, and they said, ‘Our banker would like to make a statement.’ And basically, the banker said, ‘Square cannot go through with this deal because the price is too low.’ We packed up, we went home, and that was the end of Square.”

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Finally, Bachus explains that the ill-fated Midway Games – most famous for publishing the Mortal Kombat series – was “very serious” about being acquired by Microsoft, but it became a deal with low value to the company.

Fatefully, during this time Microsoft had also received a call from Bungie, enquiring about an acquisition – and from that call came Halo, almost inarguably Xbox’s most iconic franchise, and helping cement what Xbox would become as a result.

The acquisitions are just one part of a fascinating piece on Xbox’s very early history – I highly recommend you give it a read if you’ve enjoyed the above. And if you enjoyed hearing about Xbox history in general, we also have IGN’s own Podcast Unlocked with Head of Xbox Phil Spencer, ex-Head of Xbox Peter Moore, and creator of Xbox Seamus Blackley.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

A survey sent to owners of next-gen Xbox consoles is querying whether users would appreciate the features of the PS5’s DualSense in their Series X or S controller.

As reported by TechRadar, the console experience survey asks owners whether they think the Xbox Series X “feels next-gen” and later asks whether they feel like they are missing out in the peripherals department. “I am aware of features on PlayStation controllers that I wish were on the controller that came with this console,” the question reads.

This is, of course, referring to the PlayStation 5’s DualSense, which offers adaptive triggers for simulating resistance and provides precise haptic feedback, with the goal of increasing immersion in games. By comparison, the Series X controller wasn’t too much of a jump from the last generation, despite the addition of features like a dedicated share button and textured triggers.

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Microsoft’s interest in these questions would suggest that they’re at least thinking about upgrading the next-gen controllers in the future, to line up with Sony’s offering in the current-generation. While that line of thought doesn’t necessarily promise changes in the future, Xbox has a recent history of adding well-received features on other console controllers to its own – the Xbox One controller adopted a 3.5mm jack partway through the last generation, for example.

We reviewed the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller at launch in November 2020, scoring it a 9 and lauding its “tactile feedback” – and called it out as one of PS5’s most impressive features in our overall PlayStation 5 review. We also covered the Xbox Series X controller just weeks before, scoring it an 8 and calling it a “positive evolution”.

If you’ve recently gotten your hands on an Xbox Series X or S, check out our guide on things to do first. If you got a PS5 instead, we’ve got tips on the PS5’s hidden features and settings, and a guide on how best to transfer data from your PS4 to your new console.

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Nintendo has revealed that it is shutting down Netflix functionality on the Wii U and 3DS this June, and there’s still no sign of the streaming service on Nintendo Switch.

The news arrives via the support page for the Netflix Wii U app, which now offers a statement from Nintendo:

“Starting Dec 31st, 2020, the Netflix app will no longer be available for new users to download from Nintendo eShop on the Wii U console or Nintendo 3DS family of systems. During that time, it will be possible for existing users to re-download these applications. Service for existing users will continue until June 30th, 2021. Thank you to everyone who enjoyed Netflix on these platforms over the years.”

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It’s understandable that Nintendo would want to close up shop for these apps on older consoles, but it very much shines a light the fact that the Nintendo Switch, despite its popularity, has yet to receive its own Netflix app. Back in 2017, then-COO of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime said that Nintendo Switch apps for Netflix, Hulu and Amazon “will come in time”.

Switch doesn’t have a huge selection of streaming services, but it does have some – Hulu is already available on the console in the US, and the Anime streaming service Funimation came to Switch as recently as last month, but there’s still no sign of Netflix. Here’s hoping the shutdown of older services might spark some life into Netflix on Switch.

It will be an interesting year for Switch, with rumours of a Pro model continually popping up, no matter how much Nintendo tries to bat them away, and with the hybrid handheld outselling new-gen consoles in the US, even during their launch month.

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

The first official clip from Marvel’s WandaVision has been released ahead of the show’s highly-anticipated premiere on Disney+ later this month.

Elizabeth Olsen appeared as a guest on Tuesday night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live and offered a sneak peek at the upcoming MCU sitcom by way of an exclusive never-before-seen clip from one of the scenes in the nine-episode series. Tune into the first official clip from the show by skipping ahead to the 4:24 marker in the video below:

Elizabeth Olsen on @Marvel’s #WandaVision, fan theories, and an exclusive never-before-seen clip! pic.twitter.com/wktPPXOf2H

— Jimmy Kimmel Live (@JimmyKimmelLive) January 6, 2021

Influenced by a variety of different sitcoms from bygone eras, the black-and-white footage opens with Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany’s Vision sleeping alongside one another in separate beds, replicating a classic TV trope featured in some of the most beloved shows of the ’50s and ’60s such as I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

The 45-second clip then shows the super-powered couple being awoken from their respective slumbers by a bump in the night, which startles Wanda and prompts her to use her powers to turn on the bedroom lights. Vision approaches the window to survey their idyllic suburban street before reassuring his partner that there’s nothing to worry about.

“Are you using your night vision, Vision?” Wanda asks, triggering a canned laughter response in the clip.

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WandaVision is said to be a blend of classic television and the Marvel Cinematic Universe that shifts the couple through various family sitcom styles of several different eras – from the black and white ’50s/early ’60s era to the groovier ’60s/’70s period and the classic ’80s/”TGIF” ’90s. In order to replicate these classic sitcoms, Olsen and Bettany acted out some scenes in front of a live studio audience.

“It was insanity,” Olsen previously said of her live performance in the first episode. “There was something very meta for my own life because I would visit those tapings as a kid, where my sisters were working [on Full House].” Bettany added that the cast and crew were on a “high by the end of it,” as he admitted that they wanted to “keep on running the show” after experiencing the thrill of the live shoot.

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WandaVision will also feature original theme songs penned by Frozen songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez who have collaborated on a bunch of new tracks for several of the episodes in the forthcoming MCU series to help to set the tone for each new decade and further add to the overall authenticity of the era-hopping sitcom.

WandaVision is debuting on Disney+ on January 15 as the first entry in an ambitious new lineup of TV series’ designed to be more closely integrated with Marvel’s movies. For more about the studio’s future slate of projects and releases, read our breakdown of the biggest and most noteworthy developments in the MCU, on Disney+ and in Marvel’s comics this year.

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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.

Nintendo is holding a new Spirit Board event in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate this week. The event kicks off tomorrow, January 7, and it introduces a handful of new Spirits based on the recent Zelda spin-off, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

Three new Age of Calamity Spirits are making their debut as part of the event: Age of Calamity Impa, Master Kohga, and the Diminutive Guardian. All three will be appearing randomly throughout the event, and defeating them will net you extra gold as well as unlocking them for your own use.

The Age of Calamity Spirit event begins at 10 PM PT on January 7 and runs until the same time on January 12.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is another Dynasty Warriors-style Zelda spin-off from Koei Tecmo. The game is set 100 years before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and follows the events leading up to the Great Calamity that ravaged Hyrule. We scored the game a 6/10 in our Age of Calamity review and said it “improves on the combat and structure of Hyrule Warriors, but saps much of the weight from Breath of the Wild’s backstory as it fills in its gaps.”

Smash Bros. Ultimate isn’t the only Switch game holding a new event this month. Tetris 99‘s 19th Maximus Cup runs from January 7-11 and introduces a new Kirby theme, while Splatoon 2‘s Super Mario Splatfest takes place next weekend, from January 15-17.

In other Smash Bros. news, Nintendo is giving away another free item pack for the game. For a limited time, Switch Online subscribers can download the Spirit Board Challenge Pack 7. This bundle comes with a handful of items that will make it easier to defeat tougher Spirits in the Spirit Board mode.