Author: Trafficblast

With Marvel’s Avengers dropping on September 4 for PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and Xbox One, publisher Square Enix has shared some details in preparation for launch. This includes information we’ve already known, as well as tidbits on the Day One patch and Early Access.

This info dump is the first of many, Square Enix said. The company intends to release one every day this week leading up to Marvel’s Avengers’ launch next Friday.

When Do Servers Go Live?

Square Enix didn’t specify when pre-loaded would be available, though anyone who pre-orders Marvel’s Avengers will get 72-hour early access to the game. Still, the company clarified that the servers don’t go live until September 1. A specific time has not been provided.

Day One Patch And One-Time Internet Activation

For anyone who buys the game physically, Square Enix said an 18 GB day one patch will be required to download. The digital version will include the patch alongside the download, though it’s unclear if the patch is the same size. Additionally, players will have to connect to the internet at least once to initiate the download. Otherwise, unless players want to access online multiplayer, a persistent internet connection is not required.

The patch itself, according to Square Enix, includes “several updates and refinements that are required for play.” It also features localization files for dialogue, bug fixes, updates, and tuning from the beta weekends.

72-Hour Early Access For Pre-Orders

Those who pre-order the PlayStation Store Exclusive Digital Edition ($70) or Deluxe Edition ($80) will receive 72-hour early access to Marvel’s Avengers. This means players will be able to access the game as early as Tuesday, September 1. It will unlock at midnight your local time on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and at 9 AM PT on PC and Stadia. Pre-orders will be live until September 1.

Elsewhere in the info dump, the company outlined the Square Enix Member account, which is how players will access post-launch content and redeem promotional pre-launch codes. This includes new heroes, missions, regions, and more. Those who participated in any of the Marvel’s Avengers beta weekends will already have an account tied to their game profile. Everyone else can sign-up for an account for free, and doing so nets you an exclusive Thor nameplate. The membership is required to play the Avengers Initiative co-op missions.

In other Marvel’s Avengers news, dataminers have seemingly unearthed information that suggests the game may feature as many as 15 additional heroes. Alongside Spider-Man, who is a PlayStation exclusive, the list includes Ant-Man, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Doctor Stranger, Mockingbird, She-Hulk, and more.

Ahead of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War‘s reveal, which is slated for August 26, editions of the game have leaked online. There are three available, with two that include a next-gen upgrade. Buying the standard edition on the current-console gen will apparently not get you free access to the PS5 or Xbox Series X versions of the game.

According to a leak reported by Charlie Intel, in addition to the standard edition, there are also the Cross-Gen Bundle and Ultimate editions. All three include access to the beta when you pre-order the game. Each edition comes with the Frank Woods Operator for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone, and the standard and Cross-Gen Bundle versions also feature the Confrontation Weapons Pack.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Pre-Order Bonuses

• Early access to the Open Beta.
• Iconic Operator Frank Woods and an assault rifle Weapon Blueprint for immediate use in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Warzone.
• 10 Tier Skips for immediate use in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Warzone.

The standard edition will be available for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. As the name suggests, the Cross-Gen Bundle features the base game for current- and next-gen (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X) systems. This seemingly indicates publisher Activision will follow the same path as Control publisher 505 Games, which suggested users buy the Ultimate edition if they want the PS5/XSX upgrade. The Ultimate edition includes the Cross-Gen Bundle and bonus Black Ops Cold War content.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Ultimate Edition Contents

• Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War game:
  • Note: console versions include current-gen version and next-gen version when it launches.
• Land, Sea, and Air Pack:
  • 3 Operator Skins.
  • 3 Vehicle Skins.
  • 3 Weapon Blueprints,
• Battle Pass Bundle (1 Season Battle Pass + 20 Tier Skips).
• Confrontation Weapons Pack.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s official reveal is set to go live this Wednesday at 10:30 AM PT / 1:30 PM ET. It will take place inside Warzone and rumors suggest that Verdansk will be overhauled to accommodate Black Ops Cold War’s style and feel. For now, no definitive release date has been announced.

When you try to map the world, you find some weird things. A Redditor recently discovered a bizarre skyscraper jutting out of the Italian countryside, casting long shadows onto the rolling fields of bucolic bliss. What gives? Well, as it turns out, Microsoft Flight Simulator’s world-mapping technology is quite impressive, but it can also come along with some minor mistakes.

A similar monolith was discovered in Melbourne, Australia. According to Twitter user @liamosaur (embedded below), these mistakes are due to typos in OpenStreetMap, the technology that Microsoft Flight Simulator uses for its mapping technology. Apparently, a user typed that their building has 212 floors instead of 2, which led to the creation of the thin monstrosity.

That’s not the only strange sight that you might find in the game. Flight Sim accidentally turned Buckingham Palace into a nondescript block of offices, and also reduced Edinburgh Castle to a number of apartment buildings. As the game gets updated, some of these oddities and mistakes might get fixed, but I hope that the obelisks stay, a digital reminder of how important a typo can be.

Microsoft Flight Simulator has garnered an ecstatic response from fans and critics like. In GameSpot’s 9/10 review, critic Edmond Tran called the game a unique blend of technical prowess and out-and-out fun. “Being encouraged to dive into the rabbit hole of learning how to operate genuine, complex machines to perform amazing feats of science is giddying, as is being able to journey across a realistic, mostly accurate depiction of our entire, beautiful planet. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a spectacular technical achievement and a deeply inspiring experience filled with glorious possibilities.”

Update: A leaked snippet from Call of Duty: Warzone appears to confirm that Sergeant Frank Woods from Call of Duty: Black Ops will be arriving in the game as a ‘Demon Dogs’ Operator.

According to Call of Duty Tracker, the Frank Woods Operator will be a pre-order bonus available to players who purchase the ‘Ultimate Edition’ of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which will also apparently give players early access to the Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Open Beta, and provide a set of in-game cosmetics.

Sergeant Frank Woods will be joining the Demon Dogs in #ModernWarfare and #Warzone as a pre-order bonus for #BlackOpsColdWar!https://t.co/ktWxz3XWtb pic.twitter.com/mqbF8CJJ0K

— Call of Duty Tracker (@CODTracker) August 25, 2020

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Game files found in a new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare update seem to have revealed that Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is a direct sequel to 2010’s Call of Duty: Black Ops.

As spotted by COD Tracker, the game’s description has been found in the datamined files following an update that arrived to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on August 24. The description notes that Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is “the direct sequel to the original and fan-favorite Call of Duty: Black Ops.”

“Black Ops Cold War will drop fans into the depths of the Cold War’s volatile geopolitical battle of the early 1980s,” reads the leaked description. “Nothing is ever as it seems in a gripping single-player Campaign, where players will come face-to-face with historical figures and hard truths, as they battle around the globe through iconic locales like East Berlin, Vietnam, Turkey, Soviet KGB headquarters and more.

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As elite operatives, you will follow the trail of a shadowy figure named Perseus who is on a mission to destabilize the global balance of power and change the course of history. Descend into the dark center of this global conspiracy alongside iconic characters Woods, Mason and Hudson and a new cast of operatives attempting to stop a plot decades in the making.

Beyond the Campaign, players will bring a Cold War arsenal of weapons and equipment into the next generation of Multiplayer and Zombies experiences.”

As teased in the ‘Know Your History’ trailer, it looks like the Black Ops Cold War campaign will be grounded in history, featuring “historical figures and hard truths” while also bringing back fan favourite characters like Woods, Mason and Hudson, who will join a new cast in tracking down Perseus.

The description also appears to confirm that there will be a Zombies mode present in the game and that Cold War weaponry will be brought to the next-generation of Multiplayer. Given Black Ops Cold War’s ties to Call of Duty: Warzone, perhaps this is suggesting that Warzone will benefit from some of the new weapons and items introduced in this year’s Call of Duty.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War was officially confirmed last week, with the vibrant cover art revealed in tandem. The game is set to be fully revealed by Activision on August 26.

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

Frogwares, the developer behind the horror game The Sinking City, has revealed why the game was removed from several platforms recently. In an open letter, the developer has accused publishers Bigben Interactive and Nacon of withholding royalties, several contract breaches, and even attempting to imply that the studio was merely a “technical partner” on the game.

When development on The Sinking City began in 2017, Bigben and Nacon signed a licensing agreement that would give the companies the right to sell and commercialize the game on Xbox One, PS4, and PC through the Epic Games Store and Steam. In exchange, Frogwares would receive financial contributions towards development and still own the intellectual property. Frogwares would receive payments whenever production milestones were completed, as well as a share of the revenue once The Sinking City was released.

Not long after the deal had been signed, Frogwares claims to have encountered its first problem. Money owed for completed production milestones usually came in later than the agreed date, with payments being halted entirely for 4 months after the publishers allegedly demanded that the source code for The Sinking City be handed over to them.

“Once BBI/Nacon bought out a competing studio working on another Lovecraftian game, they dictated that we give them our source code for The Sinking City,” Frogwares explained. “Once again, BBI/Nacon does not own the IP – they are a licensee. They sell the game – not develop and co-create it. After we refused to comply, we stopped receiving financial contributions for over 4 months.”

Development continued on The Sinking City, with Frogwares encountering new obstacles along the way that allegedly included being kept in the dark with regards to sales forecasts and a retroactive cancellation on the agreed upon milestone payments that were still owed, meaning that the studio receive any profit from the sales of the game.

Frogwares filed a lawsuit against Bigben and Nacon in August 2019, which only raised more questions. Income reports that the studio received were allegedly incomplete and undocumented, resulting in the developer being unable to see if the revenue was correctly calculated or how many units of the game had been sold. There was also the curious case of a statement claiming that a console manufacturer had not paid royalties for more than five months, which Frogwares found curious as payments for their other games had always come in on time.

The studio also claims that the publishers attempted to create a false perception that the developer had very little input on the game, which included removing the Frogwares logo wherever possible, purchasing Sinking City domain names without informing the studio, and even creating a tabletop RPG based on the game while keeping Frogwares in the dark.

“Our Frogwares logo was removed from some of the PS4 and Xbox One game’s cover and other marketing materials and we only were mentioned on the reverse side with the technical partners, again, creating a perception that we were neither the authors, nor the owners of the game,” the studio explained. “Dozens of domain names for our Sherlock Holmes and The Sinking City brands were bought by Bigben/Nacon without notifying us. A tabletop The Sinking City RPG was created without even informing us, and distributed freely, featuring the wrong copyright notice.”

Claiming it is now owed roughly 1 million euros in royalties, Frogwares has decided to formally terminate its contract with Bigben and Nacon. To reverse the perception that the publishers own The Sinking City and retake control of its intellectual property, Frogwares requested removal from several stores so as to prevent the profits of any remaining sales from going to the publishers.

“To all the players that wish to buy The Sinking City – we are more than willing to have the game be present everywhere and we will inform you as we reappear on more platforms on our social channels,” Frogwares explained.

Frogwares ended its letter on a more optimistic note, saying that the studio hopes that the transparency behind its actions will result in creating a more ethical video game industry.

GameSpot has reached out to Nacon for comment, and will report back when they reply.