Author: Trafficblast

If you haven’t picked up Assassin’s Creed Valhalla just yet, GameStop has a great deal on the open-world action game that you can take advantage of right now. As part of GameStop’s Green Monday sale, you can pick up Assassin’s Creed Valhalla for $45 on PS5/PS4 and Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One. This is the lowest price we’ve seen for Valhalla since it launched last month, but the deal is only available today, December 14.

The Xbox version of Valhalla works on both Series X|S and Xbox One, and it comes with a free upgrade. For PlayStation owners, you can pick between the PS4 and PS5 version. The PS4 edition also works on PS5 and has a free upgrade, while the PS5 version is only compatible with PS5.

The latest entry in the long-running series earned an 8/10 in GameSpot’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla review. “Despite its strong connection to past games, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is more than capable of standing on its own,” editor Jordan Ramée wrote. It takes a little while to build momentum, but when it hits its stride, Valhalla is a confident Assassin’s Creed title that takes a few narrative risks which, as a whole, pay off. Eivor is a good hero with an identity that drives the mystery behind the main narrative, and she shines in the self-contained arc structure of Valhalla’s story. The supporting cast may not shine as brightly, but it’s easy to forgive that when exploring England and discovering new nuggets of worldbuilding is so rewarding.”

Valhalla is the standout deal in GameStop’s Green Monday sale, but there are more solid discounts worth considering as well. Persona 5 Royal’s steelbook edition is down to $25, Marvel’s Avengers is $25, and pre-owned Xbox One and PS4 controllers are $30 each. You can check out the full Green Monday sale at GameStop and see our picks below.

Best GameStop Green Monday deals

Electronic Arts has announced that it has made an offer to acquire racing game developer Codemasters for $1.2 billion. Back in November Take-Two Interactive made an offer of $994 million, which would have added racing franchises such as Dirt, Dirt Rally, and F1 to its library of games. EA’s announcement was initially revealed by Sky News and officially confirmed this week.

The Codemasters board of directors has approved the bid, saying that EA’s experience in creating live service games and its wealth of resources will allow EA to dominate the racing game genre once the company adds the various Codemasters studios to its collection.

“With the full leverage of EA’s technology, platform expertise, and global reach, this combination will allow us to grow our existing franchises and deliver more industry-defining racing experiences to a global fan base,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said.

Take-Two had originally offered Codemasters $994 million in November before EA made its counter-offer. EA’s deal is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2021. In a statement on its investor website, Take-Two said, “Take-Two is considering its position in relation to Codemasters and a further announcement will be made when appropriate.”

Burnout developer Criterion Games was acquired by EA back in 2004 and tasked with producing three Need for Speed games from 2010-2013. Recent games in the series have been handled by EA Gothenberg, formerly known as Ghost Games.

Nintendo has announced that a brand-new Indie World Showcase will help “ring in the holidays” on Tuesday, December 15 at 9am PT/12pm ET/5pm GMT.

Announced on Nintendo’s Twitter, this showcase will last “roughly 15 minutes” and will feature “updates and new announcements on indie games coming to #NintendoSwitch from our global partners.

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The last Nintendo Indie World Showcase took place in August 2020 and announced that Hades would be coming to Nintendo Switch, gave release dates for Spiritfarer and A Short Hike, and unveiled that Untitled Goose Game would be getting a free, two-player cooperative mode.

This also follows Nintendo’s October Direct Mini that featured the announcement of a Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity demo, Bravely Default 2’s demo, Control’s Cloud Version on Switch, and more.

These upcoming games, whatever they my be, will undoubtedly only continue help the Nintendo Switch, which was once again the best-selling video game system in November 2020 after selling over 1.35 million units.

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For more on Nintendo Switch, check out the best Nintendo gifts for the 2020 holiday season and our current list of the best Nintendo Switch games available.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Fans of The Witcher have been invited to participate in Netflix’s ‘6 Days of Witchmas’ campaign, which will see highly requested content released daily on social media.

The Witchmas celebration was announced on The Witcher’s official Twitter account, where a thread of tweets revealed more about the holiday-themed event, which is set to begin on December 16 and end on December 21. During this period, fans will be asked to vote daily to accept a “gift” or invoke the “Law of Surprise,” with the winning choice revealed the following day together with the next gift and vote.

I come bearing an invitation to a special #Witchmas celebration!

You are cordially invited to the 6 DAYS OF WITCHMAS, a holiday feast where nobody has to mingle, and everybody receives a gift!

— The Witcher (@witchernetflix) December 14, 2020

“I have acquired these gifts by searching far and wide for the ‘content’ that you so often request from me,” The Witcher tweets explained. “You may choose to accept that gift, OR you may choose to invoke the Law of Surprise. The decision will be made as a collective, based on a vote that will be held here. The winning choice will be revealed the following day – along with a new offering and another vote.”

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“Choose wisely,” a further tweet warned. “For my gift offers are sincere, but the Law of Surprise is out of my musically-gifted hands.”

Season 2 of The Witcher started filming in London earlier this year, with a planned release sometime in 2021. However, the shoot was suspended back in March as Netflix paused filming on all of its films and TV shows in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Netflix then resumed production on the Henry Cavill-led show in August after being given the “green light” to start filming again.

Fans of The Witcher will probably be hoping to see some more Season 2 surprises during the upcoming Witchmas celebration, especially after previous social media drops revealed exclusive photos of Cavill’s Geralt of Rivia in all-new armour, Anya Chalotra’s bound and bloodied Yennefer, and Freya Allan’s Ciri who looked just about ready to start her training at Kaer Morhen, per our slideshow below.

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Before the Witchmas feast commences, check out our breakdown of all the clues about The Witcher Season 2 so far or dive further into the extraordinary world of the hit fantasy series by watching Netflix’s behind-the-scenes specials Making The Witcher and A Look Inside the Episodes, then find out why we think Netflix is actually the best place for video game adaptations.

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

Phasmophobia players can now accept contracts in a new medium-sized level–the prison. The new level launched in beta at the end of November, but is now available to all players in the live build of the game.

Because the prison is new, it’ll always be available in the contract selection for the next few updates, giving players more opportunity to get acquainted with the two-level map. The prison joins a selection of maps including several residential houses and farmhouses, a school, and an asylum–still the game’s biggest map.

Phasmophobia is the first game by UK Studio Kinetic Games, which launched in early access this September. The game sees players team up with up to three others to investigate a haunting and try to identify what kind of ghost is causing it. Phasmophobia became a surprise hit after being picked up by numerous Twitch streamers, and ended up taking home the award for Best Debut Game at The Game Awards this month.

While Phasmophobia was originally intended to only spend a short time in early access, that period has been extended due to the amount of interest in the game. The game has a public Trello board showing what future updates are planned or currently being worked on, which says that the next levels Kinetic are planning on adding will be an apartment building and a mansion.

CD Projekt Red has apologised for not showing the base PS4 and Xbox One versions of Cyberpunk 2077 before launch, promised more patches, and offered refunds to those unsatisfied.

In a statement on Twitter signed by senior members of the studio, the developer addressed player concerns about major issues when Cyberpunk is run on original PS4 and Xbox One consoles.

“First of all,” reads the statement, “we would like to start by apologizing to you for not showing the game on base last-gen consoles before it premiered and, in consequence, not allowing you to make a more informed decision about your purchase. We should have paid more attention to making it play better on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.”

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— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) December 14, 2020

The statement goes on to point out that bug fixes have begun – with hotfix 1.04 released last week – with another update coming “within the next 7 days”. CD Projekt says it will update “whenever new improvements are ready”, with two larger patches to come in January and February. “Together these should fix the most prominent problems gamers are facing on last-gen consoles.”

After early reports around refunds began circling over the weekend, CD Projekt Red also confirmed that it will offer full refunds to console version owners who don’t want to wait for the updates:

“For copies purchased digitally, please use the refund system of PSN or Xbox respectively. For boxed versions, please first try to get a refund at the store where you bought the game. Should this not be possible, please contact us at [email protected] and we will do our best to help you. Starting from today, you can contact us for a week up until December 21st, 2020.”

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Developing…

Despite a series of delays for polish for Cyberpunk 2077, the game itself has been performing poorly from a technical standpoint on current-gen Xbox One and PlayStation 4 systems. This means very low frame rates, game-affecting bugs, graphical glitches, and game crashes, all of which have rendered it largely unplayable for many using base-level consoles. It’s been bad enough to the point that developer CD Projekt Red itself issued an official statement on the matter, and mentioned options for players who have been unsatisfied with the experience.

The statement begins as an apology, but subsequently promises a series of patches to improve the experience on Xbox One and PS4. CD Projekt Red says that an update is planned in the next seven days and smaller updates will be released when they’re ready. The team also said that two large patches are planned for Cyberpunk 2077–the first in January and a second in February–that promise to address the larger problems players have faced in the base-console versions.

Lastly, CD Projekt Red is offering refunds. Those who purchased the game digitally will have to go through the respective routes on Xbox and PlayStation ecosystems to do so, and those with physical copies can go to their respective retailers. If that’s not possible, the developer is also offering help directly where you can contact the company at [email protected] up until December 21 this year.

You can view the full statement from CD Projekt Red on the situation of Cyberpunk 2077’s technical performance and refund options below.

For more on the game, be sure to check out our full Cyberpunk 2077 review. This isn’t the first time the game has shown issues in need of fixing–the latest patch, version 1.04, addressed seizure-inducing scenes affecting those with epilepsy, music copyright issues for content creators, and a number of other problems.

Shakedown Hawaii, the 16-bit styled throwback sequel to Retro City Rampage, is coming to PS5 with enhancements. This means that the game will be available across four different PlayStation systems–the PS3, PS4, PS5, and PS Vita.

Thanks to crossbuy, if you own the game on any previous system, you’ll have immediate access to the PS5 version.

Developer VBlank Entertainment announced that the game will use the PS5 DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers to give weapons “a more distinct feeling,” and it’ll use the controller’s enhanced vibrations, too. This can be toggled off if you’re not interested, though.

The trophy set on PS5 is also being expanded, and a Platinum trophy is being introduced for the first time. The PS5 trophies will be seperate from the other versions, so you can re-earn them if you’d like.

The PS5 version will also get all the updates that have been released for other platforms so far. It’ll release digitally on December 15.

Shakedown Hawaii also came to Wii and Wii U, making it one of the final–or possibly the final–game released for these consoles, with Just Dance finally bowing out after Just Dance 2020.

Frosty Fest, which has happened every year since 2017, is back in Rocket League for another year. The event adds new festive cosmetic items, limited-time events, and a snowy makeover to the recently free-to-play vehicular sports game.

The event begins on December 14, and runs through until January 4, 2021. At the beginning of the event, a limited-time Winter Breakaway mode will be available, which will be replaced by Spike Rush on December 21, and then 2v2 Heatseeker on December 28. These modes will all be played on snowy arenas.

Over the course of the event, the Floeberg Antenna will be available for free from the Item Shop, while numerous other themed items will be available through completing Event Challenges. These include some re-released items that were available in previous Frosty Fest events.

You can check those out in the gallery below.

Gallery

Season 2 of Rocket League has begun, adding new music and an arena to the game, as well as a new Rocket Pass. If you’re playing the game on Xbox Series X/S or PS5, the game has been updated for next-gen and has received a nice boost.