Author: Trafficblast

Horizon Forbidden West, the sequel to 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn, launches on PS5 and PS4 sometime in 2021. Without a doubt, it’s one of the most anticipated releases of this year, and with a PS5 State of Play livestream scheduled for this Thursday at 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET, it’s possible we’ll learn even more details about the upcoming open-world adventure. In any case, PlayStation is clearly preparing for increased hype around the game, as new Horizon Forbidden West merch is available now from the PlayStation Gear Store. The Gear Store ships to the US, Canada, and Mexico–and most recently, it now ships to Europe as well.

The new Horizon merch line has released under developer Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Raw Materials brand and adds three T-shirts as well as three pieces of drinkware to the Gear Store’s Horizon collection. Each of the new tees is made of 100% cotton and features imagery from the game. There are also two new mugs and a water bottle, each of which has a minimalistic Horizon design and is vacuum-insulated to keep drinks hot or cold.

In addition to the new Horizon Raw Materials merch, the PlayStation Gear Store has brought back previously released Horizon products, like The Sunhawk graphic novel, Horizon Zero Dawn: The Board Game, and the Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete OST vinyl. So if you’re on edge waiting for news about Forbidden West, you can at least tide yourself over with some Horizon retail therapy. You can check out the full Horizon Forbidden West and Zero Dawn collection below. In some cases, merch is available for cheaper elsewhere (like Amazon), so we’ve linked that where possible.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is celebrating this week’s launch of Bravely Default II with a new Spirit Board event. The event kicks off at 10 PM PT tomorrow, February 25, and introduces the four Heroes of Light from Square Enix’s newest Switch RPG as Spirits.

The heroes are paired up to make two different Spirits: Seth & Gloria and Elvis & Adelle. Each of those will appear periodically on the Spirit Board throughout the event. You’ll also earn extra Spirit Points each time you defeat the new Bravely Default Spirits. The event runs until 10 PM PT on March 2.

Bravely Default II launches for Switch on February 26. Despite the number in its title, it’s actually the third proper installment in its series thus far, following the original Bravely Default and its sequel, Bravely Second. Bravely Default II is also a self-contained adventure, featuring an original cast of characters and story.

Ahead of Bravely Default II’s release, Square Enix recently shared a new trailer explaining the game’s battle system. A free demo for the game is also available on the Switch eShop, and everyone who downloads it before Bravely Default II launches will earn 100 bonus My Nintendo Platinum points. You can read more about the upcoming RPG in our Bravely Default II preorder guide.

Smash Bros. Ultimate’s next DLC fighters are Pyra and Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The newcomers were first revealed during Nintendo’s February 2021 Direct presentation, and game director Masahiro Sakurai will give us an in-depth look at them during a dedicated Smash Bros. stream next week, on March 4. The two-in-one character is slated to arrive sometime next month.

The inaugural Gayming Awards, which was presented by EA Games and streamed exclusively on Twitch, have awarded Supergiant Games’ Hades its first Game of the Year.

Hades, Tell Me Why, and If Found… all led the way with two wins each at the Gayming Awards 2021, and most of the winners were chosen by an international judging panel of LGBTQ+ video game industry professionals. The LGBTQ Streamer of the Year Award and the Readers’ Award were decided by public vote.

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“I am so proud to be able to say we have held the world’s first LGBTQ video game award show,” The Gayming Magazine founder and editor Robin Gray said. “2020 was truly a watershed moment for LGBTQ inclusion in games and to be able to celebrate it with everyone, although virtually, was amazing! Congratulations to all the winners, well done to all the nominees and thank you again to all our sponsors! See you in 2022!”

The full list of winners of the Gayming Awards 2021 are as follows;

• Game of the Year: Hades
• Gayming Icon Award: Robert Yang
• Gayming Magazine Readers’ Award: Hades
• Best LGBTQ Indie Game Award: If Found…
• Industry Diversity Award: I Need Diverse Games
• LGBTQ Streamer of the Year: DEERE
• Best LGBTQ Character Award: Tyler Ronan – Tell Me Why
• Authentic Representation Award: Tell Me Why
• Best LGBTQ Narrative Award: If Found…

Hades was IGN’s Game of the Year for 2020, and it also took home the Best Indie Game and Best Action Game awards at The Game Awards 2020.

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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.

The Halo TV series has been in development for a very long time, but it should finally see the light of day in 2022. However, the series is no longer debuting on Showtime, but will instead be exclusive to the Paramount+ streaming service.

Deadline broke the news about this latest change in direction for Halo: The Series, which is being officially announced at the ViacomCBS Streaming Event today.

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Halo: The Series has been plagued by false starts and complications for years at this point. For a while it seemed as though the show’s woes were behind it when it began production in 2020. But as with so many Hollywood projects, production was suspended due to the pandemic. Luckily, Halo is back on track. Production is back underway in Budapest, and ViacomCBS is now teasing a Q1 2022 premiere window.

Halo: The Series stars Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief, Danny Sapani and Olive Gray as Jacob and Miranda Keyes, Bokeem Woodbine as Soren-066, Shabana Azmi as Admiral Margaret Parangosky, and Bentley Kalu, Natasha Culzac and Kate Kennedy as three new Spartan characters. Natascha McElhone plays Dr. Catherine Halsey. Originally McElhone was supposed to play dual roles, also providing the voice of Master Chief’s AI partner Cortana. But due to scheduling difficulties caused by the pandemic, Cortana will now be voiced by her video game voice actress, Jen Taylor.

The Showtime series is being made in production with game developers 343 Industries and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. Peaky Blinders and Black Mirror director Otto Bathurst is due to direct and executive produce the 9-episode first season.

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It remains to be seen which of the various Halo games, novels and comics might inspire the plot of the TV series. It’s rumored the series may break from tradition by showing Master Chief’s face, but that remains unconfirmed. IGN has been able to see Schreiber’s Mjolnir armor behind closed doors, and can report that it looks fantastic.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Henry Cavill, who has already brought Geralt to life in Netflix’s The Witcher, has just teased that he may be working on a project set in the Mass Effect universe.

Cavill shared an photo of himself on Instagram with the words, “Secret project? Or just a handful of paper with random words on it… Guess you’ll have to wait and see. Happy hump day all. #HumpDay #Secrets”

Included with the image was part of what appears to be a script or a “handful of paper with random words on it,” but it is too blurry to clearly make out what is on the page.

GamePressure used a program called Focus Magic to remove the blur, and the clearer image reveals such words as Cerberus, Tali’Zorah, and Geth. IGN has also used Focus Magic to fix the image and can confirm these words do appear, as you can see below.

Fans of the Mass Effect franchise will immediately know that these are words and characters pulled right from that beloved trilogy. Furthermore, it appears that the text Cavill has shown us comes directly from Mass Effect 3’s Wikipedia page.

“Following the events on Tuchanka and a failed coup by Cerberus to take over the Citadel, the quarians offer their support to the Alliance if Shepard helps them reclaim their homeworld, Rannoch, from the geth,” The Wikipedia page reads. “Assisted by a quarian, either Tali’Zorah or Admiral Daro’Xen, Shepard boards a geth dreadnought and rescues a captive geth unit, either Legion or a facsimile occupied by a geth virtual intelligence (VI), then disables the Reaper control signal over the geth.”

A possible Mass Effect movie has been in the works as far back as the late 2000s. In 2010, Legendary Pictures acquired the movie rights to the franchise and was set to feature the producers behind The Dark Knight and Spider-Man. There have been more rumors as the years have went on, but nothing too substantial has come since then.

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This could be a hint that Cavill may soon be taking on the role of Commander Shepard or another character in either a film or TV adaptation. It’s also possible he could be lending his voice to a game project or otherwise.

After a controversial ending to Mass Effect 3 and the mixed reception on Mass Effect Andromeda, BioWare is gearing up to bring Mass Effect back to its prime, and this could be another part in their plan to do so.

The Mass Effect Legendary Edition is set to be released on May 13, 2021, and BioWare has announced that a brand-new Mass Effect game is in “early production.”

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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.

Superman and The Witcher TV series actor Henry Cavill made a cryptic post on Instagram that’s leading some fans to speculate he’s working on a Mass Effect project.

The post reads, “Secret project? Or just a handful of paper with random words on it…. Guess you’ll have to wait and see. Happy hump day all.” It’s accompanied by a piece of paper with the writing blurred to obscure its contents. But when the text is sharpened, it appears to show some key phrases like “Cerberus,” “Tali’Zorah,” and “Geth,” via GamePressure.

GameSpot de-blurred and noted some of the same words, though it’s always possible that being primed to see certain key words influenced that perception. The paper could be a description of the Rannoch mission, pulled from the Mass Effect 3 Wiki, as it includes those key phrases in that order. It’s unknown why Cavill would be studying a particular game mission for a role, however.

BioWare currently has two Mass Effect projects in development that we know of: the remastered Mass Effect: Legendary Edition trilogy and the next Mass Effect game. There is no Mass Effect show or movie currently in the works, that we know of.

But Cavill is a fan of video games himself, having lobbied for his role in The Witcher on Netflix due to his enjoyment of the series. He’s also made a point of sharing himself building his own gaming PCs. It’s possible he’s looking to get involved in an upcoming project and researching the role. Or, he could just be trolling the fans. Time will tell.

Destiny 2‘s Presage Exotic mission will earn you Dead Man’s Tale, a new Exotic scout rifle. But if you want to further improve the gun with its Exotic catalyst, you’ll have to take on a much tougher version of the mission, while also seeking out a whole lot of secrets aboard the Glykon. Here’s how to get the Dead Man’s Tale catalyst, what it’s good for, and how to unlock it quickly.

Earning the catalyst requires you to complete Presage at least twice, but you’ll get faster progress on the catalyst if you’re willing to run it several times. There are a lot of moving parts involved with the new Exotic quest, however. It seems that you’ll want to run the mission at least once a week to get the maximum speed out of your catalyst progress.

We’ve got plenty more coverage of the Presage mission, including a complete guide of how to access Presage and how to uncover all of its secrets, and a rundown of all of the hidden lore found within it so far.

Step 1: Get The At Your Fingertips Exotic Quest

Once you’ve cleared Presage once and unlocked Dead Man’s Tale, Zavala will have a new quest for you, called At Your Fingertips. The Exotic quest sends you back to the Glykon, where Presage takes place, to explore it more thoroughly. It also unlocks the Master difficulty version of the mission, which has a suggested Power level of 1320. You’ll want to make sure you’ve geared up to handle the more-difficult enemies found within.

Step 2: Complete Presage On Master Difficulty

This is where the fun beings. Presage on Master has a suggested Power level of 1320, making the enemies found within drastically tougher to defeat than in the standard version–which is already no picnic. The tougher mission also includes a bunch of new modifiers, including Match Game, which makes it almost impossible to destroy enemy shields unless you hit them with the same element type. Finally, Master difficulty Presage includes a 25-minute timer, so you’ll need to sprint through it as quickly as you can; make sure you know the route through the mission very well or you’re going to fail a lot.

Master Presage also includes the Champions: Mob modifier, which suggests the mission will spawn extra Champion enemies throughout. At least in its first week, this doesn’t seem to be the case–the mission actually includes no Champions right now. It’s not clear if the inclusion of Champions: Mob is a mislabeling and the mission is not supposed to include Champions, or if it’s bugged and no Champions are spawning. Either way, you might want to complete it as soon as possible, before Bungie has a chance to patch it and make it even tougher.

We highly recommend you bring a full three-player fireteam for Presage on Master difficulty, especially if you’re not at max Power level. The mission is tough primarily because it’s easy to get overwhelmed thanks to Match Game and because the timer can end your run even if you’re doing well. Having three players also allows you to bring a variety of weapons to bear in the mission.

As far as loadout, we recommend bringing along powerful boss-killing weapons. We had the best luck with at least one Anarchy, which allows you to do sustained damage to the Locus of Communion boss even after you escape from the lower section of the boss room during the fight. Ticuu’s Divination can also be highly effective for clearing out weaker enemies with massive explosions. Hard Light is an obvious choice for knocking out enemy shields, and sniper rifles such as Succession from the Deep Stone Crypt raid can be very effective for taking down distant enemies who can make your life difficult.

Note that the final fight is almost all enemies with Solar shields on the top floor, and Arc shields on the bottom floor, so plan accordingly. You only need to defeat the boss within the time limit.

Finish the mission and return to Zavala to complete At Your Fingertips and earn the catalyst. You’ll now need to fully progress it in order to unlock its benefits.

Step 3: Search For Hidden Caches In Presage

There are two ways to complete the Dead Man’s Tale catalyst. First, you can rack up kills with the weapon–but that’s likely to take a while. Another method (arguably even slower, though) is to advance the catalyst by finding secret caches hidden throughout the Presage mission. This is a bit of a process in and of itself, but each cache you find will give you approximately 12.5% completion on the catalyst, allowing you to make significant leaps in unlocking it.

How To Unlock Presage Caches

There are seeming a lot of hidden caches aboard the Glykon, and you can find them in the Presage mission, but you can’t always access them. They’re marked by small datapad consoles you’ll find on the ground near locked doors; interact with the datapad, and the door opens, revealing a chest. The thing is, you can’t interact with the datapads until you accomplish a specific goal that seems tied to the lore book that drops from Presage completions, called Captain’s Log.

After the first time you complete Presage, you can re-run the mission to unlock new versions of Dead Man’s Tale with different perks. Completing the mission once per week after your first run also unlocks a page of the Captain’s Log lore book. At the end of each lore entry is mention of a hidden cache, so it seems like you need the lore page before the cache will become accessible to you. It appears that you can get one new lore page per week, per account.

Here’s where you can find the caches that are available in the mission so far.

Hidden Cache 1: Inside The First Vent

Right after you find the entrance to the ship by platforming around the side of it, you’ll enter a tight, red-tinted ventilation shaft. Watch for a vent cover you can shoot out on your left, covered by some of those weird Darkness vines. Inside is the datapad and your first locked door.

Hidden Cache 2: In The Floor

Keep moving through that first set of vents and you’ll walk right over the second hidden cache. It’s in a hallway painted blue along the path back to the front door of the Glykon, still in the first set of hallways after you enter the vent from the outside.

We’ll continue to update this list as more caches become available.

What The Dead Man’s Tale Catalyst Does

Like all Exotic catalysts, the one for Dead Man’s Tale significantly changes how the weapon works, adding new benefits to using it. First, the gun will now drop Orbs of Power whenever you score multikills, which can allow you and your teammates to earn your Super abilities more quickly.

The catalyst also adds a new perk that increases the gun’s hip-fire rate, making it fire very quickly when you’re not aiming down the sights. The catalyst also does away with the targeting penalty you’d normally suffer for not aiming, making it possible to score headshots with the gun a lot more easily. Essentially, this makes Dead Man’s Tale very similar to another well-loved Exotic, The Last Word, allowing you to unload on targets from the hip with a high degree of accuracy. The catalyst increases the lethality of Dead Man’s Tale quite a bit, especially in PvP situations.