Author: Trafficblast

Deathloop, the upcoming PlayStation 5 and PC title from Arkane, is going to be a violent experience. You’ll play as Colt, who is being hunted by and has to take down multiple assassins, and naturally you’re going to kill a lot of people. As such, a lot of the game’s art and marketing so far has featured weapons and people wielding them.

However, the latest concept art shown off on the game’s Twitter account is much calmer, and focuses on some of the interior designs the team has worked up for the game. Nice staircases? The game has them. A music feature wall with a guitar and records affixed to it? Very chic. And look at those planter boxes!

It’s a shame you’ll likely get blood on those polished floors.

The game’s kitschy retro-future style is captured well in this concept art–the game looks stunning in-motion.

Deathloop is due out before the end of 2020. It could be a PS5 launch title, but Sony hasn’t announced when the system will be available yet.

Games for Change has announced the 2020 awards recipients following a virtual ceremony. The big winner was Media Molecule, but the socially conscious-focused awards gave accolades to games across several categories. This marks the 17th year for the awards, which honors game developers who strive to make a social impact through immersive media.

Media Molecule’s Dreams was awarded Game of the Year along with the Most Innovative award. Sky: Children of Light was the second-most awarded game, taking home both the People’s Choice award and Best Gameplay. It earned the popular award with more than 14,000 votes. Games for Change says this year’s awards received more than 14 times as many votes as prior years.

Other award winners included Sea of Solitude (Most Significant Impact), Best Learning Game (Rabbids Coding), Resilience (Best Student Game), and The Holy City (Best XR For Change). The ceremony also honored Gordon Bellamy with the Vanguard Award for his work creating inclusive LGBTQ+ spaces in the gaming community, and Humble Bundle with the inaugural G4C Giving Award. Microsoft was given the Industry Leadership award.

“The 2020 Games for Change winners are redefining the boundaries of technology, empowering an ever-diversifying audience, and exemplifying what it means to use technology for good,” said G4C president Susanna Pollack, in a statement. “These winning games exemplify ‘play’ as we know it by delivering experiences that transport us, connect us and even strengthen our inner resolve with inventive and joyful narratives and clever mechanics.”

Games for Change 2020 Award Winners

• Game of the Year and Most Innovative Game: Dreams
• Best Gameplay and People’s Choice: Sky: Children of the Light
• Most Significant Impact: Sea of Solitude
• Best Learning Game: Rabbids Coding
• Best Student Game: Resilience
• Best XR for Change: The Holy City
• G4C Vanguard Award: Gordon Bellamy
• G4C Giving Award: Humble Bundle
• G4C Industry Leadership Award: Microsoft

EA Sports has published its latest “Gridiron Notes” blog post for Madden NFL 21, this time covering what’s new in terms of offensive and defensive playbooks, and improvements to AI. Additionally, EA is promising more substantial regular updates to this year’s game.

Starting with the new playbooks, the Live Playbooks feature from Madden 20 is coming to Madden 21 with a 2.0 version. Like last year, Live Playbooks are updates to the playbooks to reflect what happens in the real NFL, and EA is promising more substantial updates this year.

“For Madden NFL 21 we are increasing the amount of content we are delivering via Title Updates. As this feature evolves, it will increasingly become the way we add new playbook content to the game,” EA said. “We are already in the process of working on new playbook content that will bring even more variety and authenticity to our playbooks.”

One example that EA provided is that the New England Patriots signed the QB Cam Newton during the offseason. To reflect this, the NFL Live Playbook for the Patriots will factor in Newtown’s fast-paced and dynamic play style, which is very different from how former QB Tom Brady was known to play.

EA will update the NFL Live Playbooks throughout the entire NFL season, but the baseline playbooks in Madden NFL 21 are getting updates, too. “The first change you’ll notice is all the NFL Live updates from Madden NFL 20 have been added to all the default team playbooks where applicable,” EA said. “And just like we’ve done previously, all teams with a new head coach or coordinator will have playbook content that reflects the schemes of those specific coaches, based on research like film study and coach interviews.”

You can see new plays for various NFL teams in the images below.

Defensive playbooks are also being updated for Madden NFL 21. In short, players will have more formation and play options, and the overall goal was to make them “more unique by focusing on including the primary formations that each team uses in real life,” EA said.

The blog post also covers the various general gameplay changes that EA has made this year, including better ball-handoff animations so they become the same speed no matter which direction the runner is headed. Additionally, block-shedding by defensive players is now related to handoff speeds. “These two changes have made more running plays reliable options in the ground game, while also bringing balance to overused plays, such as stretch and dive,” EA said.

Other subtle changes include a greater variety of stance animations for receivers to better depict their body type. EA has also adjusted “some issues” with how receivers would run their routes.

Run-pass option plays, which were introduced in Madden NFL 20, are getting some further refinements for this year’s game. For “Peek” plays specifically, the running back will now take a more “inside zone track” to better reflect how the play might unfold in real life.

Also in the blog post, EA spoke about some of the improvements to AI when you’re playing against the computer. AI-controlled QBs will now make better decisions reading the defense and finding the open receiver. Additionally, AI QBs will be smarter about throwing to the receiver with the highest likelihood of completing a catch based on the specific scenario.

For defense, AI players will mix things up and call a variety of different plays in goal-line situations to give you more of a challenge and require you to get more creative. Additionally, AI teams will be generally smarter about clock management and they will make better decisions about calling specific types of plays depending on the situation of the game. In years past, the AI might not might not have called a risky play, even if they needed to try it to win, but the AI will be more aggressive and risk-taking in certain situations this year.

This is just a small sampling of some of the updates for Madden NFL 21 this year–be sure to read the full Gridiron Notes blog post to get up to speed on everything.

Madden NFL 21 is coming on August 28 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. It will also be coming to the next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X, with free upgrades for current-gen owners through EA’s Dual Entitlement program. For more details check out our Madden NFL 21 pre-order guide.

For more on Madden NFL 21, check out the latest player ratings here.

Dragon’s Dogma, the Capcom RPG that launched on Xbox 360 and PS3 before eventually coming (as the upgraded Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen) to PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch, is releasing an anime adaptation soon. The anime, which was announced by Netflix in March 2019, is coming to Netflix on September 17.

Netflix has announced the release date alongside a first-look poster and a single sentence of description. “Only the Arisen can face the Dragon and defeat the apocalypse,” the announcement tweet reads.

You can see the poster, which presumably shows off the anime’s art style, below.

Some first screenshots for the series were also released on Facebook. They show off a mix of 2D and 3D animation, and while they’re not the most action-packed, you get a good look at the dragon here.

Dragon’s Dogma is being handled by animation studio Sublimation, the studio behind zombie anime movie Walking Meat. No casting has been announced for the project, which will be a series rather than a movie.

This is not the first game to receive a Netflix anime adaptation. Castlevania was renewed for a fourth season earlier this year.

Hopefully the anime will be a hit–fans of Dragon’s Dogma are still holding out hope for a sequel.

Apex Legends Season 5 has seen developer Respawn try to tell the ongoing story of the game in a new way, with weekly single-player quests and accompanying lore drops revealing more about the world. The final one of these quests to come during Season 5 is now live, and those who have collected 45 Treasure Packs over the course of the season can dive in–and completing it teases what might be a new character (Ash) and map to come in Season 6.

During a mission that unlocks after completing the final Quest, you’ll walk into a vault and see the character below, who’s believed to be Ash, a simulacrum pilot and antagonist from Titanfall 2. She first appeared in Apex Legends during the Season 4 cinematic launch trailer. You’ll find her headless, but you’ll be able to approach and replace her head, seemingly bringing her back to life. By showing up in the flesh (such as it is), this may tease her arrival as a playable character.

Alongside this, players are treated to a dialogue exchange between Lifeline and Octane, which you can read below. Toward the end, Lifeline mentions, “If we go to Olympus.” Olympus is the name of a city on Psamathe, which was first teased as a future map in Apex Legends just prior to the start of Season 4.

These remain simple hints for the time being, but with Season 6 on the way fairly soon–Season 5 has only a few weeks of challenges left, and no more Quests–we should begin to get a clearer picture of what’s coming soon.

Infinity Ward has changed the name of its controversial “Border War” skin in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone after backlash. The Call of Duty developer changed the name to “Home on the Range” while also changing its in-game description.

The studio’s use of the skin has been criticized for glorifying the police at a time when protests against police violence are ongoing around the world. It also carries anti-immigration sentiments that some fans have called out on Twitter. The Santa Monica-based studio announced the change, which came via a patch on July 14, with a tweet.

The skin’s description originally read “show them the error of their ways and make them pay with D-Day’s Border War operator skin” and has now been changed to “play along with the deer and the antelope with the Home on the Range D-Day operator skin.” Nothing else about the skin was changed.

Infinity Ward also removed the OK sign gesture, an in-game gesture that has been culturally associated with white supremacy, earlier this month. The symbol has been replaced with a new one called Crush during the game’s latest mid-season patch.

Infinity Ward has made a number of changes within Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone amid the global Black Lives Matter protests. Several loading screens for both games were replaced with messages supporting Black Lives Matter in early June. Activision also released a new playlist of modes and bundles earlier today. You can check out the details from the update here.